Tales From The Road

We headed next into Hungary we wanted to be in a city for Matt's birthday so we went first to Budapest. The campsite we went to was not as it was described at all in our guide. The washer & dryer were not there & neither was the 'warm welcome' that we were supposed to receive. Also the toilet block was unpleasant as it smelt really bad due to a lack of ventilation & rotten wood. The owner was very unpleasant & actually said he would rather we weren't there as it wasn't worth his while having just one guest as it disturbed him for his work! We only stayed for 2 nights, which meant only one day in Budapest - but to be honest that was enough.

We didn't really like the city that much. There was nothing special about it & even the views of the city weren't that great. It didn't have a nice atmosphere either. We went to some thermal baths in the morning but didn't stay long due to concerns over our valuables. We walked up to the castle & citadel & then walked around the souvenir street to get some presents. We did have a nice meal in a small restaurant. I had a vegetarian platter with rice & veg etc & Matt had a Hungarian dish of pork, peppers & potatos in a paprika sauce, with a nice bottle of wine. When we headed back towards the campsite it had started lightly snowing again, but this turned to sleet & all the snow that had been on the ground had gone by the morning.

We headed towards our next campsite in Hungary which was situated in a small town by the bank of the Danube. We had a small walk around the river & to the town but there wasn't much there. The lady in the Tourist Information centre gave us some leaflets in German but they weren't much use to us. The toilet block was very cold with basic facilities. We stayed for 2 nights & then headed to Austria which is where we are currently.

It is really just a stopover to break up the journey to our next campsite which is in Slovenia. There is nothing of interest here other than a pretty expensive internet cafe & a couple of supermarkets. We were hoping to do some walking but there are an english speaking couple on the site & they have said that there is not really anywhere to walk without a map & from walking up to town it seems to just be farms. The weather here is a bit better though. It is very sunny & warm in the day but cold & frosty at night. We did manage to do some washing finally though - I did 4 loads so we have nice clean clothes now! Matt can now change the pair of pants he has ben wearing for the last week!

Tomorrow we are going to leave to go to Slovenia. We are going to 2 sites which are either side of the capital so we hope to have a day trip out to Ljubljana. One of the sites is near some Roman Relics & the other near some limestone caves so we should have more to do. It is very difficult now as there are very few campsites open all year & the ones that are aren't always in places we want to go.

When we arrived in Slovakia it started snowing pretty much straight away and didn't really stop the whole time we were there! The campsite was lovely & for winter the toilets & shower were basically the bathroom of a small house & were very warm. There was also a room with cooking facilities, a tv & chairs we could use so we did to keep warm! It reached -5 during our first night there & when we woke up we realised why as there was a couple of inches of snow! We headed off for a walk up one of the nearby mouuntains which was really fun & it snowed the whole time, getting really heavy when we reached the top.

The next morning when we woke up there was even more snow but Scooby started just fine. We had to move on as this was the only campsite we could find open in Slovakia!

It is somewhere that we would like to go back to in the future to explore further & we did get to see lots of nice countryside whilst driving through. We picked up some trekking poles in the nearby Tesco which we needed whilst hiking in the snow! We have found that you can buy pretty much anything in the hypermarkets here, like soya milk. But some things are quite expensive like tortilla wraps have been pretty much 2 pounds as pack in most countries. We haven't been able to find marmite though. The alcohol has been very cheap & we have noticed that cigarettes are about a 1 pound a packet in most places.

We haven't had internet access for a while so haven't been able to do any blog entries. We spent a total of 4 days in Krakow at a nice but fairly pricey campsite. The city was quite nice but not as good as Prague!

We spent our second day at a swimming pool complex, Park Wodny which was very fun with lots of raucous flumes. We also went to the cinema and saw The Lost City which was by Andy Garcia. I thought it was ok and it was about Cuba which I have an interest in. I enjoyed the music & dancing in it but Matt hated the film! On our third day we went to the Wiezlica salt mines which was ok but quite pricy (10 pound each for a guided tour). We really don't like guided tours and it was frustrating being barged by people trying to push in front of you & being blinded by constant flashes. We have noticed that no one seems to spend time looking at anything. They just take a photo, turn round & take another photo & then look at the photos they have just taken on their camera rather than just looking at what's in front of them in the first place!

Next we went to a campsite near the south of Poland in a small mountian range Niedzicka. It was an empty campsite with nice facilities again but there was nothing at all to do.

We wanted to do some hiking ut it poured down with rain the whole time we were there. Overnight there was hail and gales and in the morning we had frozen water in our water bucket outside & some water had found it's way into one of the cupboards & frozen. We decided to move onto Zakopane which is basically a ski resort. As we were driving there we saw snow on people's cars & when we arrived the ground was covered in snow & it was very cold. We took a walk into the town adn we both brought very warm hats with ear flaps & fluffy boots to keep our feet warm in the van. On our second day we took a walk up one of the smaller mountains, Mount Nosal in the Tatra mountain range. It was a fun hike. We decided we would go further South to warmer weather so we headed to Slovakia

We headed off from prague on Sunday & we planned to stay overnight in a campsite near the Polish border to break up the drive. Our 2005 campsite book said it was open all year but when we got there we found that they were closed which was a pain! We had been driving all day & could not see any other campsites in the local area so we had to find somewhere else to stay. We found a quiet lane surrounded by trees and stayed there for the night. It's not something that we like to do too often as we feel safer on a campsite but we didn't have much choice! In the morning when we woke we saw another camper in a car park across the way from where we stayed and we assumed they had the same problem!

