Friday 12 August 2011
Our One Month Anniversary in Europe!
After four great days in our home of Camp Haller, we said reluctant goodbyes to Budapest, and our delightful neighbors and new friends Paolo and Paola (who, after forcing more espressos on us, presented us with a fantastic departure gift: a gorgeous box set of CDs, with huge book, of the genius pianist Glenn Gould), and we took off for Krakow, Poland. But because we wanted to visit Auschwitz and it was an hour west of Krakow, we decided to head there first. This took us through Slovakia and a tiny piece of Czech Republic, making four countries in one day!
Driving north from Budapest through wooded hills and unending fields of sunflowers, we spotted the bleached ruins of a castle on a rock, and stopped to look. Dian chatted with a woman from the restaurant there, and voila, more magic! She directed us around back in the van and opened the big iron gate so we could drive through for a closer look. We asked some people walking there if they knew the name and age, and we found out Beckov Castle is like most there in the Carpethian Mountains, built by locals in the 12th Century to defend against the invading Mongols, who had never encountered such a defense.
After a close drive by, we discovered the restaurant had Wi-Fi, so we checked for e-mail, and found the worst one yet from Sebastian: his insurance would not cover the accident to our van and he was going to let them scrap it to recover anything, and we would be stuck with the substitute van for the entire year. Dian and Nicole accepted the bad news quite well, Charles had trouble containing his upset.
Slovakia had huge rolling farms, with noticeable logging slashes in the hillsides, and some mining ugliness. It got nicer as we climbed in elevation, to magical, spooky, dense forests in the small piece of Czech Republic we passed through. We reached Poland and stopped at a roadside stand for watermelon, but no luck: she only took zloties. We thought euros were good everywhere in the EU - nope!
It was getting dark and we had no money, no food, and no place to sleep. We had hoped for a rest stop on the freeway, but left the highway long before, and there was nothing suitable on our scenic country drive. We found an open supermarket that took plastic, then Dian started chatting with a group of young locals. She told them we were looking for a place to sleep and after some animated discussion they jumped into their car and led us to a place where the owner, Alicija, let us park in the yard and use the restroom, shower and electricity and even offered to make coffee for us in the morning. A happy ending.
Our One Month Anniversary in Europe!
After four great days in our home of Camp Haller, we said reluctant goodbyes to Budapest, and our delightful neighbors and new friends Paolo and Paola (who, after forcing more espressos on us, presented us with a fantastic departure gift: a gorgeous box set of CDs, with huge book, of the genius pianist Glenn Gould), and we took off for Krakow, Poland. But because we wanted to visit Auschwitz and it was an hour west of Krakow, we decided to head there first. This took us through Slovakia and a tiny piece of Czech Republic, making four countries in one day!
Driving north from Budapest through wooded hills and unending fields of sunflowers, we spotted the bleached ruins of a castle on a rock, and stopped to look. Dian chatted with a woman from the restaurant there, and voila, more magic! She directed us around back in the van and opened the big iron gate so we could drive through for a closer look. We asked some people walking there if they knew the name and age, and we found out Beckov Castle is like most there in the Carpethian Mountains, built by locals in the 12th Century to defend against the invading Mongols, who had never encountered such a defense.
After a close drive by, we discovered the restaurant had Wi-Fi, so we checked for e-mail, and found the worst one yet from Sebastian: his insurance would not cover the accident to our van and he was going to let them scrap it to recover anything, and we would be stuck with the substitute van for the entire year. Dian and Nicole accepted the bad news quite well, Charles had trouble containing his upset.
Slovakia had huge rolling farms, with noticeable logging slashes in the hillsides, and some mining ugliness. It got nicer as we climbed in elevation, to magical, spooky, dense forests in the small piece of Czech Republic we passed through. We reached Poland and stopped at a roadside stand for watermelon, but no luck: she only took zloties. We thought euros were good everywhere in the EU - nope!
It was getting dark and we had no money, no food, and no place to sleep. We had hoped for a rest stop on the freeway, but left the highway long before, and there was nothing suitable on our scenic country drive. We found an open supermarket that took plastic, then Dian started chatting with a group of young locals. She told them we were looking for a place to sleep and after some animated discussion they jumped into their car and led us to a place where the owner, Alicija, let us park in the yard and use the restroom, shower and electricity and even offered to make coffee for us in the morning. A happy ending.
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