Czech Beerepublic, Hitlers hideout and a cold Top Gear afternoon

11th May - Camping Sokol, Prague, Czech Republic

As expected it was a bit of a slow morning and we were glad the drive was not a long one, it was an interesting one however. We decided to take the toll road and weren't quite sure about the vignette (payed toll roads) so kind of just kept driving, kept driving kind of knowing that you need a sticker on your windshield, kept driving despite seeing the sign and interpreting it to suit us.....

Sure enough a cop van pulls in front of us and after a while a little electronic sign illuminates in their back window instructing us to follow them and pull over. It took about 10min of Natty fluttering her eye lids and pleading with them that it was an honest mistake (which it kind of was...sort of...maybe) and they eventually let us go without paying the fine but instructed to buy the ticket at the next petrol station.

So Nat buttoned her top back up and we took off to find the petrol station which didn't have any. We were told to go to the shopping mall down the road and sure enough as we arrived we parked right next to the same police men. They either thought we ignored them and went to do some shopping or they knew we were purchasing it in the mall. After I explained they said we could find it inside no problem. As we pulled in we had a crazy man directing us into the car park then showing me some piece of paper with scribble stating "meah....meah.." (I still don't know what he was on about) then another Czech man came up to me and only asked how much BB cost and walked off, so all in all a pretty weird afternoon.

We made it to the campsite and Nat researched the "to do's" in Prague and I did....nothing.

12th to 13th May - Camping Sokol, Prague, Czech Republic

It didn't take long for both Nat and I to fall in love with Prague. The weather was great, the atmosphere electric and we loved the general feel of the place. Its said that Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and we would have to agree.

We checked out the Old Town square, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish quarter, Letna beer garden with no beer but a great view of the city. We also saw Prague castle (Prazky Hrad) which is the top destination in Prague but I think we enjoyed the city more.

 

 

Main Square

 

 

 

 

 

Changing of the guard at the castle



All of a sudden I want to exercise

During the two days we sampled many beers at various breweries and bars. The first stop was the Prague beer museum which was really just a pub but with loads of beers on tap. I had a beer sampler and Nat had a girly beer.

Before

During

After

 

We then went to Pivovarsky Klub (micro brewery) for lunch and they had 240 beers available. Nat had the Svickova with knedliky which is meat with sauce, cream and dunplings (4 euros) and I had a pork knuckle with sour kraut and dumplings (9 euros). It was all damn tasty and extremely good value. It was a tram ride out of the tourist area and a popular place for the well informed and the locals.

Some Aussie beers in there as well

 

Before

 

After

We also checked out the Staropramer brewery for some home brews and lunch the next day followed by another microbrewery, U Fleku, for a "vegemite beer", well actually the only beer you could buy from this place which was a dark beer.

What you see is what you get and nothing more

 

We then went to the Pivovarsky Dum for some more beer tasting including a banana beer and fruit dumplings....... I think that's it for the two days.

 

 

Oh and some more beer back at the caravan park where I watched the Czech Vs Canada ice hockey match (world championships)

No wonder the Czech has had the highest beer consumption per capita for the last 20 years.


A city definitely on the "could visit again" list.

Number of times beer was mentioned above = 16, new blog record

14th to 15th May - Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

Time to leave Prague and check out what the rest of Czech has to offer. It turns out there is a lot more than we thought. We spoke to someone in the tourist office whilst in Prague and gave us a good idea of our travel path. First stop...........you guessed it another Castle!!!!!

Karlstejn Castle in the valley of the Berounka River. Built by the Bhomian King and Roman Emperor Charles IV as a place to store royal treasures...apparently. The towers weren't open for tours during the week (makes sense) and the other tours were of rooms that I have seen a hundred times so we looked around where we could and continued on our way, much the delight of Natty.

 

 

78m water well

 

We headed towards Plzen, the birth place of the modern Pilsner beer and the beer capital of the Czech Republic. I took the tour around the brewery of the famous Pilsner Urquell while Nat entertained herself in BB. Before the tour we had a drink in the enormous beer hall and I bought a bar mat to add to my collection.

 

 

Beer tasting

 

The tour was good, nothing really that different to what I have seen before. At the end we got to have a beer from the barrel before the filtering and all that which was cool.

We continued the drive towards Karlovy Vary, the sun was out and with the blue sky it was pretty picturesque. We found a small campsite (looked like someone's back yard) with a nice gentlemen that let us in after hours. Only 12 euros and a short walk from the city so it was a good deal.

