from the ridiculous to the sublime

the showers at vienna west campsite this morning were one more good thing in its favour. Plentiful hot water that showered you properly rather than the scatter gun effect of some showers that actually doesn't reach all parts !

With less than 300 km to drive to budapest we hoped to make it for lunchtime. The rain held off and we saw some scraps of blue sky. We stopped before the border to buy a vignette and were surprised to be given a till receipt rather than another sticky badge for the windscreen. We have two up already, a year's worth for la suisse and ten days for austria, both the least you can buy. The number of lorries lessened as we wittled down the destination to budapest (at one point we had a choice of hungary,slovakia, italy, germany, czech republic....). By now we were using tom tom and he got us to a lovely little road in budapest called rozalei but no sign of a campsite. So we put in the co-ordinates, playing safe after yesterday we had only given him the address. clever we thought but not so ! Happily we were only 2 kilometres away and soon pulled up at the romai campsite. Oh joy ! A sensible booking-in system. We still got to choose a place but as there are no designated plots it was just a case of parking where we wanted ! The place was empty. A woman leaving the reception had talked at me but the only word that made any sense was 'group'. Realising we were just one van she gave up and passed me on to a young chap in the office. Later it became clear that a group was expected as there are now several austrian campers dotted about. We had lunch in dappled sunlight, (lots of tall trees) and nothing within 100 feet of our table.

A light snooze and then a walk to find an atm and a local restaurant. The restaurant was not good but was set beside a track along the bank of the river danube. There were many others all offering drinks and fried fish, chips, calamares, soup etc. the smell of frying batter filled the air ! We ambled along enjoying the view and watching the many people around. It seemed to be everyone was out walking like us ; kids, grownups, families, cyclists and on the river canoeists. Further out big barges slowly moved downstream laden with cars. We opted for a drink but passed on the fried fish. We couldn't believe 'hekk', hake came from the river. A wander back via the avenues lined with tall chestnut trees already looking autumnal. A small girl came past with a basket full of conkers. Back at reception the helpful young man told me that in august and september people eat 'hekk' and yes, it does come out of the danube. He pulled a face and told me not to eat it. So we won't ...but maybe the chips ?