Two Drifters

Europe2017

Another fine Messe you've got me into.

Despite the fact we haven't really finished exploring Salzburg (and I'd be happy spending another day at the festival) it's time to move on. Within minutes we cross the border into Germany and experience the longest border delay so far. Seems like German immigration are stopping occasional cars and briefly

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Rupertikirtag

It's St. Rupert's day today. Who? None other than the patron saint of Salzburg and so excuse for one of the biggest celebrations of the year. Trouble is it's a bit wet again today. The morning's OK so we wander into town and stumble across the house that was Mozart's

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Things to do on a wet day

The forecast for today and tomorrow are poor. Shame because a major outdoor festival starts here in Salzburg tomorrow. It's raining when we leave the van this morning and hadn't really stopped all day when we returned tonight; at best it was drizzle, at worst it was pretty heavy. We've

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Fun with water

Back 400 years or so ago it was common amongst part of European society (often high,-ranking Catholic cardinals) to have gardens that were a fun escape from the humdrum everyday life. Often the fun element was supplied by water, with unexpected fountains and even water-powered tableaus. Sadly most of

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High Tea

Well, high lunch actually. Over a mile high! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Vienna had a Vienna card that gave us free public transport and discounts on museums and attractions. We just about broke even on the three day card. Salzburg has similar but rather than discounts it gives

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Wachau wash out

So far we've been really lucky with the weather. If anything is been too hot rather than cold and wet. I can only recall 2 days in the last 6 weeks where it was wet enough to make us change our plans, one day in Hanover we stayed in the

Europe2017

Post-war Vienna

A city of rubble and shortages. The black market thrived. The currency was revalued and overnight people's saving evaporated. Food was scarce and you could pay a fortune just for a simple loaf of bread. We may not have any understanding of this but we did experience the price of

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Clocks, absinthe and opera

Remember back a couple of days ago when I commented that the problem with Vienna is that there are just too many museums and art galleries. Seeing them all would take a couple of weeks and a couple of week's salary. So choices have to be made. Two choices: #1

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Cue the zither music

Another "bucket list" tick! Ever since seeing "The Third Man" for the first time, probably 4 decades out more ago, I have wanted to go on the Vienna Ferris Wheel, The Reisenrad. Trouble is Carol Reed's film was shot in 1949 and I had no idea whether the venerable and

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In search of the lobby with 900 windows ...

... and the tree where doves go to die.  From the Leonard Cohen song 'Take This Waltz'. Now if you are thinking "it means nothing to me", perhaps you are an Ultravox fan. Or maybe just a fan of Rigsby's cat. Anyway today's theme is about finding Vienna. Day one in

Europe2017

An outlet for my frustration

Heading home now. We leave the Eastern Europe of Hungary to head to Austria, Western Europe. Rather than just hammer down the motorway we elect to go along the main road running roughly parallel so we can see a little of the Hungarian countryside. And as we saw last week

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A little quantum theory

OK, I don't really know much (anything) about quantum mechanics but my very basic understanding is that elementary particles can be divided into two subsets, fermions and bosons. The division is based upon the particle's "spin". Fermions,  are particles such as quarks and combine to make particles such as the

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A chance of free beer

More about the headline later, but first a test? What is "Unicum"? Oh, I bet some of the answers are rude, whilst others are exploring the Latin "with one" translation. The answer is ... A bitters drink, very popular in Hungary. The warehouse, museum and shop is just down the road

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Ruin will be the beer of me

One thing unique to Budapest is the ruin pub. There are a lot of buildings just being left to decay so back around the turn of this century a few enterprising folk decided to turn one into a pub. Today there are several of these ruin pubs sites around the

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Vikings, wine and a funicular

This really is a convenient location, in the Ferenencváros suburb of Budapest. Followers of European football may recognise that name. The football team of that name did fairly well in European cup football in the 60s and 70s. Anyway trams run up and down, outside the campsite, the hop-on hop-on

Europe2017

Who remembers the Waddington game Travel Go?

Not a particularly good game from memory but the basic premise was traveling around the world buying things in all the different local currencies.  Europe still hasn't solved that. Even the few countries on this trip: Belgium, Holland, Germany all in the Euro zone. No idea of the current exchange

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A much needed beer

A day of contrasts. Driving of course. And a long driving day; the 230km (143 miles) took nearly 5 hours! It started off badly. The E77 road is the main road North to South through Slovakia. Trouble is just south of Martin it is old concrete sections which are now

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Martin looms

Well we've decided we'll move on tomorrow. Martin is interesting but the change in temperature and vagary of buses means we don't fancy an out-of-town open-air museum tomorrow. Buses are weird. The campsite is at the terminus of a bus route. Buses on that route run as often as every

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Slovakia beckons

And so we say "Farewell" to Krakow. Despite our initial misgivings and the weather it's been interesting. It may have the huge mediaeval square, cloth market and castle but it's not a patch on the grandeur of Prague and could definitely do with a spring-clean/facelift. On the other hand

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In the ghetto

Not a nice day at all here today. At least it stayed dry long enough to fix the leak in the fanlight seal but started to rain almost immediately afterwards. Still a little rain doesn't deter us. First stop a small preserved section of the wall the the Nazis threw

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There's a hole in my shoe (letting in water)

So I'm lying in bed, not a care in the world when I notice staining on the roof lining at the back of the van. Get up, touch it, it's damp. We have a leak. One of the few design flaws of this R20 van is the area around the

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Johnny Mathis meets Phil Ochs (thoughts on Auschwitz)

I didn't weep, not until leaving the gate to return to the bus. The enormity of it all left me feeling physically sick but what happened there is on such a huge scale it's almost impersonal and tears aren't the immediate response. The museums themselves, for there are 2, Auschwitz

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Fabryka Emila

No (attempted) witty title today. No photos either. A sombre and sobering experience demands a blog entry in keeping. I'm sure everyone has heard of Oskar Schindler, hero of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark, later made famous in film, by Spielberg, as Schindler's List. Well, his original enamelware factory in Krakow

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Can't be arsed

OK, this is the first city we've not really enjoyed! Why? Well, nothing is easy here, there seems to be no tourist infrastructure just individual companies offering their services. Google, for example, "Auschwitz tours" and you get just TripAdvisor and individual tour organisers pushing their tours. There appears to be

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Cracking on...

to Krakow. We'll miss Czech. 4 totally different venues, 4 totally different camp site experiences. And nice people too. Very polite, people got up to offer Liz seats on public transport. I was made to feel very old in Prague when a pretty young girl rose to offer me her