Bumming around Europe looking for bears

Since we’d just been to a Thermal Spa in Romania, we figured we’d diversify a little and go to one in Hungary as well. This one turned out to be an enormous great aquapark with a campsite conveniently on-site boasting an iodine flavoured spa, wave pool, two swimming pools, a lake and a waterslide park. We spent the afternoon being incredibly childish on slides, sitting in brown water and being knocked over by large articifial waves. It rained in the afternoon and everyone jumped out of the water and ran for cover again. Hungarians are as stupid as Romanians.

After Hajuzsomethingorotherozo we went to Eger which had been recommended by some bods we’d met in Romania. Eger’s main pull is the Valley of the Beautiful Women which is a large horseshoe shaped road on which every building is a wine cellar that you can get appropriately drunk in for a tiny fee. The valley is so named because all the old hags in the local area slowly start to look more attractive the more time you spend there. We found an exceptionally good one to spend most of the afternoon in and then filled up a 2l plastic bottle with the best wine for around 4€.

The following day should have been travelling to Budapest but the clutch plate died so we spent it in Eger again checking out the town and castle that we’d missed the day before. As it turns out both were very nice. And to think we’d almost missed them. Thankyou van for your well timed conking out.

Budapest, when we eventually got there the next day, turned out to be fantastic. Our whistlestop tour took us up castle hill to views across the Danube, Pest and Parliment and then down into the Labarynths which one of us enjoyed thoroughly, and the other didn’t so much. Dark clammy corridors with eerie statues appearing out of nowhere are not everyone’s cup of tea. Secret underground fountains of wine on the other hand are awesome enough to be appreciated by all. the labarynth ended with an (optional) pitch black walk following a cable which was fun, but the views were a little poor.

To make up for the Labarynth experience, Angela managed to get herself photographed with an eagle, then we headed off down the river to some thermal baths (we hadn’t seen enough by this point) that looked like a submerged church and had temperatures up to 38C.

Spent the evening in an excellent restaraunt being serenaded by a string quartet.

The Black Sea failed us. Aside from the rain and the general half built look of it all it turns out that everything is pretty much shut up until June. Not just any part of June either, but some undisclosed period of June which requires an in depth knowledge of complex numbers and could be considered July when looked at from the right angle.

Our attempts to get to Nesebar went up the spout when we discovered some roads that don’t exist on the map and didn’t go in the direction they were supposed to (possibly leading to the missing period of June above) and before we realised it we were so close to Romania that it seemed rude not to pop in and say hello.

Romania turned out to be altogether more successful (and a tad weirder). We abandoned Bucharest in disgust fairly swiftly after driving through the middle of it (accidentally) and finding nothing worth stopping for and headed to Bran, the location of “Dracula’s Castle” where we stayed at a very nice campsite called Vampire Camping. Quick bit of trivia; Bran Castle has absolutely no ties to Vlad Tepes at all and it’s as ominous as a soggy poodle in a handbag. As far as we could work out the only reason for it being picked as Dracula’s Castle is it’s about the right age and in Transylvania. Despite it’s nickname, there was a distressing lack of long black trench-coats and V:TM rulebooks present. Those Romanian’s missed out on a gold mine there.

Any lack of dark brooding atmosphere was more than made up for in the evening when we got full on lightning-tastic thunderstorms overhead.

We stopped off at Sighisoara, a nice medieval citadel with a funky clock tower and the house where Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes was born which is now a bar and restaurant called “Casa Vlad Dracul". We were also treated to several men in silly costumes thanking us for eating at their restaurant and a little guy with a painted on mustache and a huge flag that repeated it all in English for those of us that can’t speak Romanian. Since no Romanians ever go to the restaurant due to it being silly and touristy the initial spiel seems like wasted effort.

More thunderstorms in the evening. They seem conveniently timed so that we get the correct transylvanian atmosphere without the getting wet.

