Whilst we both like a good party, we appreciate them most in moderation as we’ve only got limited energy for that kind of thing. This trip for us certainly isn’t about finding the best parties and “living it large”, however since we’ve crossed into the Czech Republic, we’ve been unable to avoid them. Maybe it’s just the season, or maybe the Czechs are just really into parties; after all, if figures from 2012 are still relevant, they “led all other nations in per-capita beer consumption for the 20th consecutive year”.

I’ve been to Prague a couple of times before and whilst it’s on our list of places to visit in the Czech Republic, we were keen to see a bit more of the country than just the typical tourist haunts. After turning down a couple of hitch-hikers at a service station outside Brno (they wanted to go to Prague), we headed to our planned campsite a little to the north of the city. Upon arrival though, we were to be disappointed. Our plan was to stay for two nights, however we were informed that due to a weekend death metal festival there, we’d only be able to stay for one and, even more disappointingly, the festival was sold out too. Plan B was put into action (we’re used to having to have multiple plans by now!) and we ended up at a lovely family-run campsite, with a huge (but very young) dog who insisted on playing with us. Ideal.

The following morning we headed into Brno, still not quite sure how to pronounce it (apparently it’s more like “brrr no” than “bruno”), where we found a very pretty old town. After visiting the tourist information office and wandering around for half an hour, we came to the conclusion that aside from architecture, the main thing to do there is sit outside one of countless bars in the sunshine, sipping on cheap beer. In Freedom Square the local radio station had a stage with live music acts, but the visiting American singer wasn’t quite our cup of tea, so we resumed our wandering. Finding a random piano in a corner of a side street being played by a teenager with his arm is a cast was slightly more to our taste, especially when we twigged that the piece of music he was skilfully playing with beautiful arpeggios was in fact “Smells like teen spirit”. Genius. We were just coming to the end of our exploring when we heard an altogether more interesting sound from the live stage… we would probably categorise it as Folk Metal, but the band themselves use the term “Folk Rock”. Their captivating style (a fuse of metal vocals, folk violin, rock drumming and the happiest bass player in the universe) was enough to keep us in the square until the end of their set. We’ll forgive the fact that the lead singer was a former X Factor winner… now if only we can work out how to buy a CD from their website…

With our ears rejoicing from the great sounds, we caught the tram and bus back to our quiet campsite… which appeared to have been invaded by 30-40 inebriated teenagers. The cooking and eating of our dinner was accompanied by quite an entertaining show of typical teenage party melodrama, complete with clichés such as beer pong and throwing each other into the pool. It slowly dawned on us though that we were sitting ducks in the middle of it all, so in a quieter moment, we moved Bertha out of the way… or so we thought. In fact the space behind our new position served as great cover for a heartbroken teen with his phone glued to his ear, others running away from a close encounter with shaving foam and a couple of girls who decided to change out of their wet clothes. All oblivious to the fact that this inanimate object (sorry Bertha) might actually have people living in it. Now we don’t know what the story behind this teenage party was, but when we came to pay the following morning, the campsite owner was incredibly apologetic and sheepish, explaining the events of the previous night as “a catastrophe” and charging us for one night only. We guess it might have been a case of “Mum, can I have a few friends over please?”. We’d certainly recommend this campsite though.

From Brno, our ideal option would have been to explore the Moravian Karst region; rural Czech Republic at its best with exciting caves, gorges and the like. However, once we started researching it properly, we read that to go to the caves you have to book weeks in advance as they’re so popular… it’s not really that kind of trip for us. We’re lucky if we know what we’re doing 5 days in advance. Instead we took a very scenic route to Svitavy where there was the promise of a free aire, complete with motorhome facilities. Ideal – a place where we could catch up on some sleep.

Upon arrival, the car park was heaving and it was obvious from the placement of parked cars and vans that there was little regard for spaces reserved for motorhomes. We squeezed into a space and pondered our next move as we munched on some lunch. It soon became apparent that there was some sort of 5-a-side football tournament going on at the nearby stadium, so we decided to sit it out, wait until some of the cars cleared, then move into one of the motorhome spots where we could use the free electric hookup on offer. When it got to 7pm and there was no sign of movement we realised that our plan might not happen and soon our ears were ringing with a loud, repetitive “doof, doof, doof” (that’s meant to be a heavy bass beat). We had two options, either move on to… well, who knows or…

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Techno beats and football crowds aren’t normally a combination that attract us, but we actually quite enjoyed the evening at the stadium where there was a disco, a bucking bronco ride and World Cup games being shown on the big screen. The beer wasn’t bad either and at 20 CZK for half a litre it was both cheap and tasty. We were slightly bemused when we were handed little cans of promotional “Carling British Cider” (cherry flavoured – it tasted like cherryade) and if I were the letter-writing type, I would write to the British Embassy to ask them to rectify the situation. I come from Somerset. Enough said. Anyway, we retired at 11pm, expecting the revelry to finish imminently, but it wasn’t until 2am or 3am that it finally went quiet.

