Tag Archives: camping

Prague

September 15, 2016Czech Republicairbnb, apartment, campground, camping, czech, history, prague, sightseeing, summer, travelJudy

So, the tent is now drying in stages on the airer in the spare room, we’re slowly emptying the car of everything we’ve accumulated over the past 5+ weeks and I’m watching far too many bread baking videos on Youtube, which is probably the surest sign that I’m ready to go home.

We visited Cesky Krumlow on Monday. Described by our Lonely Planet Guide as Czech’s only other world class sight and ‘must-see’ outside Prague, 180kms south and close to the Austrian border. I’m not sure about that, I’m really enjoying travelling here, but Cesky Krumlow was well worth visiting. Beautiful old town with a huge Renaissance Castle overlooking it. As we looked over the old town from the castle, it felt as though the view had probably not changed in centuries, there were no modern buildings and only a few advertising signs on old buildings to suggest that we were actually in the 21st Century. Located on the Vltava River, which also runs through Prague and flows out into the North Sea. We camped beside the river on Monday night at Camp Paradijs, our last night of camping on this trip. The river’s gentle sounds just a few metres from our campsite were a nice ending to the 14 nights we’ve spent in our much-loved tent on this trip.

On our way into Prague, we stopped at the Sedlac Ossuary to look at the ‘Bone Church’. I’m not even sure how to describe it – strange, weird, creative, ghoulish. The small church in Sedlac monastery has been decorated almost exclusively with bones – 4 huge piles of them, plus garlands, crosses and other shapes, all made out of human bones. Interesting but weird.

We’re spending 4 nights in an Airbnb apartment right on the edge of the old town, above Prague Castle. Parking is only a minor problem here – we can’t park right outside the apartment because it’s for residents only, or we have to SMS something to somewhere, or some other thing that is a bit out of our range of expertise; however it’s possible to park about 5 – 10 minutes walk from here, on the other side of the freeway. Just a short walk over a pedestrian bridge and on a few quiet streets. Greg has done this walk numerous times, I’ve done it once!

Yesterday we walked down to, and across, the Charles Bridge. I’m sure there were more tourists there and around the Old Square than we’ve seen anywhere this trip! Even Dubrovnik wasn’t as crowded. Gorgeous place, though – the bridges, the buildings, the squares. We just happened to be at the Astronomical Clock as it was about to strike on the hour – well, the huge crowd of people gathered expectantly nearby gave us a clue that something was about to happen, so we waited to see. And we’ve extended our Trdelnik Chimney Cake experience by adding an Apple strudel ice cream cone one and a pizza one to the range we’ve eaten!

We caught up with our Czech friend Peter last night. We met him when he was cycling in Tassie a couple of years ago, then he came and stayed in ADL with us for a few days and we’ve kept in touch ever since. He encouraged us to come to Prague on this trip and I’m really glad that we did. So anyway after tossing around a few ideas of when and where to meet, we decided to have dinner here at the apartment, which was an excellent plan until I realised about 45 minutes after putting the chicken and potatoes in the oven that the oven wasn’t working due to operator error! There is a beautiful terracotta Schlemmer Topf roasting dish here and I was keen to use it, but messed up the oven settings, so dinner was a bit later than we had intended. It tasted good, though and I’m going to keep an eye out for a terracotta dish at the op shops I haunt in my never-ending search for Women’s Weekly cookbooks. Then we had Medovnik Honey Cake for dessert. I’m definitely going to have a go at making one of those when we get home – layers of honey cake with buttercream icing in between, and caramel & walnuts on top. It was good, but very filling.

Peter has given us great tips on where to go and what to see, and we’re getting together again tonight to eat Czech food in a restaurant. Good times!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Cesky Krumlow Castle

Vienna, Austria

September 7, 2016Austria, Czech Republic, Polandaustria, camping, czech republic, krakow, poland, road trip, Wieliczka Salt MineJudy

Our last post was 3 days, dinner at a Michelin-starred bistro, a visit to a salt mine and 2 countries ago.

Dinner at Zazie Bistro was wonderful! We got a table in the cellar part of the restaurant rather than in the smaller street-level section. Great menu, which you can see here. When my parents see the menu, they will know immediately what I had for an entree, but I’ll tell the rest of you anyway – the veal sweetbreads. And they were superb. Then I had French potatoes gratin with chicken etc, and Greg had the veal chop(s) on the bone etc. With 2 big beers, the total came to less than $35, and we were so impressed with the meal and so surprised that it was so cheap that we left a 20% tip!