Our next stop in Romania was in Gilau at a campsite that advertised all kinds of activities but actually delivered none of them. We almost managed white water rafting only for it to be cancelled due to not enough water in the river. Instead we got lost up some tiny back “roads” (holes in the ground surrounded by little bits of tarmac) trying to find a waterfall that may have dried up along with the rivers and ended up in some tiny little village with no name. We got the distinct feeling of being strangers riding into an old wild west town as everyone stopped what they were doing to look at us. Children ran behind their mothers and pointed at us with fear in their eyes, shutters were slammed shut, the guy standing by his horse dung fire put his hat on and tried to look menacing. We went into the local shop for directions and were greeted by suspiciously cheerful old ladies wearing clothes that I suspect were woven from the hair of missing backpackers who were only too happy to tell us which way to the waterfall.

Directions in hand we bought a drink to look willing and then high tailed it back to the van being chased by a gold-toothed man shouting something which may have been “turn left 1 kilometer!” or, more likely, “Wait here while I get my axe!”

We found the intended road and found that as well as looking like a rubble-strewn goat path, it went fairly steeply upwards. Since we weren’t in a 4-wheel drive we called it a day and headed back to the campsite, stopping briefly for a picnic lunch by a reservoir around the corner, beside which was a cafe called Crap Viu. I thought this may have been a little unfair.

Last stop was at a thermal bath just by the Hungarian border which had been recommended to us by the owner of Vampire Camping. The campsite was fairly basic, looking a bit like a weedy walled off part of the central car park with some security tags to go in and out and a toilet block at one end (Possibly because it was). However it was very friendly and 2 mins walks to the baths which very nice. It rained during the day for the first time while we were swimming and we were treated to the sight of everybody leaping out of the pool and running for cover no doubt screaming “Oh no, we’re going to get wet!".

Some pools in the nearby park turned out to be full of terapins and frogs which we peered at for a bit on our way to a traditional Romanian restaurant where we had dinner before we crossed into Hungary the following day.

No update since April?! Brief summary then as I don’t feel like typing that much.

Italy has been a non stop crazy ride through tourist destinations. After Cinque Terre we had Pisa (Nice. Has a odd leaning tower that we didn’t know the name of) and Florence (Overrated unless you’re there to see the museums. Which involve either booking ahead for a specific time or a 3 hour queue).

After Florence we had an attempt at getting to Rome from Bolsena which ended up with us getting stuck in Viterbo for the day instead. In Bolsena we stayed at a “campsite” which looked suspiciously like the Walton Family’s back garden. They did supply their own wine for 2 euros a bottle which was surprisingly good.

After our failed attempt at getting to Rome we hit on a cunning plan. We would head to Pompei (which is sat on a train line) and go everywhere we had left to see in Italy from there!

Pompei to Rome is something like 3 1/2 hours so most of the day was taken up by the Vatican Museums with half a million painted ceilings and a few statues, St Peters Square and the Basilica (full of dead popes). Despite our best efforts to get excommunicated (We stopped short of making a phone call in the Sistine Chapel which would have possible done it), we were still allowed in Rome at the end of it so we decided to stop in a swish hotel in Tridente for the night and see the rest of the sights the following day which was staffed by a crazy man who gave tips on how to get the room cheaper, has a son about our age and an English driving licence that he had to get out to check that the licence number was in the same format as mine (This was all relevant to us checking in - including that his parent’s live in North London).

The Colloseum is impressive from the outside and fairly run down on the inside. We were both more impressed with the Verona Arena. We found the Treni fountain by accident (twice), saw the only view in Rome that doesn’t have the Vittoriana in it (i.e. at the top of the Vittoriana) and the Pantheon, in which we almost missed the tomb of Raphael due to it being fairly unimpressive.

Our attempts to meet up with an Italian friend in Rome, Barbaro, were thwarted when he fled the city in fear, possibly to the beach.

Rome finally out of the way we saw Pompei (very cool) and climbed up Mount Vesuvius.

