Vienna - Linz

Today's Route

It rained all night last night, and the awning blew itself against the van and was tap tapping against it all night. When eventually I could take it no more and got up to see what it was (I thought it was the table that was also propped against the van) when I opened the van door I got a face full of awning fabric – which was a bit of an unpleasant suprise. Of course then I couldn't shut the door again because the awning was right there – so I had to go outside (it was about 3am) to sort it out. Grr.

Also, Jon was having trouble sleeping because there was a loud dripping in his corner of the van – so he decided to try sleeping upside down (that is with his feet at the head end, rather than on his hands or anything) which was a bit disruptive. So all in all – it wasn't a good night and we got out of bed a bit tired and a bit grouchy this morning. Hmm.

On the up though, at 9am when I first ventured out, it wasn't raining! In fact, I thought I saw a bit of sunshine, and people were emerging hopefully from their vans – squinting at the sky.

Unfortunately, by the time we had been to the supermarket to get breakfast and put the coffee on, but before we had taken the – now dry – awning down, it started to rain again! It's just not funny any more.

12pm check out and we were on the road again – today we were intending to get to the Czech Republic. Our original plan was to go to Bratislava in Slovakia – about 30km east of Vienna, but given the weather and our feelings on city visits from yesterday, we decided not to bother. We will be travelling another 100miles or so today – surely we can get away from the rain?? Unless it's following us............... (but I can see blue sky ahead - go that way!!!)

Turned out we ended the day in Linz - not far from the Czech border. We didn't get here until about 4pm (it was a big travelling day at 130 miles), and then spent an hour in a car park having lunch and updating the blog. We decided to stay in the city as there is a technology museum that (predictably) isn't open on Tuesdays that we would like to visit, and it's late.

The campsite in Linz is actually about 10km outside it - near a lake (which is nice) but also near the motorway (which isn't so nice) but the site is cheap (€18 ) and reasonably pleasant despite it's main road vista!

Once we were pitched up on our VERY boggy pitch, we went for a run round the lake. It was really nice as it goes - a paved path round the lake was marked in half KM's to give a total of 3.46km round - so we went round twice. It was hard work - but we definately need it. Less beer for a couple of days I think!!

Actually, I say a couple of days - but today's news is that Tom & Tish are coming out to visit on Friday morning. They are joining us for Prague - Nuremburg, flying home Monday evening - so I think we definately need a couple of dry days before they arrive!!

Should be fun though - looking forward to it!