The football team who had camped next to us in the car park woke us up a mere 4 or 5 hours later, at 7am with another heavy bass beat and we realised that this would be a two day tournament. With no prospects of getting Bertha into the motorhome space any time soon, we instead chose to watch a few matches and cheer on our noisy neighbours.

And then it was all over. The car park was silent. We hopped into the motorhome space. And exhaled. Peace. If there’s one down side of this type of motorhoming, it’s the unfamiliarity of your surroundings. There’s a certain vulnerability about turning up somewhere and not knowing whether it will be noisy or quiet, whether you will feel safe or uncomfortable… whether you’ll even be able to stop there for the night. When your motorhome is your only sanctuary, it can be a bit tough. The last few nights have been, well, a little challenging we’ll admit (I think more so for Kiri). But for now, it’s so quiet. I think we’ve got a little bit of stillness. We’ll treasure it.

What is it about us and water? Nearly every single issue that Bertha has faced is to do with water… damp problems in the habitation area, leaking water heater, leaks in the roof, missing water tank cap… and once again.

We’d planned to do a short drive from our campsite in Bratislava to Devin Castle, so we did the standard emptying of the loo and filling up with fresh water at the campsite before we left, then set off on our way. We were just lamenting not being able to stock up with food at Lidl on the way (they were charging 2 Euros per hour to park there!), when suddenly there was a big clunk, followed by the sound of something scraping along the road. With hazard lights flashing, we checked mirrors, then slowly drifted into the side of the road to investigate. Kiri was first out of the van, therefore she discovered the culprit first; one of the brackets holding our fresh water tank had snapped, leaving the tank perilously close to the ground (but still intact) and the bracket in intimate contact with the road surface. Now the tank has appeared to have been getting lower for a while, but not really knowing what we could do about it, we’d chosen to ignore it. Probably a bad call. We were now stuck by the side of the road, at a bit of a loss. We got out our warning triangle and hi-viz jackets and decided the best course of action would be to lighten the tank (by draining off water), then use duct tape to hold it off the ground.

We were in the process of draining the water when a police car passed us… and didn’t stop. We were just about to start the duct tape fix when a Landrover stopped in front of Bertha and a guy in a suit got out. Now I’ve never met an angel before, so I’m not sure whether this guy actually was an angel, or just an incredibly selfless, kind and loving person. He asked us what the problem was, so we explained our plan with the duct tape and that we’d try to get back to the campsite to re-assess, as we’d probably need to find someone to fashion a new bracket for us. He was having none of it and, giving us his phone number, he said he lived in the next village and he would get it fixed for us. We’d just finished our temporary fix with the duct tape (great stuff!) and were gingerly heading towards the village, when we received a text message:

“Three miles, village Devin, right turn follow main road, up hill, church, doublepark on right, ring me, wait one minute. Tools and parts ready. Eddie”

Upon arrival, we did as instructed and sure enough, Eddie turned up with wire, ratchet straps and a guy called Mickey who was doing some building work on his house. He then proceeded to instruct Mickey in securing the fresh water tank properly to the sound parts of the frame, ensuring that the sharp edges of the metal frame wouldn’t cause the straps to fray. Half an hour later, Bertha’s water tank was more securely slung under the chassis than it’s ever been in our ownership. As Eddie said, under the Communist regime, you couldn’t just take your car to a mechanic, so you learned to fix things with whatever you had. Refusing payment of any sort (although we did give him a tin of Earl Grey tea), he asked us if there was anything else he could help us with before waving us on our way.

So… that was that then. We were once more on our merry way! We were ravenous by the time we arrived at Devin Castle at about 2:30, so treated ourselves to a meal out before climbing up the hill. The castle offers incredible views from its strategic position where the Danube and Morava rivers meet and there are interesting remains of various fortifications from over the years at the top of the hill. I’m not sure that we appreciated it quite as much as it deserved though, because we were still a little bewildered from the events of the previous few hours.

After a noisy night in the castle car park (we were the victims of the noise, not the perpetrators), we set off up towards the Czech Republic, planning to stop in Malacky overnight en route. Sadly, the overnight stop wasn’t suitable so after stocking up on baked beans and mature cheddar at Lidl (it’s British week there apparently) we moved on to Austria. As you do. We’re getting quite used to having to improvise!

We didn’t really want to leave Lake Balaton, but we realised that as we wouldn’t be able to stay there forever, we should probably move on. Now as I may have mentioned before, you can’t go to Hungary without visiting a spa – it’s a bit like going to Serbia and not having pljeskavica. We’d already missed two opportunities and we weren’t going to miss a third. Well, actually, our third opportunity was the Heviz Thermal Lake, but as we’d been swimming for free in Lake Balaton for the previous few days, we didn’t really fancy paying to swim in a different lake. Instead, we headed up to the town of Papa where there’s a campsite with an adjoining (discounted for campers) thermal spa. Not just any spa though, this one has jacuzzis, rapids and flumes. Now that’s our type of spa!

