November 2013

A long time since our last confession

One year one month later, Greece to Macedonia to Serbia to Hungary to Czech Republic in 3 weeks. It is quite a strange feeling, as we got off the boat in Larios, still quite warm, but definitely a slight chill in the air, also to find autumn colours, that is reminiscent of the UK. 

Stacking containers while we sat in the van!

The drive through Greece along the coast was spectacular, made us wonder why we didn't do it before when it is on our door step............ well, nearly on our door step. 

lovely Greece

 Our first campsite in Greece

This is a cafe  I was so disappointed that it was closed

We saw our first 'Lidl', I got quite excited, ordering Noel to stop, Screecheed.... brakes.....I ran in and bought a bag of salad, bacon, parma ham,  smoked salmon and crusty, seedy brown rolls. Noel was surprised that I had reverted to type immediately, finding the cheapest but best supermarket and getting bacon that we have not had since Sudan!

From Greece, we travelled via Macedonia  as we thought it might be interesting and we knew little or nothing about the place.The first thing we discovered is that they required a minimum of 15 days insurance which is about £50......... not such a good start.

As we went through the customs post we were encouraged to see ‘duty free fuel’ advertised. So we went to fill up to learn that this is only available to large trucks. They were firm that this did not include us!

There were wall to wall casinos after the border and on the whole Macedonia did not appear to us to be particularly inspiring.  The real high spot was when we parked at a petrol station which was attached to a hotel we were allowed to stay there for free with internet as well. The nicest person was Nicola the night time petrol man who looked after us very attentively and was such a pleasant person to talk to, all the more remarkable as he spoke really good self-taught English.

Rural Macedonia

It was starting to dawn on us also that if we tried to get all we could from each country we visit then it will still be a long time before we get home. 

So we marched on, through Serbia where again we did not stay too long, though we were also learning that there is still a huge amount of culture and diversity to be discovered.

Into Serbia

A surprising mid European Muslim country

What we thought we should do was to make as much as we could of the famous capital cities that we passed through. Also we should visit our friends around Europe who do not see often enough because it such a mission getting to Europe. We should take full advantage of being there and having transport.

Things were starting to get expensive for three reasons:

• Fuel prices were soaring as we went further into Europe. 
• We had to use hotels as most campsites were closed for the winter. It was also starting to get distinctly cold. 
• Finally there is so much more to spend money on, what I mean by this is that Ping, discovered that there were a lot of supermarkets and shopping malls to be explored. 

We moved quite quickly from haggling over the price of tomatoes to spend hours deciding which of life’s essentials should fill our trolley this morning! I have to tell you that we hit Lidl quite hard.

On the way to Budapest we stopped in the town of Ada where they had a remarkable city park with a river running through it. It was huge. There was a full blown sport stadium, bowling, golf course and lovely woodlands. It even had a rifle range and a flying club! Never seen a park like it. Oh I forgot it had a large permanent campsite. 

The vast and lovely Ada Park

This park has such a short summer season during which we are told it is very popular. Needless to say we stayed there alone and there was no one to take our money.

Budapest

We arrived in Budapest and found a fairly nice but basic hotel. Ping being not only an observant soul but also a hardened opera fan, noticed that we were just around the corner from the opera house and we stayed long enough to go and see Don Travelleto, I think it was, it may have been Madame Riggatoni, not sure , (I will allow this as he is such a  peasant…….  It was La Traviata.  ed)  anyway it was very nice. We found that in these cities people still get dressed up in their finery to go to the theatre and although we did our best from, what we had in the van we did feel rather     scruffy by comparison to the rest of the audience. Anyway to my surprise we were not actually thrown out of the theatre or worse made to stand in a corner. 

The 'Boss' at the opera. Happy at last

Curtain call!

It was a lovely evening in a beautiful opera house. Unlike theatres in London they flog tickets for seats in the boxes to any old hoy poloy and so we found ourselves enjoying the show with other people. After so long with only each other for company it was a real treat. 

In Budapest just along the street from our hotel we came across a museum dedicated to the peoples uprising in 1957. It was very dramatic as they were celebrating(if that’s the right word) the anniversary of the peoples uprising of 1957 against the Soviet dominance of Hungary. Not only were there photos of every person killed on ceramic plaques along the wall outside but there was a candle in a glass jar placed under each one. It was a very moving scene. 

