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We are off to Budapest.
Kathleen has done her homework, since we have to navigate there and find the campsite using just our road atlas and a map of Budapest from the tourist information office in Keszthley.
We take the "easy" option, M7 motorway along Lake Balaton, until we reach the Budapest outer ring road (M0), as you can see, Hungarian motorways look pretty much like any other, except they are almost empty!
All goes remarkably well, we do have a little hiccup on leaving the outer ring road (the M0), when we end up going south instead of north on the M6, but, that is rectified in only 3km and we are soon going in the correct direction on the M6, then onto the A6 and into the outskirts of Budapest.
All goes well, until we reach the Lagymanyosi bridge over the Danube, first problem is, for some reason, they have changed the name of the bridge, it is now the Rakogzi Bridge.
Then we miss a turn.
From there on everything goes pear shaped.
It is usually around this time in these adventures, that I ask myself, why do we do these things?
In an attempt to turn around and get back to where we should have been, we end up in a small side street, and then things get even worse, there are road works, and the gap between parked machinery and vans is too narrow for us to get through. One of the workers attempts to guide us through, but even with wing mirrors folded in, it is impossible. We have to wait until they move some of the equipment, before we can squeeze through.
Plan B, we spot a taxi rank, Kathleen hops out of the van and engages a taxi driver to guide us there. This he does, with only one (rather scary) U-turn over some tram lines, for 1500Florints (£5), money well spent I think.
The site is good, typical city centre site, crowded and a bit cramped, but the facilities are good, the WiFi is free, and the owner is friendly and helpful.
The metro is (we are told), a short walk away.
Kathleen learns that all EU citizens 65 and over, get free travel on the metro, trams and buses, she is made up.
Kezsthely cont.
The site is good, better than I had expected for a former Communist country, it is only about 8 years since they saw the light, so I am surprised at how good the infrastructure is.
Facilities are clean and functional, not as plush as we found in Germany and Austria, but OK. One "interesting feature", is the showers, which are just like a row of domestic shower cubicles, the only space to undress/dress and hang you gear is outside of the shower cubicle. The cubicles do not have doors, just a shower curtain (some do not even have that). They are not mixed, but, still very friendly.
The day starts warm and sunny, not quite as hot as yesterday.
We set off on on the bicycles to explore, have a coffee, and well, probably a beer or two.
We had assumed, this was a small place by the lake, but, it turns out to be a sizable place, even with a Tesco! (wonder if I can get my clubcard points here?).
There is a palace, which formerly belonged to a wealthy local family, but the Russians confiscated it in 1948. It has now been restored to something resembling it's former glory, but not to the family who originally owned it.
The main square and main street are pedestrianised and look very western already, but, without the familiar brands (ie Costa, McDonalds etc).
Most tourists are German and Dutch, with a few Polish and Czechs, so English does not appear to be widely spoken.
We manage with English and Kathleen's German to buy a belt for me (my packer forgot to bring my belt, you just cannot get the staff) and order coffee and sandwiches. We actually get what we (thought) we ordered.
The money is confusing, they are not in the Euro, and things look initially expensive. Our bill for two coffees and two sandwiches was 2140Florints. But, given the exchange rate of 325 Florints to 1 Pound, that is only £6.50, so not expensive at all really.
Fortified, we cycle along the lake, for 12 miles, this involves ordering beer, but that is almost always manageable.
In the afternoon, we have a thunderstorm, but it is a half hearted affair with only on clap of thunder and a half hour of heavy rain, but the rest of the evening and through the night is windy and cold.
Saturday is scheduled as hair washing day, so a cloudy start is not a problem.
Once the hair is sorted, we walk into town, and visit the Palace. All very grand, but no photographs allowed.
Then, a very pleasant meal in a cafe, less than £20 for both of us, including bottle of wine, main course, sweet, coffee.
Kathleen then does the church bit, while I amuse myself reading the news via the free wifi spot I have found in the town square.
By now it is dark and we succeed in getting ourselves lost walking back to the campsite, everything looks different in the dark. Clearly, we eventually figure it out, and get back just before another night time shower.
Sunday, Kathleen eventually gets a mobile phone signal! Cannot explain why it took three days for it to hook on to the local network.
Another cycle ride along the lake, we make it as far as a golf club, about four villages away, I will not even attempt at spelling or pronouncing their names.
An amusing little incident as I struggle to order drinks, at the golf club, in German (I have got so used to everyone speaking German) and it turned out the waitress could speak perfectly good English.
We return to the campsite to relax, before driving to Budapest tomorrow.
Kathleen really has mastered the art of relaxing, they say, practice makes perfect, and she has clearly had plenty of practice.
As the sun moves around, Kathleen is forced to move to the pitch adjacent to us, to keep in the sun.