After exhausting the flumes, it was time to say goodbye to Hungary and move back into Slovakia. We’d spent some quality time in rural Slovakia before Hungary, so this time we set sail for Bratislava to see what the urban side of the country is like. Our campsite was about a 20 minute tram ride out of the city on a low-key Butlins-type lakeside resort, which we would probably describe as at the rustic end of the spectrum. It was a good location for seeing the city though and we had a great time exploring the area of the old town. There seems to be a bit of a pattern emerging when we arrive in a new city; we seek the high ground so that we can see the big picture; in this case it was the castle providing the vantage point. We didn’t go to any museums or sights particularly, but just enjoyed wandering around and noting the penchant the Bratislavans seem to have for bronze statues…

By mid-afternoon, we could feel the call of the lake back at our campsite and we didn’t resist it. As it’s part of a resort, there were all sorts of water sports going on at the lake including a cool wake-boarding / cable car mash-up, pedalo boats and kayaks, but we were more interested in some giant inflatables near the swimming area. They were obviously just setting up for the season, as we were asked to return to shore after about 5 minutes of playing on the inflatables and come back in an hour. At this stage, we got chatting to another couple who had been relegated to the beach area; Dan and El who are 3 weeks into a 4 week Interrailing adventure around Europe. As we’ve said before, it’s great talking to fellow travellers to appreciate other people’s viewpoints of the same places. An American girl joined in the conversation temporarily, but was obviously a little inebriated, offering gems of wisdom such as “Prague is totally my favourite city in like the whole of America” and lamenting “I’m from Florida, so don’t have a cute little accent like you guys”.

After returning to Bertha for dinner, we had a great evening with Dan + El next to their barbecue, chatting further about each others travels and aspirations for the future. It was hard to believe at times that they’re 10 years our junior and its further proof that age is just a number. When it was no longer light enough to see each other, we decamped to Bertha and played cards until well past all of our bedtimes.

We think we deserved our lie-in… in fact we might have stayed in bed a bit longer if we knew the challenges that we’d face today… but that story’s for another time!

Up until now, language hasn’t been a barrier for us in our communication and everyday life on the trip. We’ve made sure that everywhere we go, we can say the basics (“hello”, “please”, “thank you”, “1-10”, “where is the toilet?”, etc) in the local language and for everything else, we’ve either been in a situation that needs few words (like a supermarket), or a place where people speak English. OK, our pronunciation might not always have been great (I’d like to especially apologise to the Dutch here), but we’ve been able to communicate.

However, all this was to change this week as we left Budapest and made our way to Lake Balaton. We’ve got a Hungarian friend back in the UK (incidentally one of the people who had a go at soldering Bertha’s previous water heater) and when he found out that we would be travelling through Hungary, he said that we must visit his Mum. A great idea… only she doesn’t speak English, and we don’t speak Hungarian. Having received text message instructions on how to find her house and that our host would “probably try to feed you”, we arrived, not sure what to expect at all. What followed was an incredibly warm welcome with lashings of pork goulash and home-pickled vegetables. Our verbal communication left a lot to be desired, but with the help of a map and pointing and a few odd words of English / Hungarian here and there, we vaguely understood each other (maybe?!). There was clearly a barrier though, as we would have loved to have asked her about herself and her experiences of living through communism, as well as sharing our adventures… but we couldn’t. Some things don’t need words though, such as our appreciation of the Trabant in her back garden!

I’ve been aware of our reliance on other people speaking English in order to have any meaningful kind of conversation on this trip, but maybe not quite the scale of it until this point. Obviously, in an ideal world, we would have tried to be fluent in the languages of every country we’ve visited, but it’s just not possible when we’re spending so little time in each one, and it’s even harder with a language like Hungarian that’s so different from the surrounding countries. At least with Poland and Slovakia, we’ve been able to rely on what we picked up of Slovenian and Serbian to help prompt us (as they’re all part of the Slavic family). I’ve enjoyed observing the origins and commonalities between languages, which seem to remain as lingering shadows of past politics. I’m sure it’s no coincidence, given the history of Europe in the last 100 years, that German has proven a very useful language to converse in where the local language and English have failed. I’m so grateful for the basic language skills that I picked up at school!

The other area of language that I’ve observed with interest is that of late 20th and early 21st century words. There is no doubt that we live in an international world these days, so as new “things” enter the vernacular of a culture, they don’t appear to be constrained to a region. Internet. Email. Blog. Emoticon. OK, they’re pretty big “things”, but it’s interesting that the same word is used in multiple languages… is this a tiny step towards the start of language convergence?