Next day, Tuesday, we left the apartment in Krakow and drove to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. We put on our walking boots and some warm clothes and spent a couple of hours doing the excellent English-language guided tour. We didn’t take any photos while we were in the mine, partly because it cost a few dollars extra and we hadn’t realised when we bought our tickets, but mostly because there are already loads of photos of the interesting things at the mine on the interwebz, and one of my commonly uttered phrases from this trip has been … ‘for f@#ks sake, how many selfies and photos do these people need?’ So many people take photos of themselves at very uninteresting places, as well as at interesting ones, but do they ever look at any of them again?

So then we pooled our remaining Polish zloty and went to the supermarket where we thought we were loading up on everything we thought we needed, but only managed to spend half of the $40-odd we had left in local currency. So I went back and bought some wine and cider, but we STILL have zloty left! We’ll keep it for when we go back to Poland some day, or if someone we know goes there.

We camped at a municipal campground in the north of Czech Republic last night (Tuesday). We had to find an ATM to get some Czech koruna, but the campground reception was closed when we arrived there at 6.30pm, so we just pitched the tent and sorted out payment this morning. Nice camgpground, but it was almost next to a railway line, so it was a bit noisy.

And now we’re in Vienna! We’re staying in this Airbnb apartment until Sunday. It’s just across the street from the grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, close to the metro and the Museum of Technology is nearby as well. The apartment is used for tutoring primary and high school students during term time, but it’s still the summer holidays in Austria until the middle of September, so our host is renting it out until her ‘real’ work begins.

A picture of the wieliczka salt mine we took from the internet because we were too cheap to pay the extra money to be allowed to take pictures in the mine.

Slovakia

September 2, 2016Slovakiacamping, high tatras, road trip, slovakiaJudy

We left the beautiful Budapest on Wednesday morning and drove to Eger, which is about 140kms to the north-east. Historic town, wine district, thermal baths. We camped at a campground just a couple of kms from the old town and wandered around it on Thursday morning. One of the most interesting pieces of history is the 16th century 40-metre high Minaret, which is the northern-most historical building of the Ottoman empire in Europe, and the only remaining evidence of nearly 100 years of Turkish rule in the area. It is possible to climb to the top, but it’s very squeezy and uneven, so we decided against that.

Then a nice drive through the Bukk (Beech) National Park to Slovakia. No checking at the border, we just had to buy another Vignette (10 euros) to be able to drive on Slovakian freeways. We stopped at Spis Castle, one of the largest European castles by area. Very impressive, but the lack of signage to and within the castle was disappointing. We parked and paid at an ‘official’ carpark for the castle, then slogged up the hill to the castle walls but had trouble finding how to actually reach the entrance. We asked a couple of people on their way back down to the car park and eventually found where to get in, had a look around the main castle buildings, but didn’t walk on the extensive castle walls due to lack of time and needing the energy to get back down the hill!

We camped at a campground near the High Tatras, the tallest range in the Carpathian Mountains. Close to a ski resort town, at this time of the year it’s a popular destination for hikers and mountain bikers. This morning we drove up to the car park at the bottom of the chair lift, which was a hive of activity with walkers, bike riders and groups of people getting ready to start their day’s activities.

We decided not to visit Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. It’s almost on the western border of the country, on the Danube River. It would have been a big detour for us, just to see another capital city and we’re much more interested in spending time in Krakow in Poland. It was only 150kms north, but took several hours to drive because of heavy traffic, a truck broken down on a narrow stretch of road, lots of villages along the way, heavy traffic, one-way streets and heavy traffic. We’re staying in an Airbnb apartment in Kazimierz, the old Jewish Quarter just south of Old Town. More about Krakow and Poland later.

more pics here

Plitvice National Park, Croatia

August 27, 2016Croatiacamping, croatia, plitvice national park, road trip, travel, zagrebJudy

Wow, Saturday already! I’ll see if I can remember what we’ve been doing for the last few days. On Wednesday we drove south to Mlini, which is only about 10kms south of Dubrovnik. Greg had picked it out on a map of Croatia when we were trying to think what to call this blog, so we just had to go there … to say we’d been there. The town gets its name from the water-powered flour mills which are no longer in use. We didn’t stay long enough to find any, just parked quickly in someone’s No Parking area, waved to the woman watching us from the house across the road, raced to get a photo of the 2 of us near the ‘Welcome to Mlini’ sign and zapped off again … at about the same time as an old gent arrived on his motor scooter – possibly to tell us to get out of his No Parking space!