Heroes of the 'Peoples uprising'

Actually just before the opera started they showed  a screen with a cobbled road that gradually became covered in blood as the orchestra played a significant piece of music and as the picture faded the inscription appeared  ‘Remember the November uprising 1957’, it was dramatic and powerful even to a mere foreigner.

Reflection of the Plaque on the roof of the museum

We did not stay too long in Budapest partly as we had been there before and also because it is quite an expensive place to be.  This has been the theme as we move along. We did manage to stray into Slovakia without knowing it............ oh well!

We headed to Vienna fully intending to get another shot of culture. We camped again in a local park, no one seemed to mind. In fact the gardeners were busy giving our vehicle an expert examination, this is instead of shooing us out as might happen in England. 

Austrian park

The gardener was under the van (oh yes!) when he was alarmed to find that the rubber covers had come adrift from both drive shafts. He spoke almost no English but insisted on taking us to the local MAN Dealers who, without looking up from their computers  said "Iveco - no, can’t help you''. 

Our gardener told us that we must get it repaired immediately. He kept pointing and saying SOS! So we found a specialist garage in Vienna who when I said , slowly and clearly. ’I am sorry but I speak only English and I have a problem with my Iveco', the very, very nice man replied ‘well, I suppose you’ve come to the right place'. 

It had been quite a worry but they fixed it within an hour and all we had to worry about now was how we would earn back the 100 euros they charged us! 

Vienna Opera House........not!

Having spent  a whole day in Vienna sorting out our truck We decided reluctantly that we should move on. I am sure that Ping was nursing a secret intention to get more opera tickets! So I think she was quite disappointed. (Yes, she was. Very disappointed!  ed)

These graceful windmills are huger than you can imagine. One of the blades is about 25 metre long

We found ourselves driving without much of a plan and it was getting late. We did not know where we would stay and after a couple of false starts, we passed through a whole village that we guessed was only holiday houses  as all the houses were well maintained  but there was absolutely no sign of any one in any of the houses the whole village was deserted. Mmmm a bit spooky! 

The deserted village

In the end we parked up off the road in front of a house and stayed the night  without seeing another soul.

Once it got dark we saw a mass of red lights in the sky that all flashed on and off at the same time. Pretty strange! But we realised that these were on top of the forest of wind turbines that are all over the countryside. 

The next day we had an easy drive across the Austrian/Czec border where Ping had a haircut and I had a nice pizza!  The border post was actually being torn down that day, as due to EEC rules it was no longer required. It was such an interesting building  that I felt it was a real shame to destroy it. It genuinely signals all the changes of recent times. A Soviet style building which was now coming down for the modern European age.

The Austria Czeck border

Such changing times. The next day this border post will be gone!

Now, The Czec Republic are not big on road signs. As we passed along the main road to Prague we found that the road was being replaced and as we discovered was closed. Of course the locals knew all about it and knew the way to go but we had not a clue and all we manged to find was the road workers were sufficiently cross with us that they gave no help whatever. I am pretty sure that if we had not got out when we did they would have delighted in tarring, and probably feathering, our van.

The start of the railway path

We were really at a loss  the map did not help us much as there was not sufficient small detail to help. That bloody women in our satnav, who by the way, now inexplicably has an Irish accent! All she would do was try to get us back onto the road that was closed. She did this by taking us up some tiny lanes at the end of which we found we had to either follow a track along the railway or to pop up at the roadworks again.  We could see the road workers in the distance glowering at us  so I took the railway option. 

Big Mistake!

The track became narrower and then turned and rather encouragingly seemed to head back into the village we had just left. By now the path was just wet grass. It seemed to pass between what in England would be allotments. Then just as I had caught sight of a tar road that we had come up on, we descended a grassy slope with fences close by on either side to find that there was no way to get to the road. We were already feeling a bit cheesed off, but….. I put it into reverse on this slope intending, very reluctantly, to reverse all the way out but the wheels just would not grip at all. 

It may not look much but we were once again, Stuck!

Four wheel drive still no grip and every time I tried the van slewed over to threaten the fences of the allottmets.

It took 2 hours to get unstuck, we had sand ladders out and everything; it was cold, wet and getting dark. In the end I threaded the winch cable under the van and fixed it to a fence post. I had no idea if it would be strong enough, nor did I have any idea what I would do if I pulled the fence down in the dark, in the allotments in deepest Czec Republic where hardly anyone speaks English. 

Anyhow we  slowly winched the van out and then put all our toys away. Remember tidying up and putting away is part of playing. Then we had to reverse about half a kilometer back to the railway line. After that we found a taxi driver who knew the road to Prague and said, 'follow me'. 