I think what I’m trying to say through all this is that I’ve only just realised how much the etymology and history of languages fascinates me. Maybe one day we’ll move to a country where the first language isn’t English and I’ll have an excuse to dedicate proper time to learning a new language. Maybe Wales?

Anyway, after all of those words, I’ll let pictures speak about our last few days (where we stayed for free!) next to Lake Balaton:

I’ve always been a fan of “buy one get one free” offers and maybe this is why Budapest is so appealing; you get two cities for the price of one (Buda and Pest united in 1873… somehow I can’t see this happening with Liverpool and Manchester!). Add to the fact that our campsite had an offer of four nights for the price of three and you’ve got a good deal on your hands (eight for three?). Anyway, we decided to check out Pest first.

I’ve been to Budapest once before; back in 2009 and it’s interesting to see how much it’s changed in just 5 years. Whilst managing to retain a good clout of its character it appears to now be slightly more westernised than it used to be and one of the saddest victims (in my view) is that the Paprika museum is now a hairdressing salon. On my last visit, this little room-sized museum held someone’s lifetime’s dedication to the national spice of Hungary; pictures of paprika, memorabilia in the shape of paprika, paprika recipes and the history of paprika, plus a free shot of paprika vodka. Just as you thought you could take no more paprika, as you left, there was a little shop selling… umm… paprika. Alas, no more.

Anyway, paprika aside, we spent a sunny morning wandering around the streets of Pest, taking in the atmosphere before buying a hat for Kiri and settling down to eat our packed lunch by the chain bridge across to Buda. The afternoon was to take a slightly more sombre note as we visited the “House of Terror”; a building occupied firstly by the Fascist Arrow Cross Party, then the Communist Hungarian secret police and now housing a museum dedicated to the memory of those people tortured and murdered there. The things that struck me the most were the parallels between the Soviet and Nazi missions. Both had a vision of a utopia that they tried to bring into being, but both disregarded human life in their quest for fulfilling the “bigger picture”. They aimed to get rid of those who didn’t fit their mould; destroying diversity. Surely there must be other ways of achieving a utopia? Maybe Jesus and the Beatles were onto something when they said “all you need is love”? I’d like to think so…

On our return to the campsite, Bertha had a neighbour; a motorbike with a British numberplate and a tent. The owner of them was a great guy called Matthew, who (with his friend, Steve) were touring Europe at a much faster pace than us on their bikes, whilst raising money for Alzheimer’s disease. After munching on a barbecue (our second within three days!) we were joined by Matthew + Steve for the rest of the evening, who obviously weren’t put off by us pulling fish bones out of our teeth! We exchanged stories of the road until way past our bedtimes, fascinated by the challenges they face on bikes and their experiences of countries that we’d been to (as well as those that we had to miss out; especially the Balkans coastline). Just hearing about the sheer pace of their travels (16 countries in 16 days) left us feeling a little exhausted and they expressed that they were a little tired too as they decided to stay a second night at the campsite.

The following morning it was the turn of Buda, so we crossed the Chain Bridge and walked up the hill just in time to see the changing of the guard. Unlike the British Bearskins, these guys get to wear sunglasses on duty, but they’re still incredibly good at keeping their cool when tourists want to pose with them! After a short wander around the castle area, we headed down the hill, then up another one; this time the citadel, which gave cracking views of how flat Pest is. As we returned to the flat lands in search of icecream (I ended up with a scoop of camembert and a scoop of dark chocolate and chilli), we saw a lot of English football “lads”… from their singing and merriness it remained questionable whether they’d last until the England match at midnight. We certainly didn’t… after another great evening hanging out with Matthew + Steve, we crashed into bed just before midnight.

Our final day in the city happened to be Sunday, so we ventured to the International Church of Budapest. We’d been attracted by a line on their website saying that they welcome all, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. There we met people from different countries and backgrounds, but they were united in their welcome and love for Jesus and each other. We appreciated visiting such a real, sincere and unassuming church and we also appreciated being taken out for a Chinese lunch by Daniel (one of the leaders) after the service. We were both really encouraged by the conversations we had over the meal.

Our plan was to go to the Szechenyi Baths in the afternoon – you can’t go to Hungary without visiting a spa – it’s a bit like going to Spain and not having tapas. Oh, wait, we didn’t have any tapas when we were in Spain… bad analogy! Anyway, we weren’t really feeling it, so instead we just enjoyed the afternoon sunshine in a park. The journey back to the campsite was our last one on the metro and I was excited to read that when on the metro you are permitted to carry (amongst other things):

“one bundle of wrapped tree saplings”

No prizes for guessing what I intend to do next time I come to Budapest!

Our last evening on the campsite was accompanied by a concert next door with all of the favourites from the musicals… in Hungarian. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard We go together totally in Hungarian, whilst watching some random other campers waving lightsabers around!

Monday morning came and with it, our cue to leave Budapest. At a speed that Matthew + Steve would have been embarrassed by, we left Budapest to wend our merry way towards Lake Balaton. Maybe we’ll find a spa there?