It’s only possible to drive another 30kms or so south to the Croatian border, and we were keen to head north to get the ferry across to Ploce, so we didn’t bother. As we drove north, past the beautiful Dubrovnik, we found a roadside stop for lunch with tables in the shade and a beach nearby. Unlike most Croatian beaches, this one wasn’t completely full of people, umbrellas, sun lounges & lilos, so we went down for a look, and Greg had a swim. The water was a bit chilly, and the beach part was actually just small round stones that are hard to walk on without some kind of foot protection, but it makes us realise how lucky we are in Australia, with our beautiful sandy beaches.

After going back on the ferry, which was only about half full, we drove 80kms or so on the Autoceste and camped at a little campground just a couple of kms off it. The owner is a keen gardener and has carved out a little oasis of fruit trees and cottagey flowers. The ground is basically just rock, so he has had to bring in lots of soil to get stuff to grow, but he’s even got some Australian everlasting daisies there. Nice campground, but pricey – $46 for the night.

Then to Plitvice National Park, which is the Number 1 tourist attraction in Croatia. A series of lakes and waterfalls, with boardwalks that go beside, between and over some of the lakes. We camped at Kamp Korana a few kms north of Entrance 1. Owned by the National Park and spread over 35kms along the Korana River. It was very crowded near the facilities, but we found a flat spot at the top of a hill away from the crowds.

I think I’ll let Greg’s photos tell the ‘story’ of our time at the lakes, although I wil add that I’m very glad we got there early. We were all packed up and in the car by 7.10am, which is probably some kind of personal best for us. We got a bit lost getting to the park as the entrances are not well sign-posted, but we got a park and bought our tickets without any problems. We visited the lakes in a different order to most people which helped avoid the crowds and even though we had a long wait for a boat to take us back to our starting point, that was the only slow part of our visit. When we got back to the car park, there was a HUGE queue of people waiting to buy tickets .. and then there would have been huge waits for them to get anywhere within the park for the rest of their visit.

Zadar, Croatia

August 18, 2016Croatiacampground, camping, croatia, road trip, zadarJudy

We are slowly making our way south down the Croatian coast. Stunning scenery, lovely weather, loads of tourists and a lot of holiday accommodation options …. many of them full at this time of the year. We did see an interesting thing this morning as we drove through a mid-sized coastal town – people sitting on folding chairs or in their car, holding a cardboard sign with ‘Apartmen’ handwritten on it. Our host at Kamp Romantic told us that lots of people rent out a room or ‘granny flat’ during the busy season, and I guess the people advertising their ‘apartments’ could have been off the main road and not so easy to find.

Last night we camped again, at a larger campground 120kms south of Labin. We’re not putting in much distance each day, in part because of the winding roads and 40 – 50km speed limit a lot of the time, but also because there’s stuff we want to see along the way. We got to Kamp Kozica early in the afternoon, and waited for a thunderstorm to pass before putting up the tent. We camped in an old terraced almond grove,with great ocean views and across to Krk Island. The campground was fairly full, and more and more vehicles arrived as the afternoon progressed. Campground facilities were … I can’t think of a nice way to say this … deplorable. Rubbish bins overflowing, no toilet paper, terrible water pressure, dirty amenities. We didn’t see anyone doing anything around the campground, as opposed to Kamp Romantik where the host and his mother were working constantly around the place. We got used to the no toilet paper and no toilet seat thing in Sth America, where we were paying Sth American prices, but paying AUD $40 for that seems extortionate. Especially when we can get Airbnb apartments for $90 or less.

