Farewell Slovenia, Hello Austria – Schwanberg.

Zagan the motorhome is unsure what language to speak, in the last few days he’s left the comfort of Croatian campsites, wildcamped in Slovenia and now is sitting in a free stellplatz in Schwanberg, Austria (N46.76340, E15.20639).

Last night we did two foolish things. Firstly we checked to see what the rules were around parking in the car park we were in, as all the cars left. It turned out that it was free (barriers all up) on Sundays, but charges start on Monday morning at 6am. As we were already in the car park, and the barriers were up on entry, we had no ticket. Jay worked out that we could press the ‘lost ticket’ button and would be charged €4, not bad for a day and night of parking right next to the town, when the camperstop up the road was charging €20.

The second foolish thing we did was prompted by our good friends Phil and Jules who we first met at Pont du Gard in their Glambulance. Now upgraded to Big Ben the Hymer, we’d previously been invited to tour Morocco with them this coming winter, then during a slightly inebriated Skype conversation we mentioned we want to get fit and might try to do a half marathon. A couple of days ago the email came through to say they have registered for the Marrakech half marathon, so you can guess what it was that did also last night.

During the night I twice dreamt that 6am had come around and we were trapped in the car park in various ways. When I woke up, the sun was also up and the local traffic was on the move. I glanced at the clock by our bed, 8.15am, time to get up. I crawled out of bed and grabbed our small alarm clock we have on the table (so we have to get up to turn it off), hang on, that says 6.15am. I peeped out of the curtains and the barriers were still up, climbing back into bed Jay was awake too, so that was it – we decided to get up and save ourselves 4 litres of beer by shifting Zagan to a patch of land we’d spotted around the corner. By the time we’d parked up we were both wide awake, so at 7am we went out for a jog – half marathon training has begun, needless to say Charlie stayed in bed.

After showers and breakfast we set off for Austria, burning up the miles on the Slovenian motorways accompanied by suitable tunes.

Austria or Hungary, choose your lane

We dropped off the motorway just before the border with Austria, as we hadn’t thought to stop and buy a vignette for Austria’s motorways. As we reached the border we weren’t all that surprised to see that everything was funnelled down to one lane which was manned by guards. We stopped next to the booth and said hello, the guard tried to lean in the window for a look into Zagan but he’s a bit high up, so he asked in German if there were only two of us, ‘Zwei und ein Hund’ I replied, he nodded and motioned that us mad English fools with a vague grasp of German were OK to proceed.

Coming up to the Austrian border

Franz and Veronica who we met on Camping Rozac in Croatia had suggested we have a look around ‘Austrian Tuscany’, and as we were passing within a couple of miles we made a detour. The area around Gamlitz in Southern Styria has rolling hills and lots of small wine producers. We tootled around the area but found that while it was nice, it was a little disappointing after having been to Tuscany. We seem to find this with many places that bill themselves as things like ‘Venice of ….’, once you have been to Venice, they are nothing in comparison.

As we turned north, towards our stop for the night, the vineyards made way for fields of hops. We found ourselves behind one of the machines that helps keep Austrian verges pristine, it had three arms cutting the grass on the other side of the barrier. We have no idea how many people were operating it, but we were reluctant to overtake it, preferring to sit behind and enjoy the show.

Arriving in Schwanberg we discovered that the services are only open when it is ‘pay season’ for the stellplatz. So for now it is simply a free parking place, which after our early start this morning will do us fine. We went for a walk around the town and climbed the hill up to the church above it to take in the views around us as thunder rumbled around us. In the distance we could make out the castle at Deutchlandesburg, where we stopped in 2012 – we are starting to almost repeat ourselves.

Schwanberg

Loving the heart shaped seats here

Several Jesus’ looked over us as we climbed up to the castle, then he was there again at the top making us feel a tad awkward.

Back in the town we spotted a Tabak/Trafik shop that sold vignettes, but it was closed for lunch. After a nap back in Zagan I headed back into town and used my best schoolgirl German to buy one. I’d forgotten that people say hello to you in Austria with a nice Gruβ Gott as you pass in the street, and also how many things are ‘verboten’ (forbidden), as it is on almost every sign we see. I suspect it’s not as strong in German as it is in English, as one sign translated to Entry Forbidden, where as we would put No Entry.

This is how they keep their lawns pristine here – automated Ferrari lawnmowers!

Lots of cool, shiny wind sculptures in the town – I think this one is my favourite

Tea is on, the beer and wine are flowing (not quite Drunk Monday but a well deserved treat) and the maps are out again – where to next. Now we have motorway access to the whole of Austria is ours!

Ju x