Austro-Czech Border

It has been longer than I would like since our last post. We have not slipped off the continent, we are still battling through, I assure you.

Romania seemed like an ever-so-slightly tiresome film to some of us. To others it felt like we had already seen it once, and now we were watching it reverse.

Certainly it felt as if someone had their finger on the pause button from Brasov to Cluj. A short day's journey via Sibiu, the European city of culture was slowed to a crawl by on-the-kilometre-every-kilometre roadworks. The road was falling back into the earth.

When we did get to Sibiu we ate Mcdonalds, having driven through what looked like an industrial park. We were told that we had ‘missed’ the old town. Then we remembered that Liverpool had been a European city of culture. We drove on.

We stayed once more at Cluj Napoca; enjoying a meal in the restaurant that was run by the Dutch couple who owned the campsite.

Leaving Romania into Hungary was a breeze compared to leaving Romania for Moldova – as Romania is in the EU. Member states apparently feel that ‘whatever our neighbour has, we’ve already got’.

In Hungary we met the Tőroks, Mark and his mother Monika. We spent an evening at Mark’s uncle’s house. The uncle, Auguste, is an ex-headmaster and he and his wife, Mary showed us around the house that they had designed and built themselves. We ate a beautiful veal stew that had been prepared on an open fire, were offered more ice cream than it is possible to eat, and most of us visited the bathroom ironically decked out in communist memorabilia; red banners, photographs of Lenin and communist manifestos.

We then took wine and conversation in his front room/the Hungarian national library. The final anecdote began, as they all did, like this, “During the soviet era…” and continued:

…a heavy smoker who drank a lot of vodka went to the doctor. The doctor examined him and said that he had good news and bad news.
“Tell me the bad news.”
“We have to take your right lung out.”
“Oh no! What on earth could the good news be?”
“You will have more room for your liver.”

We had a short drive to Vienna yesterday before enjoying a thoroughly inadequate two hours in the city. We did eat fantastic pizzas (right continent, wrong country) and saw the beautiful Stadt park several times, walking between the van and the St. Stephan square, with the most amazingly huge soot-stained church. Stephen (my brother) has been noting with glee the number of European kings and saints of his namesake.

My parents were looking for a hose in Vienna. Our’s barely holds water and takes three people to wind it up. They walked into the Austrian Caravanning and Camping Association shop – a huge affair in a prominent place near St Stephan’s square.

Mark: Have you got any hoses?
Saleswoman: No, you want a camping shop…

Our souvenir fruits pressed on us leaving Moldova will unfortunately not make it home, so we are on the look out for more sturdy souvenirs in Prague today. There is a strange sort of tax-free Disneyland between the border control of Austria and the Czech Republic. We wandered around the factory outlets (drawn to a halt by the Styrofoam castles that tower over the connecting road) and ate crépes. We are now heading toward Prague.