What followed should have been a gloomy sorrowful slow careful drive up to the motorway. NO! The taxi driver, kind as he was, was a complete nutter  and it took all of my skill and determination to keep up with him in the wilds of the countryside  with absolutely no idea where we were. Somehow I stuck to his tail and we made it to Prague quite exhausted.  

Ping has become quite adept at searching laterooms.com and so we parked outside the Boat hotel in Prague that we were to enjoy for under £20 per night. We both liked Prague very much. It is a lovely old city where it seems that every corner has a story to tell. 

Callum, City guide extraordinaire!

We enjoyed a couple of guided walking tours  both were good but Callum the guide on the so called ‘free tour’ was quite exceptional - incredibly knowledgeable, passionate about so many things  and with a deeply funny arid dry sense of humour. That was great.

The spectacular  Astral clock of Prague

Something that emerged for us while we were in Prague is that there is so much to learn about European history of the last hundred years or so. So many things that I have never really understood  about oppressive dictators and regimes  as well as constantly changing boundaries of many countries. We learnt a little of the hideous struggles of a host of communities. In so many parts of Europe, empires have been carved up, dictators have fallen and risen. Interestingly, in the main the people have taken back what is theirs but at huge cost.

Terazin

We knew about this terrible concentration camp as we had visited  some of the principal places in the Jewish Ghetto. Here we learned of the dreadful irony of those who perished in that awful camp at Terazin, the irony is this; The Nazis whose regime in Czechoslovakia was especially brutal even by the standards set by them elsewhere, kept meticulous records of all the people who had been wrenched from their homes. They were men women and children taken into the confines of the camp where  most died. These records are truly the most graphic memorial.

In Prague, there is a Synagogue in the old Ghetto which is devoted to this horror. The names of every single one of the thousands recorded to have gone to Terazin are written on the walls of the synagogue. The artwork of the children that died is displayed there. 

With access to Nazi records the names and addresses of those people have been traced and discreet brass plaques placed outside their homes. We were to learn later that this has been extended all over their sphere of influence. There are genuinely too many heartbreaking examples of heroism and suffering to bring to mind.

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As we were about to leave The Czek republic  we found ourselves driving through the town of Terazin. No sooner had we realised this, than we were upon the cemetery that lies just in front of the bastion of that concentration camp! What was really shocking was that I counted roughly two and a half thousand graves, a tiny fraction of those who died there and there was nothing to bury. 

The cemetery and entrance to that terrible place

It was already late in the day and we both agreed that to just pop in by accident and have a quick look around would not be in keeping with the dignity of the place so we resolved to return  and take as long as necessary.

On our African journey we have been troubled by the many wars and lesser conflicts in Africa and we have listened to the sage comments of people who state quite reasonably that wars and dictators are a feature of Africa. What has really surprised me is that it really is no different from what has gone on in recent history in Europe. 1913 t0 2013!

I have long held an unqualified opinion that The days of the African dictator are now  really numbered (including the fascist Mugabe in Zimbabwe) and that the number and severity of conflicts are gradually diminishing. They do not have anything like the EC in Africa it is true but there are lesser union such as the CFA and ECOWAS that are becoming more important. On the whole I think we should be very happy to have the EC despite its failings. Anyway enough of my opinionating. Just know of the struggles of others!  On to Berlin.

We drove into Germany to find it rather lovely in a neat and tidy kind of way. In the rural area there are pretty villages  and it all seems fairly well healed. In these parts there is little sign of the austerity that must have afflicted east Germany in the not so distant past.

 A rural Saxony village

We had booked a campsite not far from Berlin and we arrived to find it was very cold dark and quite expensive. We have only a very small heater in the van and it was cold  we spent the night under every blanket we had including the fleecy Chinese blanket that we had bought a few months before. I do recommend them they are cheap and very good.  

In the morning we decided that Ping's skills at finding cheap hotels should be deployed. She did her thing, I went to fill the van with water  and then we met Adam and Denise. They are a lovely American couple who are working in Germany and were having a weekend in Berlin.  We offered them a lift into the city and enjoy spending a nice day with them wandering around Berlin and ending up with an excellent Mexican meal. It was a lovely day and again Ping had found us a nice hotel for not very much money.

Brandenburg Gate, with Denise and Adam

I particularly enjoyed getting around on the UBahn metro system which was comfortable and fast.