The border crossing was very easy - I drove us across, they checked our passports very quickly and sent us on our way. They didn't even us to see our Intenational Driving Licences that we brought specially for in Poland!

Our first stop was Auschwitz and there was a small camping area which is part of a reflection centre on the road parrallel to the camp which we arrived at around 10am. We parked up the van and headed off to Auschwitz 1. It was quite eerie walking around as all the buildings are still exactly the same as they were 60 odd years ago. There were several exhibitions in some of the buildings showing conditions in the camp etc & sections about different countries. Over the course of 2 days we made 2 trips to this camp and 2 to the other camp Auschwitz 2 Birkenau as there was too much to take in. On both trips we were offended by the lack of respect that people showed for where they were, particulary the tour groups organised by the camp. All people seemed to want to do was stop & take photos of everything & not even look at what was around them & think about what happened. I was particulary upset by people taking photos in the crematorium, which some people did despite the fact that there were signs asking them not to do so. I raised this with the information desk & spoke to one of the guides about it & we came to the conclusion that there isn't much they can do about it & people just don't care which I find very sad. It is very upsetting that people see it as a tourist day out & as Matt said if they sold T Shirts saying 'I survived Auschwitz' people would buy them.

Birkenau was a lot worse than the first camp. This was a larger camp that was built about 3km from the first & conditions were a lot worse. The barracks were old horse sheds made of wood rather than the brick ones in Auschwitz 1. The worst thing was the size of the place - nothing that I have ever learnt at school or seen about it showed the scale of it like seeing it for yourself. Most of the buildings have now been destroyed, but the fences are still there as well as the chimneys from most of the buildings. There was a watchtower that you could stand at and look over the whole camp, but even then you couldn't see it all. It is hard to imagine that a place so big could have been filled up so much that they had started to build another camp on the outskirts. We made a trip away from the crowds to see the first 2 sites of temporary gas chambers that were made in people's houses as the whole town was chucked out to house the camp & also to see the sites where bodies were burnt in the open air and their ashes left on the ground. The gas chambers had all been destroyed by the SS when they knew that they were going to be caught but there are detailed plans of what they looked like & some ruins. It was a very upsetting day but necessary - I think everyone should try and go there if they can as it is necessary to realise just how bad it was.

After Auschwitz we moved onto Krakow which was a short drive away, staying at a campsite on the outskirts of the city. That was yesterday and in the afternoon we got the bus in & just wandered around the city. Today we have been to a museum of paintings & ancient artifacts like Egyptian & Roman pieces. Things are cheaper than in Prague. It cost us about 1 pound each to get in! This afternoon we are going to go to a mount that you can walk up & maybe go to a swimming pool tomorrow.

By Chloe

Well, we went to the Theatre Fantastika for a black light show which was pretty cool, we saw a show called the 'Aspects of Alice" which was based on the theme of Alice in Wonderland. The show was good, if a little bit budget at times. It was all mime and music with no spoken word. Clever use of lighting and projection made inanimate objects appear to move unaided and some of it looked really convincing. The best part of the show was completely out of the blue when from nowhere Alice and her friend come on stage naked and started dancing provocativly! It was completely irrelevant to the story but it made me laugh!

The following night we went back into Prague in the evening and went to a Jazz gig at a really nice cafe just off the main square. The band were amazing, with every member being exceptionally talented. It was contemporary jazz, with lots of extravagent piano, bass and sax solos.

Yesterday we took a train to Kutna Hora which was about an hours journey. Kutna Hora is a small mining town with a rich history and cathedral that rivals Prague's St Vitus. We went to the Cathedral of st Barbara which was another example of Christian extravagence when it comes to decor. We went to the Ossury with is a small church completely decorated on the inside with human bones! it was a very macabre sight to say the least - items included a coat of arms and a chandelier made using every bone in the human body. There are supposedly the bones of 40,000 people in the church. We had a quick look around the museum of Alchemy where we were shown round exclusivly by the curator - a very interesting bloke who looked like he had probably done too much acid in the seventies. Lastly we went underground into a disused silver mine. It brought back memories of caving - crawling round in dark and wet places. It was cool but the tour guide wasnt all that great - to be honest I dont really like going with tour guides at all & I think that was possibly the first we've had to endure. Unfortunately there was no other way to see the mine.

Today is going to be our last day in Prague and I've just come into the centre to get some food for tomorrow and to use the Internet. We're going to be stopping over for one night near Ostrava then on Sunday we'll be driving into Poland On our way to Auschwitz then Krakow.

By Matt