We caught the ferry to Igoumenista on 10th May and sat on deck watching the extremely impressive sunset as we left Italy behind (pic when I can upload it), rather exhausted from city overload the last 3 weeks. The ferry had a camping on board facility which sounds nifty but isn’t. Despite claims of showers and toilets etc, it’s largely sleeping in the van on the garage deck and having to traipse all the way up the stairs to the main deck if you need the loo, past half a dozen people who don’t seem to know that camping on board exists.

Italian drivers are very bad, however they’ve always been very bad and have adjusted to this well enough to be good at dodging other bad Italian drivers (and cautious English ones). Greek drivers are better, but the bad ones haven’t honed their dodging skills quite so well. The first day in Greece, some monkey decided to plow into the back of us. Fortunately we took comfort in the fact that we don’t have crumple zones and he does. The dent on his shiney Chelsea tractor was significantly larger than the one on our van.

The first two days in Greece were spent in Meteora, a bunch of huge sheer rocks with monastaries at the top and very popular with German climbers. We found a campsite right by the rocks run by some very friendly greeks who said they’d give us sweeties if we came and sat by their pool. It turned out it was far too hot to do much else other than the occasional foray into Kalambaka (Mainly to the police station) and admire the wildlife. We clocked up a large white bird (Like a heron but bigger and whiter), a toad the size of Angela’s head and a tortoise that we almost ran over on the drive in as it crossed the road.

The rest of Greece was equally hot and we pretty much spent it at various beachy villages along the coast as we headed up to Bulgaria. We left Greece feeling like we hadn’t really done a lot other than sit by the sea, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Bulgaria had a long winded border crossing, checking passports and insurance 3 times before letting us in, and a change in currency (Lev). The first day we stopped briefly in a tiny village called Melnik where we added a 3ft long snake to our list of animals and had an omlet in a tiny restaraunt. We struck campsite gold, finding a clearing in the mountains surrounded by forest containing chalets run by a young couple who were happy to cook us a traditional Bulgarian barbeque and list good sites to visit. Currently this looks like this is the only open campsite in Bulgaria.

The second day we managed to take a scenic detour in the wrong direction for an hour and made it as far as Plovdiv before staying at a motel for the night (50lev = 16 pounds). The following day it bucketed down and broke the van. A passing German trucker stopped and rang a local mechanic who sorted the flooding and then took us back to his garage in Karlovo to fix the oil leak that had been plagueing us across Greece. We spent the evening being shown around Karlovo by the mechanic’s son and his son’s friend and friend’s sister. We were stunned by how friendly everyone in Bulgaria is, although we stopped short of accepting a bed in another friend’s house as he gave of a rather unnerving vibe (and we got the distinct impression he wanted something from us). Spent the night in the carpark of another motel.

Day 3 we found the oil leak still wasn’t fixed and spent most of the day getting it sorted again by the mechanic (still smiling just as much as yesterday). With the van finally fixed we drove all the way to Sozopol on the coast, possibly through the valley of the roses although the directions were unclear and it wasn’t very obvious and found all the campsites closed until June. Spent the night in a hotel (70 lev = 24 pounds).

The rain is still going, hopefully it will clear up shortly or the black sea will be a wash out. We’ll stick around here for another day as the last couple have been very tiring and then head for Nesebar and the beaches north of Varna before going into Romania.

Forgot to add. more pics!

So Milan. Big sprawling place with a very impressive cathedral but not really suited for walking around. Fortunately there’s an extensive metro system in place that we took no advantage of whatsoever. If you’re loaded and into your Versace it’s a shoppers paradise, otherwise it’s a bit pretty.

Verona on the other hand is rather lovely with lots and lots of tiny streets and odd buildings hiding around corners to pounce on you when you’re looking out for a gelateria. We avoided staying on the outskirts of the city this time in favour of staying by the immensely more scenic Lake Garda within spitting distance of the shoreline and catching public transport to the city. It was here that we met a crazy little man who didn’t speak any English (and possibly no Italian) who had walked 580000 km around the world between various religious sites with no money.