The town was really nice (used in one of the bond movies) although the sun struggled to shine like the day before when we arrived.

 

 

 

 

We walked around for a while and then grabbed our bathers ready for a spa....a spa that turned out to just be a public pool with 30% natural spring water at about 30% the heat it should have been. Not quite what we had in mind but still relaxing none the less. So after about 45 minutes and watching a very large hairy man having back sex with the water jet in one of the spa's we decided it was time to head off.

The change rooms were interesting, as I was having a shower in the open showers, as expected in change rooms, a female staff member decides to walk through and squeegee/mop the floors. Without a care in the world there she is conducting her business as nude men are washing, walking and more awkwardly bending over all around her, gotta love Europe!

16th May - Strakonice, Czech Republic

We took the scenic route from Karlovy Vary towards Strakonice which included a couple of u turns on small bumpy roads but the scenery was pretty good

Nat had some flash backs having been here 22 years ago which is something Nat isn't liking by the way. Not the fact that it was 22 years ago but the fact that she can now actually remember things 22 years ago. Its all downhill from here.

We drove into the campsite that she and her parents had been at and remembered it like it was yesterday. We were the only ones there, i'm still not convinced they were technically open but they let us in. We walked along the river into the town and then relaxed back at BB and enjoyed the sound of the rain and some free wifi.

The bridge that Nat remembers

 

17th to 18th May - Freilessing Camperplaats, Germany (Salzburg visit)

I woke up in the morning feeling a little off so it was a slow start as we  headed off towards Ceske Budejovice where we checked out the main square.

Not all towns are pretty

But the scenery was still easy on the eye 

 

The place was absolutely dead with most of the shops shut and there wasn't a whole lot to see. So we did what comes naturally and found the local brewery and had a beer and some lunch. Sure enough the beer helped the cold and we had some good grub. Another popular place for both tourists and locals it seems.

 

 

 

 

After lunch we headed to Cesky Krumlov, which I must say is one of my favourite city names so far! Especially when Nat says it, she sounds like a sexy Russian. We couldn't find the camper place so parked BB up where we could and walked into town. A really cool little town and set up beautifully for tourists with little shops and cafes everywhere and a river that surrounds the centre. The castle was elevated and we walked up the tower to check out the view.

One of the entrances into the city

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having already ticked off two towns we still had some time left in the day and decided to continue our drive towards Salzburg. We didn't get there till about 9pm but found a free spot just over the border into Germany.  Having grown up in Australia I still find it awesome that I can stay in Germany whilst visiting a city in Austria.

The weather forecast wasn't great but the next day we had sunshine all day. Salzburg was pretty with some nice looking buildings and an "old school" feel to it. We actually drove BB into the city and parked on the street which was pretty easy and free on Sundays. We saw Mozart's birth place, which we then realised we had driven past in BB before looking for a park, ha...seen it twice now.

 

 

Mozart's House

 

 

Mozart's birthplace

 

 

 

 

 

We walked around some more, had some lunch and headed to the trick fountain at the Hellbrun Palace. Basically a garden with all sorts of water "tricks" aimed to entertain and wet the surprised guests of the Prince-Archbishop of Sulzburg. More money well spent by the upper class.

 

 

 

  

After a short tour we visited the palace which nearly put me to sleep, enough said. One highlight was Nat seeing the gazebo from the Sound of Music.

"I am 16 going on 17..."

 

We drove back to the campsite and decided to park in the car park over the road which had more space. We parked up and noticed three van/cars with Bulgarian plates, the guys were moving a huge stack of tyres from one vehicle to another .......

Now I don't dare make any assumptions and upset anyone so they were probably just on a boys road trip and wanted to take extra provisions in case of a flat tyre. Of coarse with no hubs on the stack of tyres I assume they had all the correct tools. Or they may all be in the tyre business and are a small company that use unmarked vans and their loading dock is the car park. Anyway i'm sure it was all legal but we made extra sure our doors were locked and welded and we also rented a guard dog for the night.

19th May - Obernau Camperplaats, Austria

We were on our way to Hitlers Eagles Nest but when we enquired at the local tourist office we found out it was closed today, we later found out that it had been closed for the last couple of weeks due to the late snow fall they had. So we re-grouped and decided to check out Koningsee which is a small lake within the mountains. Nice area and again set up for tourists with souvenir shops and cafes everywhere. The clouds came over as soon as we finished the short walk to the lookout spot which was nice, that meant we needed an ice cream and headed back to BB.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brenda cracked a fit and deserved a punch in the face but we found a rather nice camper place up in the mountains with a cracking view. Nat had a few words with a couple who decided to drive onto our pitch as we went to empty and fill the camper. We didn't leave anything to hold the spot but I guess a little rude of them.