When we arrive into a new country, we don’t really expect a big welcome, but Hungary pulled out all of the stops. We had hardly settled down for our first night, when our host (the very welcoming Peter at the Zonnebloem Palais warned us that a storm was on its way and it would be a big one. The first clue was ominous black clouds, darkening the sky. The next clue was the wind that whipped up from nowhere, slamming one of our windows shut. And then the incredible fork lightning started across the whole sky, accompanied by almost simultaneous thunderclaps as sheets of rain battered every side of Bertha. The inferno continued for a good half hour as we nervously ate our tea and then… it was all over. Bertha was still in one piece with no leaks. Wowsers. What a welcome. Thanks Hungary!

After a good night’s sleep, Peter encouraged us to pilfer his raspberry and strawberry patches, which we did gladly, before heading off towards Miskolc Tapolca where we planned to visit the thermal baths. Now you can’t go to Hungary without visiting a spa – it’s a bit like going to Italy and not having an icecream. Oh, wait, we didn’t have any icecream when we were in Italy… bad analogy! Anyway, the baths in Miskolc Tapolca are unique in that you can bathe in natural caves within the baths; sounds kind of cool. Well, actually, not so cool really, because they’re thermal… apparently 30 degrees celsius. Now this was a hot day and once we arrived at the baths, the last thing we wanted to do was jump into hot water, so we vowed to go to some baths when we were in Budapest instead. Without further ado we headed to a campsite on the way to Budapest that turned out to be great on two counts; firstly it had beautiful flora and fauna and secondly it permitted barbecues… and we had meat!!! Happiness ensued and we even marinated some asparagus and threw that on the barbie too.

We didn’t really want to leave the campsite as it was so idyllic, but Budapest was calling us (we think… as we’ve really struggled with the language, it might have been telling us to keep away) so we hit the road. The road promptly hit us back. The motorway in Hungary has a really good quality surface, as do several minor roads which have recently been re-surfaced. The minor roads that we had to take hadn’t been recently re-surfaced, so it was a little bit of a bumpy and slow journey, but with the promise of free washing machines at our campsite in Budapest, we persevered. A momentous occasion happened en route; Bertha’s odometer passed 40000 miles (even though we’re driving in kilometres over here)… not bad for a 24 year old!

The temperature had constantly been above 30 degrees for the last few days and as it was showing no sign of letting up, drastic measures were called for. Scissors in one hand, razor in the other, I headed to the shower block. 20 minutes later, I emerged with a naked face and realised that being clean-shaven doesn’t really contribute to body temperature. Add to this that my flat cap looks silly when not paired with a beard plus it takes a lot of effort to shave each day, and you may be pleased to know (or, more realistically, you will be totally ambivalent) that the beard is on its way back.

Time to explore Budapest!

What’s the best way to get down a mountain? Some might say on skis, or snowboards. Others might choose a more sedate option of a cable car. Others might suggest that legs are made for walking. And me? It has to be a toboggan run. Ever since the first time I went on a summer toboggan run in Dürrnberg, Austria a few years ago, I have questioned why these are not compulsory on every mountain. I tried to contain my excitement when I read that there was a summer toboggan run in Tatranská Lomnica… and I was wise to do so, as it’s just a self-contained loop rather than something that takes advantage of the mountain’s topography. However, at 3 Euros a pop, it had to be sampled (without touching the brakes obviously). Happy after a pleasant ride, it was time to leave the mountains and head a little deeper into Slovakia.

I felt a bit bad dragging Kiri away from the mountains she loves so much, but we were heading for a beautiful campsite in the Slovensky Raj national park. At 7.50 Euros per day, it’s not breaking the bank and it’s a small price to pay for facilities and security (police vehicles appeared to patrol the campsite at least twice a day!). We even had a view of the Tatra mountains that we’d left behind and on the sunny evening we arrived, it was ideal weather for a barbecue. We headed to the campsite shop to buy meat. No meat. No barbecue.

Our first full day at the campsite was a Sunday, but as all of the nearby churches seemed a little intimidating, we decided to worship God in His creation by going on one of the gorge walks that Slovensky Raj is famous for. The day promised to be another scorcher and with an early start under our belts, we headed for the shade of what was described as the quietest gorge of the park; Piecky. The free leaflet also suggested that we

Make a stop at the places where you feel the presence of depth and flow of time

We’re not sure what that means, but we kept it at the back of our minds as we entered the the gorge, accompanied only by the call of birds and the burbling of the crystal clear stream. We really are in a beautiful part of the world… but I couldn’t help but get a little sentimental as I thought back to a family member’s recent tweet; “foston flower festival. In the tea tent in the rain. #veryenglish“. Anyway, back to the gorge – we were guided along the stream by yellow markers painted onto the trees. At first, these weren’t really needed as the path was pretty clear, however after a while things got a bit trickier and it wasn’t clear which side of the stream we should be on. Should we listen to Abba or Ghostbusters? (“I’ll cross the stream” vs “Don’t cross the streams”). Sometimes it was just easier to walk in the stream! We then reached our first waterfall. With a long metal ladder. The only way was up (baby?). Now this is more like it! What followed from then onwards was a network of wooden and metal bridges, ladders, handholds and footholes as we navigated ever upwards to the top of the gorge. So much more fun than a normal walk!

