Into Germany

 Mon - Tues 23rd - 24th Oct

It is starting to feel like a long drive home but we are progressing well. We left Stoupa last Monday and the sun and 26C are a now pleasant memory. Several times the locals have commented on the warm temperatures. The campsite guy in Greece said so and Halloween Rachelle in Bulgaria said that the leaves would have fallen by now but most were still on the trees.

The scenery is great with great autumn colours and everywhere looks ‘organised’ once again. We are happy that we took this route and Bulgaria is still on the visit list! It feels a bit ‘frontier’; definitely different.

Gone are the roaming dogs of Albania and Bulgaria. In fact the last ones we saw were at a motorway halt in Serbia.

This puppy was tiny and the pair were wandering around the lorry park. You can see how people get attached to them, although not the locals clearly. Benedict’s life in Albania had been steered by them and also Sara and John in Bulgaria were planning their coming weeks, around what to do with the dogs they had taken in.

As we drove across Slovenia, the scenery became alpine, with rolling close-cropped grassy hills and forest higher up. Every now and then a castle or white church appears, standing up out of the buildings around it.

Schengen borders are back. I think it was in Austria where we passed across the old border post easily. only to meet a long queue of lorries a few kms further. They mainly move over to the hard shoulder, which is partly because in most countries, the emergency services expect to drive down the gap between the two traffic lanes.

We only realised what was happening when we reached a temporary checkpoint. Bigger vehicles and all lorries were being searched. We were waved through. No stowaways expected in a Landy.

Quickly we passed into Austria and the frequency of tunnels increased. We drove through dozens; some just a few 100 metres and others much longer, 6-10Km.

We needed to buy a Vignette for Austria, instead of paying tolls. Well we had to pay extra for two tunnels and also even to use the WC at services. In fact that’s the deal almost everywhere. Pay tolls and pay extra for the loo.

The vignette had to be bought from a human because the on-line version must be purchased at least 18 days in advance. 🤷🏻‍♂️ How does that work? It’s something to do with distance selling and the 14 day rule. In Slovenia and Bulgaria, we bought the vignette on line the day before we needed it.

We bought a double tunnel ticket from a booth and the barrier picked up our registration and at the next one, we went through the automatic barrier, as it had done the digital processing a few minutes earlier. The Austrian 18 day thing is as bizarre as the Greek toll system.

We filled with diesel before we left Croatia as it is almost a fixed price (€1.55 ish) and I was glad to dispense it myself. Nearly everywhere we have travelled they still employ pump attendants who don’t quite fully fill but not at this one and I filled to the brim and made a better job of doing so.

Into Germany and we made good progress and decided to miss the planned stopover at a hotel car park, where the restaurant is closed on Mondays. Park4night showed another place closer to Regensburg, where you can park in a car park opposite a wine-bar where the hostess provides meals.

We parked at about 5pm and walked over but didn’t try the door, just knocked. No one answered but an older couple turned up and went straight in!

Feeling foolish, we did too. The Frau welcomed us, said yes you can park there and yes you can “essen”.

In my best German I asked if it could be in “eine stunde” but she said “nein, jetzt”. So we compromised and settled for five minutes and sat down with a glass of wine from her little vineyard and then “flammkuchen”.

This is a sort of pizza base with bacon bits on top of cheese. It was very nice but we would have liked salad on the side.

It was a quiet village and we had lovely sleep. I was doubly happy as I found a big 18/19mm ring spanner in the middle of the road on the way to the motorway.  Had to stop!!