Three countries in a day again and then lost in Vienna

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Monday 24th August
Three countries in a day again and then lost in Vienna
Today started out so promising,the weather was beautifully fine and we had a fairly direct run to Vienna with two borders to cross.
We started off relatively early thinking we would take our time with a relatively short distance to travel.
Those of you readers who are observant will recall that we used to own a Skoda Sabre in the early eighties and it was a silver colour.
And lo and behold as we joined the main road south out of Prievidza we came across a ‘lookalike Skoda’ to the one we used to own parked on the side of the road.It was the same model and here it was nearly 30 years on!!Ok it was looking a little battered but then so did ours.They certainly made these cars to last!!
Route 50 wound its way through land that contained many industrial plants and we noticed a rather concerning sight ahead of us before we had travelled too far.
The sky was clear and overhead quite blue but on the horizon there was the usual mustard yellow smudge that we reckon is the industrial pollution being pumped out and hanging in the sky because of the lack of wind and recent rain.
The sight that was concerned was a plume of smoke coming from a tall chimney with a nuclear power site next door.The plume spread across the sky and at one point mixed in with the solitary cloud that was in view.Check out the photo we took.We do miss the clear skies on NZ!!
We think that Slovakia missed out in the divorce with the Czech Republic as they didn’t end up with a lot of farm land and so the road we were travelling on had mainly industrial plants to look at.
The route we were taking swung west towards the Czech border and we crossed it(without any border checks!!)near Trencin.
Half of the traffic on the road was in the form of trucks of all sizes and it is quite amazing to think how much trade goes by road rather than what seems to be a very efficient and widespread railway system.Not that we have really seen many freight trains in our wanderings to date.
Europe really therefore doesn’t seem to be too different to the USA relying upon road transport which eventually will come under increasing pressure as the price of oil rises and its availability declines in years to come.And as yet no one has invented a truck that can run as a hybrid!!
You could tell,even without knowing we had passed through the border,that we were back in the Czech Republic as before us were fields of corn,still to be harvested,and other fields where hay had been cut and baled and was being turned over for a green winter crop.We had left behind the industrial plants of Slovakia!!
After we reached Kunovice we turned south aiming for the third border crossing for the day into Austria.
We had chosen a border crossing which was on a rural road at least according to our map.It wasn’t that we were hoping not to get stopped again to be checked over but the road on the Austrian side ran fairly straight to Route 9 which we take us into Vienna without having to cross the city.
We passed through Breclov and headed the last few kilometres to the border.We weren’t expecting anything different to all the other EU borders we had crossed and just hoped we wouldn’t get stopped again.
Just short of the border we did pass a police car with two policemen standing beside their vehicle,one of them even had a little red stop sign in his hand like the guy who stopped us before we left Poland.But thankfully they showed no interest in us and then we were over the border and into Austria.
And what a change immediately became noticeable.
First the road surface standard was far superior to the Czech Republic.The second thing was just how organised and tidy the first and subsequent towns were in comparison to the Eastern European countries we have travelled over the past week.
We seemed to be doing so well and making good progress as we passed Vienna airport following the instructions I had taken down from Google Maps for the address of the hotel we were staying at.
On we went and soon the city was around us.It was then that Gretchen remarked that she thought we were staying out in the suburbs and what we were into was more like built up city!!I said that we were following the instructions to a tee and that Vienna was a big city and perhaps even 8km out(which was where we understood we would be)we might be staying amongst tall buildings.
Finally, feeling that things weren’t right we pulled over opposite a market area still a little short of where the Google Map plotted the hotel.We parked the car hoping that what we had read on a sign did in fact mean there was no cost to park after 4pm,and we walked back a few streets to check we had followed the route we needed to.We called into a Hertz office and asked them the location of the street we were looking for and they confirmed it was just around the corner from where we had left RR.
So back to the car and onto the street where the hotel should be.
BUT things weren’t right.With the narrow streets and no off street parking visible this place couldn’t be where our hotel was because parking was provided on site!!
I left Gretchen with RR and walked the street in which the hotel was supposed to be located only to find that #30 where the hotel was supposed to be was in fact a Ballet school!!AND I got told to be quiet when I went in to ask for directions!!
I went back to RR and Gretchen thought she should give trying to find the hotel on foot a go.While she was gone I fired up the laptop and ‘stole’some internet to find out what I had suspected for the last half hour or so.
I had put the right street in the Google Map for directions but put in the city as Vienna instead of Schwechat,a suburb 8km from the centre of Vienna!!!!I think this will be the last time I do the map instructions on my own!!! Without the driver checking it!!
We retraced our path all the way back to the suburb we were supposed to have stopped at when we entered the outer suburbs and after some help from an internet cafe we found our hotel,nearly 4 hours after arriving in Vienna!!!!
To make it even worse(if that was possible!!)we went out dor dinner only to find that the first cafe we called into didn’t take cards and we had only a small amount of Euros in cash.So it was off to an ATM and as it was now so late we made do with Burger King and went back to the hotel and crashed!!!
Would we still be married in the morning???!!!

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Photos

Slovakian pollution
Notice how the plume of smoke mixes into the cloud

Comments

[Rin]

Hahaha...poor Daddy. Have you been demoted from your O.I.C Navigator post? Consider including the post code of the hotel next time.....? Those Europeans are usually mad on their post codes.....