Once we got to the top, the path joined with that of another gorge walk (Sucha Bela), from which hordes of tourists were pouring suddenly; we were glad we’d chosen the quiet route! After a quick spot of lunch, we faced the realisation that there was no cable car to get back down to the campsite. Or a toboggan. Walking it was then! After descending for an hour and a half (and seeing a snake… or maybe it was a slow worm?), the lump on my knee was the size of a golf ball and my hayfever, which had been bad all day, reached new heights of annoyance. The medicinal effects of icecream worked wonders on both though, sustaining us until we collapsed in the shade of Bertha 15.4km after leaving her that morning. It was here we remained until dinner time… ideal weather for a barbecue. We headed to the campsite shop to buy meat. No meat. No barbecue.

That’s twice now that we’ve been denied a barbecue by lack of meat, so the following day we made it our quest to find meat (besides, our other food was running a little low). We therefore set out on a lovely stroll to the nearby village of Hrabušice, where we found a little food shop. Our choice of meat was frozen chicken or unidentifiable frozen meat (bear? otter? who knows!) and as we didn’t fancy de-frosting stuff, we gave it a miss, instead just buying vegetables using the age-old method of pointing and hoping that the Slovakian numbers I said were correct. Laden with our 40 carrots (only joking!), we returned to the campsite and evaluated the rest of the day. We both would have loved to tackle another gorge, but the prospect of having to do another downhill made my Ibuprofen-laden knee wince, so we decided to make it a day off.

Dinner time came… ideal weather for a barbecue. We headed to the campsite shop to buy meat. You know the rest. Barbecued carrot anyone?

Satnavs are never wrong. Ever. Points of interest that you’ve loaded into them are also never wrong. Ever. And routes chosen to get to said points of interest (in this case a campsite) are never wrong. Ever. And it is precisely for these reasons that we found ourselves on a narrow path which looked like it had been broken up by the result of some tectonic plate movements, whilst being brushed on all sides by trees. But we were definitely going the right way and there would definitely be a campsite at the end of it. There wasn’t. Hey, at least we didn’t have to go back the same way… oh, wait, yes we did!

What with both the campercontact POI and the TomTom POI for our planned campsite leading us to places which wouldn’t remotely look like campsites, even if you screwed up your eyes really tightly, we did what anyone in our position would do; retire to a Lidl car park to re-assess and get online. Alas, there was no internet signal, so we winged it and stopped at the first campsite we saw at the side of the road. The access to it was… ummm… a bit of a steep descent, but the price was right and after a conversation in a mix of Slovakian, German + English (conducted whilst stroking a lovely dog who gave us a very enthusiastic welcome), we realised that we had somehow landed ourselves on a beautiful terraced campsite next to a stunning reservoir. A great place to spend our first night in Slovakia. Spontaneity 1, planning 0!

The following morning, we soaked up the surroundings, topped up and emptied the necessaries and had a couple of slightly disappointing showers before trying to leave. Yes, I used the word “trying” there. Bertha doesn’t like going up hills. Especially when her engine’s not fully warmed up. On the first attempt, we got half way up the hill before stalling, so rolled back down to get a bit of a running start. The second time was better (with a little more choke), getting us up to the corner, where once again we stalled (this time, my bad clutch control after a bit of wheel spin). Back to the start (where the campsite team were watching this amusing spectator sport). This time, Kiri got out and ran ahead of Bertha, which seemed to be the motivation that Bertha was waiting for, as she made it all the way to the top, with no problems at all. We were on our way and boy, did we have some lovely views during the drive.

Our destination was the ski resort of Tatranska Lomnica, with the promise of a free car park. This time our trusty TomTom didn’t let us down and after a quiet night in the shadow of the mountain, it was time to explore. Now I’m not sure whether our previous blog posts, photos or videos of the trip so far have fully communicated how much Kiri loves mountains? It’s a lot and as we were so close to this one, there was no getting out of climbing it (not that I really wanted to get out of it). Ideally we wanted to get to the very top (Lomnický štít), but with no walking routes and at a cost of 26 Euros each to use the cable car from the 2nd station (Skalnaté Pleso) up to the peak, we decided instead that we could cope with just hiking up to the 2nd station.