I have spoken about how much there is to be learnt about Europe that we Brits hardly know about. This is true and on arrival in Berlin we found that there is so much more ‘real life’ history to know about. Berlin is a lovely attractive city that is open, relaxed and cultured. It also has so much to teach us about deprivation, and most importantly, recovery. 

The thought provoking holocaust memorial Berlin

We had a free visit to the Reichstag which was interesting and such an interesting place. The Germans take openness of government very seriously and anyone can visit, just book it online and turn up at the appointed time.

The restored Reichstag building so badly damaged in the war

The Norman Foster bit on the top. Extraordinary!

Checkpoint Charlie has been preserved and there is a neighbouring museum. In addition there is an open air exhibition about the wall and the checkpoints  and most importantly about those who escaped, those who didn’t make it and the people who helped them to cross the wall.

The Berlin wall and the regime that maintained it is just one of the terrible and oppressive institutions that people have endured just in the last hundred years.

Checkpoint Charlie

We did go to visit the Stasi Museum as it seemed very important to have some kind of firsthand view of this organisation. Sadly the museum was very disappointing. It seemed to be very short of exhibits but more importantly it was difficult for us as the English translations were poorly written and wildly inconsistent, sometimes non existent so it was quite a frustrating visit.  Something we did not miss though was that the buildings of whole estate of this secret police force is there to see and it is quite unbelievably extensive. It was a truly massive and oppressive machine.

Part of the vast Stasi estate

Templehof Airport - the scene of the Berlin Airlift has now been closed for several years but remains still intact. We went to visit but found that the English speaking tours were only on Saturdays and we were unable to take a tour which we would really have liked to do. However, with the buildings unchanged we are able to see that what was built by the Nazi Regime is still the 5^th largest single building in the world. It really impressive to see. There is also a memorial to the pilots and crew that lost their lives carrying out this extraordinary and extensive operation.

Templehof Airport  

One small fact that I really was delighted to learn is that there is almost no way that a foreigner can tell if they are in East or West Berlin now as it is now so developed. Just one thing I really loved is that the  green and red man on the traffic lights in the west he has a hat and in the east he is bareheaded. Take a look!

West Berlin

East Berlin

From Berlin we had arranged to go and visit our good friends in Denmark So we made our way to Puttgarten where we were to take a ferry to Denmark. We arrived at the port after dark and we were advised, by the staff to park in the car park of the huge duty free shop.  Just before we were going to settle down for the  night the security man came along to tell us that we had to move. He directed us to another car park which he assured us is free. By now it was getting very cold and wrapped up warm for the night. In the morning we discovered that the barrier for the car park was down and the stinkers made us pay 14 euros to let us out.

I was pretty cross about that. 

Aase, Soren and Ide

Any way we took the ferry and drove to our friends Soren & Aase who live in a delightful small seaside town  with their pretty house right by the beach. It was lovely but cold! We were also looking forward  to visit friends in Sweden too but we were very disappointed as illness in the family prevented us visiting.

The view from their living room. Not bad eh!

I have to say at this point that the heater which was damaged when we had a fire in the van is now not working very well. In the living part of the van we have only a tiny gas heater which is not really adequate for frosty conditions.

The weather forecast is for frost and snow in the coming week.

We started the long drive to Holland via Bremen, all motorway driving so not so exciting. We slept overnight in a lorry park on the motorway it was quite adequate and free, which is nice, but very cold!

Eric, Aneke, Theo and Sylvia. With whom we travelled across South Asia  a lifetime ago. Together with Arnold and Suzanne who stayed at home 

Then we proceeded to the home of our friends in Holland where we have been made very welcome and we plan to stay a few days before the final journey home. By home of course what I mean is that we are going to a new house where all our stuff is packed up there will be no one there so it feels a bit of a bleak prospect. 

More of the gang but also Marja and Henk. Such good company

    
We always enjoy staying in Holland,lovely home and people and most important a well stocked fridge, in a very pleasant town. While in Holland we were also able to meet with some some friends we had met while in Africa. Marja and Henk came to visit us in Bussum. We also went to The Hague and had dinner with Casper and Yolanda. These were such nice reunions  as well as a bit of a binge of reminiscence. 

However we will be glad to be back in England, having had such a great opportunity to visit parts of Europe  and to catch up with friends who we are unable to see often enough.

As soon as I am home I will write up a final round up of our amazing journey, for posting here.

Noel and Ping

noelbow51@gmail.com
pingbow54@gmail.com