(whinge over, sorry about that)

We’re now staying in Zadar for a couple of nights in an Airbnb apartment – this one, actually. It’s lovely, our host lives upstairs and has supplied breakfast provisions, information about the town and some recommendations on where to eat. The garden is full of fruit trees, including 2 pomegranate trees. I’m very tempted to pick just one …

More pictures on the photo pages here

Garden at the back of the AirBnB in Zadar

Looking across to the arid islands of the Adriatic

There might not be any sand, and its very rocky but the waters of the Adriatic are crystal clear

People selling apartments for rent at the side of the road waving apartment signs

selling-apartments-2 — More apartment sellers

Labin, Croatia

August 16, 2016Croatia, Sloveniacamping, croatia, labin, piran, road trip, sloveniaJudy

We walked to Ljubljana’s Central Market yesterday morning just after 9am and it seemed very quiet in the nation’s capital – hardly any traffic, not many people around. The market was closed and a quick online search told us that it was the Feast of the Assumption, a very important day in the Christian and Catholic calendar. Slovenia is around 60% Catholic, and Croatia is over 80% Catholic. Italy is nearby also, so that explained why there were so many people on the move and around the place, making the most of the 3-day weekend to get away.

We drove south from Ljubljana, avoiding the autostrade as we needed some kind of e-tag that lasts 6 months and cost EU35. Probably good value for 6 months, but not for us for just one day and less than 100kms of driving. The roads we drove on were good and we visited a couple of points of interest on the way south – Predjama Castle was built into a cave, and looks totally impregnable. Building commenced in 1202, and much of what remains is from the 17th century. It has all the good stuff – a dungeon, a 16th century chest full of treasure, and holes in the ceiling of the entrance tower for pouring boiling oil on intruders.

Then on to the beautiful seaside town of Piran, which is like a smaller, less touristy version of Venice without the canals. Vehicular access is very limited, which adds to the charm of the place. We parked at the Fornace parking station about a km from the town and walked along the ‘beach’, then through narrow alleyways to the town square. There were lots of people enjoying the fine weather, swimming, sunbaking, sitting at outdoor cafes. Piran was under Venetian rule for 500 years from the late 13th century, and was a major supplier of salt.

And further along the road to Croatia and the Istrian Peninsula. We were aiming for a campgound on the coast just out of the historic town of Labin, but it was completely full. so we backtracked to Labin, to another much smaller campground, Kamp Romantic. Not sure where it got its name (and there has been at least one crying child here most of the time, so not very romantic …), but it is very well-set up with a pool, good-sized sites and a very friendly host who showed us around last night, invited us to help ourselves to vegetables from his garden and shared some of his own white wine with us. A nice drop – he grows enough grapes for 1000L, and buys more so he can make a total of 2000L per year. He and his neighbours share ownership of a grape crusher and other large agricultural machinery, and he presses his olives for oil. Last year was a bad year, he only got 8L – usual yield is around 30L.

We’re spending a couple of nights here, it’s such a nice place. Also, we’re having to rethink our plans – it’s peak season on the Croatian coast and everything is booked out. The downside of travelling the way we do, but we’ll figure out alternatives.

The Dragons guarding the bridge into Ljubljana

Camped in Labin Croatai — Camped in Labin Croatia

Slovenia

August 14, 2016Sloveniacamping, lubljana, slovenia, summerJudy

We were heading to Trieste yesterday, but just a few kms after we got on to the autostrade out of Venice, it looked more like a parking lot than a highway, with 3 lanes of stationary vehicles. We were lucky that we were near an exit, so we drove off and worked out what to do next. We have the Lonely Planet Slovenia guide in our travelling library, so we figured we might as well head north and have a look. Every photo I’ve seen of Slovenia has been beautiful, and it’s actually like that in real life too. Mountainous, green, picture-postcard stuff.

Triglav National Park is in the north-western corner, with a couple of lakes that have campgrounds, so we headed towards Lake Bohinj, which is a bit south of Lake Bled. The guide book says it’s slightly less glamourous and ‘touristy’ than Lake Bled, but when we went through them today, they were both packed full of people making the most of the gorgeous summer Sunday, with more and more traffic heading towards them.

We hit a couple of road closures on the way to Bohinj, and at the second one I hopped out to ask the man putting up the barriers if there was a way through … yes, further north. A camion truck had broken down or turned over or something and blocked the road from the south. So we drove on …. along very winding, very narrow roads built into the sides of mountains. Through little villages where every house seemed to have window boxes growing geraniums at every window, and a flourishing vegetable garden growing summer vegies – corn, beans, tomatoes, zucchini. It’s all so green here, a shade of green we never, ever see at home.