It was a stunning walk and the weather was just right; a mix of sunshine and cloud (with the occasional spot of rain) ensured that we didn’t get too hot, but that it was nicely pleasant. Rather than taking the most direct route, we chose to walk across the mountain to Hrebienok, then up from there. This provided us with mainly forest walking throughout the 11km hike (it sounds more if you write it in kilometres rather than miles!) on a path reinforced with large boulders. There were some awesome, thundering waterfalls on the way and some cracking viewpoints from which we could (almost) spot Bertha hundreds of metres below us (898 to be precise once we were at the top). Actually, we didn’t make it to the “proper” top, but we did get to Skalnaté Pleso, which gave us some pretty good views up to the peak.

And here came our dilemma… we had to get back down. Now I’ve got a dodgy knee (after an accident with some Heelys 8 years ago… don’t ask!) and even with the use of walking poles, going downhill is quite painful. However, a single ticket on the cable cars down to the car park came to 13 Euros each. Should we walk, or be carried? Kiri (with her greater fitness level than me and lovely knees) was up for walking, whereas I was up for being carried. We toyed with the idea of a compromise of separate descents (I bet you thought the compromise was Kiri carrying me!), but I wasn’t happy about Kiri on her own on a mountainside. She had a point when she said she’d done the whole coast to coast on her own, therefore she would have been fine in this situation too, but in the end she saw sense (can I get away with saying that?!). 26 Euros later, we were sitting in Bertha, replenishing our salt levels with crisps and nuts and replenishing lost fluid with a lovely local beer (as well as water – don’t worry Mum!).

We really have missed the mountains – don’t get us wrong, the flatlands of northern Europe have been beautiful – but mountains are something else.

Parking appears to be big business in the south of Poland; at Auschwitz we (nay, I) blindly followed the directions of the first person in a hi-viz jacket to a car park before thinking “hang on, we want to be somewhere else”, then going there. Wise to this ploy though, in Wieliczka we passed the hoards of hi-viz-jacket-wearing touts and hung on for the official car park. I swear that this town’s main income (after the salt mine) is car/coach/motorhome parking!

Once tucked away in the corner of the official car park, we assessed our surroundings. We had a parking space, a 24 hour guard, free municipal wifi, and access to a toilet block for our 30 zloty, but nowhere to fill up with water (unless we tapped a fire hydrant… now there’s a thought!). We also needed to empty our toilet… but weren’t sure whether we’d be allowed to in the shiny-looking toilet block. Commence operation flush! After monitoring the guard’s movements (no, not like that) for about 15 minutes, we realised he occasionally left his post, which would give us time to heft our cassette across to the block without him noticing. Timing and subtlety would be everything. The guard moved… we stirred… but then he was back at his post. Too slow. He moved again, and we were off. Apparently my nonchalant swagger whilst carrying a Thetford toilet cassette across a car park coupled with whistling isn’t particularly subtle, but it was enough to fool the guard. Mission accomplished! Ah, the joys of motorhoming; doing stuff that you would never think about in normal life!

Anyway, enough about loos… we were at the salt mines; one of the greatest attractions near Krakow, with over 1 million visitors a year. Our guide for the day was Magdalena; without whom the tour would have been as boring as walking around a mine for 3 hours talking about salt. The injection of her dry wit and humour throughout really brought the tour to life though, and we found ourselves rather captivated by the tiny fraction of the 300km of underground tunnels, chambers and lakes we saw. We also learned that Magdalena is allowed to lose up to 5 tourists a month in the mines and that you shouldn’t talk to strangers underground. 2 hours into the tour, we were shown a map with 3 queues to join; 2 would take you to the surface and the third would take you on the remainder of the tour. As we joined the third one, we were warned by another guide that it would take another hour and be another 2km of walking. We said that was ok. Another guide then checked that we were sure that we wanted to continue, rather than return to the surface. These dissuasion tactics didn’t work on us (thanks Ju + Jay for the advice!), but they must have on some; our group now consisted of us and a Japanese lady, rather than the 40 who started with us. We’re definitely glad we stayed; the second part was just as engaging as the first.

As our eyes adjusted to the sunlight once we were above ground again, our quest was to find water (all of that salt makes you thirsty!). The local supermarket had 5 litre bottles for 1.55 zloty each (approximately 30p), so we grabbed a couple of those and topped up Bertha’s fresh water tank, before proceeding to consume Paluski… a very tasty, but salty snack!

The following morning, we paid a rather bemused guard for another night in the car park (it’s cheaper than a campsite for visiting Krakow) then headed for the 304 bus stop. We had an hour and a half to spare until the start of a church service we wanted to attend in Krakow, so plenty of time. We waited. No bus. Half an hour later, no bus. So we headed to the train station… next train in an hour and a half. We tried another 304 bus stop… this one had a red line through it, which is a pretty universal sign for “not in use” (maybe it should have said “404 – not found”?). Doh. As we arrived at the 204 bus stop, we saw a temporary “304” sign on it, so caught the 304 bus into town, arriving exactly 10 minutes too late for church. Maybe God didn’t want us to go? So, instead we watched some people defying physics with bikes.

