Camping in the snow!

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Due to the amazing sunshine we had in Kaprun, we had thought that summer had reached Europe and decided to break in our tent in Klosterneuburg, just outside of Vienna. We arrived to a really nice campsite with a kitchen and lots of empty pitches (we found out why that night). The lady at reception mentioned the weather could get colder, and offered us roll mats, but we didn't pay much attention because we were distracted by our search for a bar to watch the final matches of the 6-nations rugby. We didn't find any because we were in the only town in the world with no pubs! We settled for icecream instead and headed back to the campsite. That night we tucked ourselves into our tent (it had a 4 inch gap between the flysheet and the floor through which a gale force wind blew all night, but that's what you get from buying a cheap Croatian tent!) The temperature dropped to below freezing during the night and we all got up at various intervals to thaw out in the shower block. The next day we headed into Vienna looking for blankets, warm clothes (we had sent our winter wardrobes home with Ciara's mum) and roll mats. We had a slightly unsuccessful day because it was a Sunday and everything was closed, plus we were suffering from the effects of hypothermia. That night we wore all the clothes we could and placed all other items underneath our roll mats for insulation. It didn't work because that night the temperature dropped even lower and we had another sleepless night with constant trips to the shower block to warm up. The next morning we decided that we probably weren't cut out for winter camping, and planned to change our route to head back East to affordable accomodation. We spent just one more night in the camp site. Ciara (never let it be said that this chick aint 'ard) endured the sub zero temperatures one final time, whilst Claire and Michelle slept in the shower block under the radiators! Ciara awoke the next morning to a full layer of ice covering the tent. Shall we repeat that ICE ON THE TENT!!! Claire and Michelle woke up seconds before the cleaner came in and managed to conceal the evidence of their night in the toilet. We checked out, packed up the tent IN THE SNOW and headed into Vienna. We had decided that seeing as we were in Vienna we had better see some of it, so we blitzed the sights of the city, pacing around the Ring road which holds most of the sights including the Parliament, museum quarter, the Rathaus and various pretty parks. Vienna was a beautiful city but it was very nice to be sat on a nice warm train heading into the Czech Republic. Next time we will go in the summer!!

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