After Verona, Venice and the same tactic of bussing it into town. We narrowly avoided 4 police cars on the drive in who were no doubt chasing us down for our customs dodging antics earlier by hiding behind some passing lorries.

At the campsite we managed to make friends with a fellow traveller called Katherine who was one day ahead of us and so we tapped her up for good spots to check out before heading out. We also made friends with several dozen hungry mosquitos which left us itching like a baby in an anthill for the next couple of days.

In Venice, we intended on starting off in the touristy bits and then getting lost around the backstreets. Instead we got lost around the back streets trying to find St Marco. Once you get away from the crowds, Venice is a very nice, if slightly aromatic town. While there we had a bash at the local speciality, Cuttlefish Spaghetti which would be lovely if the large globs of ink weren’t so offputting. We also ventured off to the Islands of Murano (Glass) and Burano (Lace) as well which looked a lot like Toy Town. We found Big Ears giving Noddy an ear bashing for selling fake Murano glass to a couple of Americans nearby.

After Venice we crossed back over the width of Italy to the Cinque Terre, supposedly one of the best coastline walks in Italy, even passing on the oportunity of Bolognese in Bologna and Parma Ham in Parma. Our initial excitement was somewhat dulled by our arrival in La Spezia who’s notable assets include a large dockyard and a lingering odor of sewerage that does to smell what McDonalds did to hamburgers with a pungent aroma on every corner.

Thankfully the Cinque Terre more than made up for it. Crystal clear waters, fantastic coastline and little villages that make you want to pinch their cheek and go “coochie coo". The walk from Cornligia to Vernazza pretty much did us in though and we spent the evening having some astonashingly good Antipasto de Mare. (That’s a mixed seafood starter to the likes of you and me).

Only a quick update as we’re under time constraints. We’ve finally left Switzerland after getting the van sorted in a long and humorous saga that you can make up yourself for now until we have longer to write the update (Interactive storytelling see..)

Italy has a proper border, with border guards and everything. However, knowing that we’re dodgy looking types and we’d probably have trouble with customs wanting to check the van to make sure we’re not smuggling goats, we decided to sneak across by taking the lane only reserved for caravans! This devious masterplan got us into Italy without so much as a glance from the officials.

Milan is grubby on the outside, sprawling on the inside and not hugely impressive. The campsite sucked too so we moved on after a day. We’re now staying outside like Garda on the bus route to Verona with the intention of moving onto Venice.

All cool and groovy. Bigger update when I have more than 2mins internet time remaining.

Still in Interlaken. The van suffered a minor hiccup so we’re stuck here until it’s sorted and we’re not daft enough to show fate the finger by posting details, resolutions and timescales before it’s actually sorted.

It’s a terrible chore being stuck in the sunshine, next to two large lakes looking up at mountains but somehow we’re muddling through. We’ve consoled ourselves by spending large amounts of money on entertaining things.

After picking the brains of the guy at the campsite we drove to Lauterbrunnen, also known as the valley of the waterfalls. The reason for this naming became apparent when we got there an saw, lo and behold, dozens of waterfalls cascading down the mountainsides into the valley. We got some impressive pictures and walked up the valley towards Trümmelbach which is the only place in Europe you can see glacial waterfalls inside the mountain by going up a lift and along some very narrow (but well fenced) pathways and into the caves up top.

The next day we jumped off a mountain from 2500ft up with a sheet attached for fun. We took along two swiss gents as well to do the driving. Chaffeur driven paragliding! James’s got a little close to some tree tops at one point. The word “oops” from your driver is not something you want to hear.

After landing back in Interlaken we drove back to Trummelbach and took a series of 4 cable cars up to the top of the Schilthorn which is exactly 10000ft (2900 and something meters) high and provides spectacular views across the local mountain area, including the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. Sited at the top is a rotating restaraunt called Piz Gloria which was used in the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service". We had lunch there with the restaraunt slowly turning to give us a full 360 view of the moutains (or, as I prefer to think of it, the world revolving around me). Then we took some panoramic photos, including a rather technical attempt at one that had both of us in it.

