Villach - Graz

Today's Route

We were really late up this morning – 11am!! Shocker. But then we were late to bed after our meal out, and ..... no excuses really – just extra lazy.

We had all good intentions of running or cycling this morning, but both felt a bit less keen when it actually came to it, so instead we had coffee & croissants sat by the lake, and then decided that we had to have a swim, which we did.

The lake is lovely – really still, really clear and really, really invigorating (some might call it COLD). Brrrrrr. Had to be done – but was a real surprise after the relative heat of the Italian lakes – there was definitely no hanging about here, we swam over to the island, had a bit of a rest and then swam straight back to get warm and dry.

Then it was on the road again – destination Vienna.

For some reason we thought we had seen signs to Vienna telling us it was 180km from Villach, so imagine our surprise when the first sign we saw said it was 310km!! Not much chance of us making that today! Graz (Austria's second city) was our revised destination. Even that started to look a bit unlikely though when we came to a complete stop on the motorway – lots of people were out of their cars – which is never a good sign!

Eventually we got through the jam – turned out that there were traffic lights just before a small tunnel – and they were changing to red to stop people for some reason. All seemed a bit odd – being that we were on the motorway and all – but I'm sure there was a jolly good reason for it. Even once we got through the tunnel in question the traffic was pretty slow for about 10 miles because of road works – we wondered whether the lights on the tunnel were so that people didn't end up stationery inside it, maybe?

Anyway, we eventually reached Graz and on the way into town stopped at a supermarket, and then another one, and then.......well, can you believe that all shops shut at about 5:30pm on a Saturday? And don't open at all on Sunday? We are going to be going hungry this weekend!!

Graz seems nice, but there was a distinct lack of campsites. With a flash of brilliance I consulted the camp site book we have – which has been of minimal use so far – and it came up trumps – a campsite 6k out of Graz itself, and right next to Europe's largest open air pool no less. When we eventually found the place (there was some loss of sense of humour which we won't go into) there was a real treat in store – entry to the pool is free for campers, and – even better – despite it being 6:45pm, it's still open – infact it doesn't really look like it closes to campsite users as we have our own gate into the place!!

We were changed and in the pool super quick – it was cold, but amazing. It is about 110 x 100m, has pebbles on the bottom and is lovely. We did a bit of swimming and then got out for a hot shower - perfect. Highly recommend this place if you like swimming – not so easy to find though, we would have had no chance if I hadn't found it in the book!

Nothing else though. Did some clothes washing, fingers crossed for no more rain else we are going to be stuck with a load of wet clothes and no practical way of drying them – well, the ones that won't go in the tumble dryer – and that was it.