Shortly after she sets herself up there, a German couple arrive in their campervan, and she has to move. He seems a little surly, although his wife is friendly enough. Later in the evening, as Kathleen is doing her Peter, Paul and Mary session on her guitar, the German appears giving the thumbs up, he is a 60's music fan, so perhaps not so grumpy after all. Before long, we have the Danish couple next door clapping along as well. All is peace and tranquility after a few bottles of red.
We are soon in Austria and we are cruising along through spectacular scenery.
Armed with our “vignaitte” to travel on their motorways (8Euro for ten days), we can also cover some distance quickly, then, only about 5 miles from our planned stop for the day, we get a puncture.
Damn!.
Fortunately, it is the front, righthand side wheel, so I can get at it on the hard shoulder, without being "on the traffic side".
We get into our fluorescent “safety” vests, Kathleen sets up the warning triangle (the first time we have used any of this stuff) and prepare to change the wheel on the hard shoulder.
Not a pleasant experience with three lanes of traffic speeding past at 70mph plus, less than a metre where I have to lie on the ground to retrieve the spare wheel from under the van.
Needless to say, I do not linger to take photographs of this!
All is completed, without incident, and we travel on to our chosen campsite (Thermal Camping, Bad Waltersdorf).
After we have checked in, an very efficient Austrian lady comes to see us about the tyre.
Kathleen is sceptical about how much she will know about tyres.
The Austrian lady is the model of efficiency, makes a note of all of the tyre markings (size, type, etc), notices it is a Bridgestone (not easy to get I know from past experience), so takes a note of the same information from a Pirelli tyre which is already on the van.
She has quite a nice chest too. Almost worth getting a puncture for.
She phones a garage, they do not have a matching tyre, but, one is ordered, with delivery promised for Thursday, or earlier if possible.
You would have to have seen this to appreciate it, she was just so efficient, all of the above took only five minutes. On her belt she had a little sort of bag, in which to had everything to hand, notepad and pen to note the details, mobile phone to make the call, notepad and pen again to give me a note of the Garage name and address. I am sure Herr Flick ('allo, 'allo) would have loved her.
In the interim, it is no hardship to stay here, the site is excellent, with the kind of spotless and high quality facilities you expect to find in Germany or Austria.
There is a railway line running by the site, but the trains are very infrequent (noisy freight trains when they do pass). Must take care not to call them Germans, they are very particular about ensuring you know they are Austrians.
Wednesday morning, 09:30, we are told, they have our tyre, and we need to go and collect it at 14:30 in a town about twelve miles away. 140Euro, but, we have to have a spare.
A problem emerges, the site, in common with most sites in Germany and Austria, has a “quiet time” between 12:00 and 15:00. The gate is closed, no vehicles can get in or out.
This being Austria, the rules apply to everyone, even a McCaffery, so we have to drive out of the gate before 12:00 and park outside. Kathleen tries her hardest, but, soon grows impatient with waiting. I think she actually lasted until 12:05.
We head for Hapsdorf, looking for Konig Garage.
It is only 12 miles away, and we arrive way too early. They are very obliging however, and give us coffee, while a young man takes away our ruined tyre and returns with a new tyre fitted in a short while. We do a little shopping, and are back at the site by 14:55, with only five minutes to wait until the gate opens.
Now that the tyre problem is fixed, our thoughts turn to our first site in Hungary. We decide to check the distance, using the satnav.
Problem!
Before leaving home, someone (ie me) did not check that the Satnav included maps of Hungary. I reasoned, since they are part of the EU, they are part of Europe and the satnav covers Europe.
But, (and it is not often I admit this), I am wrong, we have no satnav coverage for Hungary.
We have an uptodate Road Atlas which includes Hungary, so Kathleen is going to have to dust off her map reading and navigating skills.
Thursday, we say goodbye to our Austrian tyre expert and head for Hungary.
The first part is easy, we head along the A2 motorway, past the scene of our puncture, and switch to another smaller road which takes us toward the border.
At the border, we have to buy another “vignaitte”, this time to travel on the Hungarian motorways (at least I think it is for the motorways, there only seems to be one!, but there are lots of signs saying you have to buy a “vignaitte”, so, we stop at the border. We are waved on by a sleepy guard, who points to a petrol station about 500 yards down the road.
Kathleen manages the transaction no problem in a mixture of German and English. One slight hiccup, she leaves her glasses behind, but the young man from the petrol station manages to catch us, before we drive off.
We actually manage the rest of the way to Keszthely, Balatontourist Camping Zala (ACSII book) without a single wrong turn.
But, it is not easy navigating in a country with such unpronounceable place names, how about Zalaegerseg or Csabrendek, how on earth do you pronounce them! I have to ask Kathleen to spell the place names out, so I can watch for the signs!
The plan is to stop at a site just east of Strasbourg, in Germany.