  

Our spot

 

The view

 

 

 

20 to 21st May - Birkenstrand, Wolfgangsee, Austria

We drove just a short way to the car park for Eagles Nest which luckily was open today. I hopped on the bus while Nat stayed in BB for the duration, doing girly stuff.

You can only get there by bus and you can see why, pretty steep and once at the top there isn't a lot of space for parking. You walk through a tunnel and then up the lift to reach the building. The building is actually relatively small, well smaller than what I thought. There were tours and I managed to catch the end of one but you can pretty much see most of it anyway. Its actually a restaurant now so you need to use your imagination a bit.

Although it was cool to so see it, the view and the setting was almost the main reason for going up there. You could see a mile and there was still snow around which also gave it an awesome look.

Looking back at it from a short walk through the snow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The view from the base

The structure was completely untouched during the heavy bombing of the area at the end of WWII. Some say because the Eagles Nest was thought to be a huge palace, they were not looking for something as small. During the bombing the Nazis also had young boys up there with smoke canisters to try and hide the structure. The tourist guide's father was one of those boys. Hitler only visited it about ten times so it wasn't a regular hangout with the fellas. It was actually a gift for his 50th birthday (and an extension of an existing mountain retreat) and is located in Germany but with a view of his home land Austria.

After the nest we drove to Wolfgangsee and again followed Brenda's directions, again taking the wrong turn and again wanting to smash Brenda in the face. We finally made it and it was quite nice, we chilled and Nat got some sun.

 

 

On our way to the camp site

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

22nd May - Lend, Camperplaats, Austria

 

On our way to the ice caves

 

 

The steep detour to Bad Aussie

 

Today was the ice caves, the Eis Reisenwelt. The drive up to the car park was probably the steepest drive we have done with a slope over 22%.  I got in a little bit of a pickle on one very steep hairpin and was stuck in first heading up a particularly steep climb, but BB made it.

Then it was time for our legs to get out of first gear, with a short steep climb to the cable car, the cable car ride, then another steep 20min walk up to the caves themselves. Something that wasn't in the brochure, by the time we got the top I was so hot all I wanted to do was walk into a big freezer...

The cave at the top left is the entrance

 

And then we did, the tour took 90min through the caves which are meant to be the largest in the world. There were ice formations and sheets of ice everywhere, the tour guide would place a light behind or at the base of particular ice formations with a resulting glow throughout the ice, it was really cool. The entrance to the cave is actually sealed off with a door and when the door is opened there's a huge wind, that can reach up to 100km per hour, due to the temperature difference of the air inside and outside the cave.

We couldn't take any photos and even if we could it would be pretty difficult, by the end of the tour I started to get "hawkes lips" and our hands were freezing. The 90min duration I think was just about right.

View from the walk back from the caves

We then headed to the camperplaats which was actually someones farm, again the view was awesome.

 

 

23rd to 24th May - Nattersee, Innsbruck, Austria

Today it was time to drive the Grossglockner alpine pass, Top Gear style. Well a slower and fatter style of Top Gear. The weather looked good from where we started and at the base of the pass, however someone didn't tell the rest of the team and we drove into winter. It was still an awesome drive and cool to see it in its winter clothes but also definitely something we will do again, in a smaller car, during the peak summer.

 

 

 

The first corner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BB did pretty well, at one time on the way down we stopped for a break and could smell the brakes (and also see it smoking!!), so we extended the break a little more to make sure we could stop in future, pretty logical really. It wasn't necessarily the slope of the road, which averaged about 10%, but the length of it with no let up. There were minimal flat bits (obviously) so even in low gear the brakes got a work out.

After the drive we headed towards Innsbruck and drove pretty much in sun shine, damn it! It was about a 3 hour drive with nice scenery all the way.

 

 

 

 

We parked up at the campsite and chilled.

The next day we caught the bus into the city and checked it out. Nice city with mountains in the background and an upbeat atmosphere. Nat's dad once owned a jewellery store here but we couldn't locate the exact position. We had a drink along the river and took it easy for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

So that is that for Austria for now, definitely in the top 3 countries we have visited thus far and definitely on our 'to return" list. The list that appears to be longer than this blog by the way.