We could have watched the flying magicians all day, but we realised that we would miss out on the rest of Krakow, so we ventured into the old town, where we found a procession of children, dragons and drums in the main square. As you do. All this surrealism works up an appetite and the street food we sought was the zapiekanka… a cross between a Subway and a pizza. The way to enjoy it is best described with a picture I think:

Having consumed our body weight in cheesy bready tastiness next to a purple Trabant, we returned once more to the centre of Krakow, where once again we encountered people in strange costumes. We also encountered a protest (not sure what it was about) and hoards of people trying to push city tours in our faces as we tried to find suitable postcards to send back to the UK. Having narrowed the choices down to two (which we named “trippy” and “creepy”… we’re all about the unique postcards!), we decided that we’d maybe had too much excitement for one day, so retreated to Bertha back by the salt mines.

As we woke on our 3rd morning at the mines, Bertha’s fresh water warning light was flashing ominously. We passed the guard on our way to get another few bottles of water from the supermarket, who kindly charged us only 20 PLN for our final night here (“maybe if I reduce the price, these crazy people will leave?”). With 20 more litres of water in Bertha (and plenty more than that falling from the skies), we set off for Krakow again; finding it rather more subdued and rather less surreal than the previous day. We dutifully wandered around Wawel Castle, but we weren’t really “feeling it” as we were both feeling a little under the weather (in more ways than one). So, we found shelter in the Milk Bar and had our first proper meal out of the trip (with real crockery and knives and forks!); 2 courses and drinks for under a tenner for us both. You can’t say fairer than that. At least not in Polish. Actually, we can’t say much in Polish…

Having selected “creepy” over “trippy”, we bought stamps, then returned to the salt mines on a very crowded bus. I’ll give you a clue where we’re off to next, with a story that one of my friends told me. He’d been looking for a cleaner for his flat for a while, and finally selected a very friendly Polish girl. On her first day, he headed out to work, leaving a note asking her to hoover his flat. He returned after work to find that she’d only managed half of one room. It turns out she wasn’t a Pole after all; she was a Slovak. Slow-vac. Get it? As in slow at vacuuming… play on words…? I’ll get my coat.

First impressions matter… or so they say. But maybe not in Poland. As we crossed over the border from Germany, the smooth tarmac motorway gave way to an “interesting” road surface, accompanied by a sign warning us that this would continue for 13.5km. 13.5km later there was a sign warning that this would continue for a further 17km. 17km later… you get the picture. The carriageway going in the opposite direction? As smooth as a lake on a still day. Add in a few other road-surface-related signs and we wondered whether all roads were like this in Poland.

It wasn’t to last though, and soon we were driving on wide, smooth roads. Bertha was just breathing a sigh of relief, when a storm of biblical proportions threw all sorts of things at us. With torrential rain, huge claps of thunder and stunning fork lightning, I’d picked a good time to swap out of the driving, so it was Kiri who had to cope with driving through flash-floods. An hour later, all was calm and the sun was shining once more as we stopped for the night at the home of a lovely German ex-pat couple who open their garden for use by motorhomes. Along with a Dutch motorhome, we were the only guests and we received a very warm and enthusiastic welcome… totally in German!

This is where the tone of the blog post changes I’m afraid, for our next stop on the route was the town of Oświęcim, better known by its German name of “Auschwitz”. Why were we going there? Well, there was no simple answer really. A few years ago I went to Dachau, near Munich and I found it an extremely grim experience, seemingly devoid of hope. Why would I put myself through something like that again? Was it some kind of masochistic tourism? I battled with these questions and the best conclusion I came to was that without being in that place and seeing the scale of it, genocide would just remain a concept in my mind. I had a need to see it first hand in order to connect with the concept. I can’t put it better than Jay did – to not go would be cowardice.

If you want to know the history of Auschwitz, or what there is to see at the two remaining sites I would recommend that you steel yourself and go there. Nothing that I write about my experience will be eloquent enough to communicate the feelings you get as you walk the paths that so many people have walked before. The 3 words that kept going around in my head throughout the visit were “people are people”. You may have a different job to me. You may have a different faith. You may be a different age, have a different culture, come from a different country. But you, like me, are a person. Somewhere, someone didn’t recognise this. Labels were applied. The rest is gruesome history. After a harrowing day, we had the privilege of being able to walk out of the gates.

Yet Auschwitz isn’t a place devoid of hope. Yes, there’s a “feeling” about the place, but birds do sing. Flowers are laid. And millions of people go there every year; there’s hope in that. I only took one photo at Auschwitz (not the best photo I’ve ever taken); my aim being to capture a moment of hope – here a group of Jews having an impromptu service in the courtyard of the notorious block 11 where so many had been shot.

And Kiri found hope in one of the printed information boards.

For once I’m at a loss to know how to end a blog post. Sorry.