Getting around Strasbourg turns out to be more difficult than we thought, we have to exit the Motorway and head for a place called Offenburg.
The trusty TomTom instructs us to exit the motorway, onto an exit slip, which then splits into four different options, none of them signposted Offenburg. Needless to say, we get it wrong, the satnav patiently leads us round in a circle to rejoin the motorway, back to have another shot, wrong!
It is not the TomTom’s patience which is stretched now, but, round we go again, third time lucky and soon we are in Germany.
Despite the trials of the Satnav, we have made good time, it is still grey and cloudy, so we decide it is a good day for travelling.
We reset the satnav for a site much further into Germany. But, the tone has been set, Tomtom is in the bad books, Kathleen questions why it has planned a route, which, at first sight does look a little strange. We need to go, more or less due east, but, the planned route takes us north east, then south west. It does look a bit less than direct.
The satnav is duly ignored, and we follow Kathleen’s more direct route.
We soon find out why the satnav did not choose this route, we are crossing a mountain. I swear we passed a few guys in turbans leading Elephants it was that high.
We arrive at Sonnen/Erpfingen, Azur Rosencamp (N48 21’47” E9 11’0”). Not one of our better choices. The sentiment is not helped by the chap in reception who upsets Kathleen by insisting on seeing our passports before he will check us in.
Kathleen spends the evening quotes sections from Fawlty Towers, "don't mention the war".
Only one night here.
We take advantage of the free German motorways to eat some miles, east towards Munich, which we pass around on the north side, then South and East again.
Just before we arrive at our stop for the night, we are greeted with this sight, has there been a natural disaster we wonder, a flood, a hurricane?
No, it is the aftermath of a pop festival!, it goes to show, Germans can be untidy too!
We find this very pleasant Stellplatz, just off the motorway at Ubersee-Almau (N47 48’35” E12 29’33”). 11Euro, Electricity, Toilets, Showers, and ten minutes walk to the village, excellent.
It is sort of in the grounds of a working farm, which can be seen in the
We walk into the village and enjoy a meal and or course a bottle of wine.
To Charlesville de Meziers, an aire we have used before, a good spot, but the Aire is full.
We have to go to the adjacent Campsite (Camping Mount Olympus). 17Euro a night including electric hook up.
I must look up what this places claim to fame is, it really is rather grand. There is a statue of he founder (Charles of course), and the place was founded in 1625, but until we stumbled upon it during our wanderings in France, I had never heard of it.
We have a wander in the town and then settle into a pavement cafe in the main square for a glass or two of chilled vin rose.
The French know how to chill, their economy may be in trouble and the Euro teetering on the brink of collapse, but lunch must go on.
Amazingly we meet a Frenchman who we met here a couple of years ago. He lives nearby and seems to spend his time talking to visitors to practice his English, German, Dutch whatever.
Friday, a random choice from the “All the Aires France 3rd Edition” book, Dun sur Meuse.
It turns out to be a beautiful spot, on the banks of the River Meuse.
Space for about 20 vans, perhaps more, if you are brave enough to park right on the river’s edge and plug your electric hook up into the bollards on the floating jetty, meant for the boats!
Toilet, Shower and Electricity, for 7euro a night.
Plenty of walking and cycling along the banks of the Meuse and a pleasant village with shops.
We meet a pair of intrepid campervanners, originally from Yorkshire, but now, having sold their house, they spend their winters in Spain, and the summers roaming Europe. They have been to visit their family in the UK, and are now very slowly heading south.
Weather stays hot and sunny, but, with a rain shower in the evening.
Saturday 25/08/2012, we move on to another aire chosen from the “All the Aires France 3rd Edition” book, Pont a Mousson, enroute we find a Lidl, to replentish the Gin (Kathleen brought a half bottle with her, but it has all gone).
A marina with space for campervans, on the banks of the Moselle.
A five minute walk to town, 7Euro with Electricity, toilets and showers, although the toilets and showers are only open 8am to 8pm, so you have to regulate your bodily functions to suite!
Being the weekend, finding a church for Kathleen's mass is required.
We search out the church in Pont a Mousson, according to the noticeboard, there is no mass on Saturday, only 11:00am Sunday. It is resolved, we will have to stay until Monday. But, as we sit enjoying the sun, we hear the church bells ringing. Kathleen quickly gets ready, ie does her hair, and heads off to church. It turns out to be a wedding, but she stays anyway, so that is the church thing done.
It rains heavily overnight and Sunday, we wake to a cold cloudy day.
That decides us, we are off, into Germany.
Tuesday 21st August 2012 - Wednesday 22nd August 2012
We leave home as planned, on time, and so far, it would appear we have not forgotten anything!