Van saga to come if and when it gets sorted.

We’ve slowed down a bit since entering Germany so that we start doing a little more. First stop was Baden Baden (where we posted the last update) and then further in to the Black Forest to Shapbach, 12k north of Wolfach. I think we had slightly too high expectations of the Black Forest and the amount of things you can do there. We hired some bikes for the day and went riding along some very nice cycle paths around the mountains but if I wanted to anything beyond riding, the Black Forest isn’t the best place to look. Still, cycling around the Black Forest isn’t a bad way to spend a day by any means and the campsite was friendly and pitched right next to the river.

Next stop lake Konstanz. We were headed for Meersburg, a small medieval town on the lake side but campsites are lacking so we stayed in Hagnau down the road at a campsite on the lakeside. We hired a boat for the afternoon and went cruising around the lake for a while in blazing sunshine, checking out some of the other towns from afar and taking in the view of the Alps from the boat, and then walked into Meersburg for a wander around some very steep and narrow roads lined with everything from glassblower shops to small fish restaraunts. Then, being the lazy oiks we are, caught a ferry back to Hagnau.

Only a short stay in Germany despite taking things slower as we were only really going through the bottom corner of it. Switzerland has a proper border with guards and everything! We were pleased to see this after the non-event that was the France-Germany border. The original plan had been to stop near Zurich but after driving through it and deciding it wasn’t particilarly nice, and then having trouble finding a fairly uninspiring campsite we opted to spend the day travelling to lake Thun instead.

This is easy providing you know where we are and, as the satnav had decided to run out of battery, we didn’t. Cue all kinds of fun arsing around back roads completely lost (although somewhat uncaring since it was entertaining for a while). Eventually grabbed directions of a kind gentleman.

Took the Brunig Pass to Interlaken rather than the motorway which is a fair bit longer, a lot steeper and a hell of a lot more impressive. Interlaken is expensive and touristy but makes up for it with the view of the alps on your doorstep and the amount to do. They also all speak English which is handy given the quality of our German the last few days.

Tomorrow we’re going Paragliding! Then off to Italy via the Gotthard Tunnel since the passes are still closed.

More to come…

Ok folks, we’re sat in an internet cafe in Baden Baden, Germany having shot through France in 5 days so it’s time for an update on our travels.

The original “we’re skipping France” plan sort of vanished when we took a ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff instead since it’s rather a lot of land to skip over. We took the scenic route to start with through the Loire Valley, staying in a small out of the way campsite near Le Mans overlooking the river. Then onto Chatres to see the cathredral (and interrupt Good Friday mass like the good tourists we are) and a second stop just south of Paris.

Despite the Paris site being fairly shoddy compared to the previous night, we did stumble across a stone ping pong table hidden in the middle of the woods. The knowledge that nearby pixies enjoy a bit of bat and ball entertainment easily made up for the site being sub-par.

Next stop Verdun and it’s huge great Citadel. We also accidently stumbled across Notre Dame de l’Epine, a ruddy great Church about the same size as the village it sat in.

The final part of France took us through the forrested mountain-scape (is that a word. I think it should be) of Alsace and the extremely cool experience of driving around windy mountainous roads, sandwiched between sports cars and listening to Pink Floyd. Huzzah for ambience.

We stopped for 2 days in a tiny village called Oberbronn nestled in the mountains and spent a day trecking through the forests. Got lost, saw a ruined tower and looked down some steep slopes. Altogether a fine day out.

So now we’re in Germany and just spent the day in the Thermal spas of Baden Baden (a toasty 18C). The campsite is more of a car park but it’s free and in town so can’t complain (or can, but I’d just be being churlish). We’ll move on tomorrow, probablý spend a few days around the Black Forest and then head into Switzerland.

Some pics up here

Official Wedding photos are online and can be found here

Print ordering info is in the gallery.