Saturday 13th October 2012
After several days beside the lovely lake at Wolfgang we have eventually prized ourselves away from the shoreline and picturesque towns and headed further east towards Vienna. We noticed several campsites were located by the massive River Danube so it looked a good place to hang out for a while. We checked into our little campsite, literally on the banks of the Danube and noticed we were the wrong side of a massive flood defence system… yikes!. After further checks it transpires that where the campsite is located is the most dangerous part of the river alongside the pretty town of Grein. Not really that clever but there wasn't any rain forecast so we felt that two nights would be OK!. The Danube is a massive wide fast flowing river starting well into Germany snaking east through Europe and finally ending up in the Black Sea. We noticed big landing stages alongside the town and soon we could see the massive cruise ships sailing by or stopping off. Now, we are not talking P&O size but still very long and not so tall, more like the big floating hotels you see on the Mississippi. The clever bit is the Captain's bridge of the ships that have a scissor type hydraulic lift so that the crew go up and down according to how high the bridge is they are passing under. We enjoyed watching these long hotels sailing by and manoeuvring around the bends against the fast flow.
Our hosts on our campsite were Romanian and we noticed that the further east we ventured the more we met people from the eastern European countries like Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic. Our Romanian owner told us that jobs were not good were he was from and he also mentioned that they had just heard the UK were now insisting they had to have a Visa to work in the UK, interesting as he wouldn't say if it was good or bad!.
After Bradley called a meeting we decided to stick to plan A and head towards Germany. We had seen most of Austria now and have picked a great place we would like to return for Christmas and the New Year.
Well, the Great Danube didn't flood thankfully and we set off for a lovely Sunday drive to our next campsite in the bottom South Eastern tip of Germany. It's great driving over here on a Sunday as nowhere is open and the roads are so clear of traffic. It's really strange planning your shopping knowing that literally everywhere is shut on a Sunday. Personally we would love to see that return to the UK as so many more families would spend quality time together and you would feel much more relaxed as an employee with the added bonus of most lunchtimes off between 12 and 2pm and sometimes to 3pm, and thats compulsory!
Autumn has finally arrived for us now and we don't expect many more barbecues outside on our chairs watching the sun setting. The winter clothing is slowly coming out and short sleeved shirts will be stored for next year. Our campsite at Bad Fussing (Bayern region) is lovely and we may well stay here now for a few days planning our way around Germany. The Black Forest area beckons!.
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