Just before Thirsk, our first traffic jam, A19 at a standstill because a lorry carrying a load of hay has caught fire. The lorry is not actually on the A19, it is on the A61, but has come to a stop on a bridge crossing the A19, and burning debris is falling onto the A19, which is now closed both north and south bound. The radio traffic news says the tail back is four miles. We make a detour courtesy of Kathleen's map reading, and join the A168 south of Thirsk. Not sure we actually saved any time, but at least we were moving, which is better than sitting still on the A19.
Graffham Water does not appear to be one the Caravan Club's better sites, a bit too crowded for our taste, but, I suppose, it is still school holidays. A further problem is, the village does not have a pub (or a shop even).
We call at brother Brian's. A tour of the Brian and Linda Campervan of course, and we see two of Brian's girls, Michaela and Victoria, along with their boyfriends. Linda is working (well someone has to) and Rebecca is in South Africa, so we do not see them on this visit. We are served with a wonderful lunch, it certainly is a good restaurant at Spekes Road, in addition to the good food, the staff in are so pleasant!
Off to the Eurotunnel terminal.
Check in is impressive all automated, but the rest, not as slick as the car.
We do not even get on our allotted train. We are told this is because vehicles carrying gas bottles, ie campervans and caravans have to wait until all other vehicles are loaded, then, they are loaded at end of train. When it comes to our turn to load (ie last), the train is full.
As you can imagine, this does not please Kathleen. Her dissatisfaction is not helped when I suggest, perhaps we are receiving second class service because we bought our ticket with Tesco vouchers.
First night in France, on the aire at Honschutte (from the "All The Aires, France" book).
No facilities, but quiet and in the company of another ten or so vans, right in the village.
A free night, there does not even appear to be a bar to spend some money in. Will have to support the boulangerie in the morning.
There is a windmill here, and an information plaque to say (in French and English), this the the site of a battle between the French and The Hapsbergs.
The Hapsbergs were aided by the devious English who planned to mount an invasion at Calais whilst the Hapsbergs attacked from the north.
The French defeated the Hapsbergs here at Honschutte and foiled the plan. Oh, we have been naughty boys in the past.
Wednesday 30th May, and the weather is still superb!
After yesterdays cycle ride to Devizes, in deference to Kathleen's age, we avoid the hill on the way to Devizes, and head in the opposite direction, towards Bath.
This is much easier going, more or less level and a good smooth towpath.
Cycling for softies.
One or two very nice canalside pubs, but we resist the temptation to stop (for now).
We soon reach Trowbridge, with it's rather attractive Marina.
Eventually, we arrive at Bradford-on-Avon, a very pleasant small town.
Here we pause for our picnic lunch, and meet two fellow campervanners, Michael and Jenny.
They are staying at the same campsite as us, so have peddled the same distance.
It emerges that Michael has been cheating however, since he has an electric bike!
We have a little explore of the town which is very quaint, before retiring to a pub for a much needed refreshing drink.
I try to persuade Kathleen to cycle the remaining nine miles to Bath.
She is not having any of that, pointing out that it is nine miles there, and nine miles back, so it is really 18 miles extra.
Instead we head back to the campsite.
Resisting the "Barge Inn" as we pass. Although, quite why we resisted, I am not sure, since we have clocked up a very reasonable 19 miles.
Friday, and we travel to Bath on the bus. Kathleen needs to have her vitamin B12 injection, and we expect there to be an NHS "walk in centre" there.
We find the NHS Walk in Centre, what a palaver. This is supposed to be a National "service", but they are not willing to give the injection without a referral from our Doctor, even although Kathleen has the prescribed ampoule with her. A suggestion that the phone our doctor to confirm it is a genuine request is brushed to one side, too high tech presumably. What hope computerised national NHS patient records? Eventually, they relent, and agree to give the injection.
We do not realise it, but our problems are just about to start.
Whilst administering the injection, the Doctor notices some marks on Kathleen's leg, and ventures the opinion that they are some form of allergy. He prescribes an antihistamine type drug.
While we wait for the bus back to Devizes, we have time to kill, so we decide to have a coffee, and Kathleen takes one of the antihistamines, big mistake. By the time we arrive back at the campsite, ie about an hour later, she has difficulty breathing, and pains in various joints.
Friday, we are supposed to travel to Marlow, but, Kathleen, in my opinion is not well enough to stay away from home, so, instead we drive home.
The plan was to visit Gary, Susana and Gabriel for Gary's 40th birthday and Gabriel's second birthday, so, instead I get up crack of dawn and drive to Windsor on Saturday morning.
Not a particularly pleasant drive, since the rain is back!
Over the remainder of Saturday and Sunday, I manage to fit in, Gabriel,s 2nd Birthday Party, a meal, at Gary's favourite seafood restaurant, to celebrate Gary's 40th Birthday, and the opening of many presents by Gabriel.