About 20km from Bohinj, we noticed a scattering of tents and RVs in a field. No official signs that it was actually a campground, but we went to the nearby cafe and asked – ‘yes, you can camp there, and it’s free’. Excellent! They even had wifi and gave Greg the code. We found a space for the car and tent and settled in. There were another dozen or so families spending the night there. There’s a chair lift near the cafe that goes up to a ski run in winter, and in summer walkers and mountain bikers use it to access a network of paths. It was lovely. Much nicer than the campground at Bohinj, where the tent sites all seemed to be on sloping bits of land – ie, the parts that caravans and RVs don’t want because they all want level ground.

We have spent the last week trying to find ice and having no luck at all. I got talking to some people this morning when I noticed they had an esky, and asked them how they keep stuff cold. Ice bricks. It’s not possible to buy bags of ice in Slovenia, and apparently not in Italy or Germany either. So that mystery is solved. We’ll just work around it.

Tonight we’re in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital, population 280,000. We’re staying in a hostel that seems to be set up for students – our room has 3 of everything … beds, desks, shelves, cupboards. Apparently there’s a student population of around 50,000 in Ljubljana, but it’s summer holidays at the moment. We’re near the centre of town, and we can see the castle from our window at the hostel.

All the photos taken so far are on our photo album page here

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Free Camping!

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Cyclamen growing wild

Camping in Liechtenstein

August 10, 2016Austria, Germany, Liechtensteinaustria, campground, camping, germany, liechtenstein, road trip, travelJudy

Last night we camped in Liechtenstein. Well, there’s something I never thought I’d get to say.

But let’s catch up on the last few days. We flew Qatar Airlines from Adelaide to Doha to Munich on Sunday-Monday. Good flights, almost-new planes, both of them fairly full. Getting through Immigration in Munich was probably the worst experience we’ve ever had, and we’ve been through the LAX ordeal a few times. Too many people, not enough officials to process us all. Anyway, both our enormous duffel bags were there, with the 60kgs we seem to travel everywhere with – tent, sleeping mattresses, gas stove, ice box, about 8kgs of travel guides and all the rest of the must-haves.

We picked up ‘our’ shiny white Ford Focus station wagon from the Avis counter, and that was a bit complicated because we’re renting it for more than the standard 30 days, but it eventually got sorted and headed to our hotel in a little village about halfway between the airport and Munich.

Then yesterday we started the drive south towards Croatia, passing through Austria and into Liechtenstein. It’s always such a thrill, going to another country without catching a plane, and in fact yesterday we were actually in 3 different countries in the one day!

We’re having the usual minor problems of trying to find things – folding chairs, gas cartridges, ice. The folding chairs seem to be rare here, or we’re just not looking in the right places. Finally found some, at 3x the price of home. Gas cartridges are even rarer, and much more expensive, and ice is non-existent … so far. Hopefully as we head further south and it gets warmer, we’ll find some.

We tried a campground in Austria last night, but they only had one tiny site, so we kept on going to a campground between Feldkirch and Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. $50 for an unpowered tent site, but the campground is gorgeous … terraced sites built on a hill, fruit trees everwhere, and the apple trees are all laden with ripe fruit at the moment, cute little chalet-style cabins, grass and an outdoor pool. It’s 11C here today, so we’ll be giving the pool a miss, I think. We can see across the valley to villages on the mountain opposite. It rained last night, but is fine today … so far!

And here are a few things we’ve learnt about Liechtenstein – population 37,000 (no, I didn’t leave any zeros off that number!), 3rd highest GDP in the world after Qatar & Luxemburg, 6th smallest country in the world and it’s double land-locked, which means it is landlocked by countries which are also landlocked. I really hope that last fact is a question at a Quiz Night sometime soon! Like Norway, they are not part of the EU, but are in the European Free Trade Association. Unemployment rate of 1.5%, German speaking and they have a monetary union with Switzerland, so prices are in CHF Swiss francs, but the campground also accepted our euros, at a rate of 1:1. When we were checking in, there was an Asian family who were not happy about that exchange rate for complicated reasons, but we just figured that paying the equivalent of $50 for a tent site was so outrageous that saving a couple of bucks wasn’t going to make much difference.

Munich to Mlini

Judy and Greg in Croatia and around