Campsites,Austria #1of2

On our first visit to Vienna, Emmy wasn’t feeling well. I checked, then said, “You feel just fine to me.” After we found the campsite, Camping Wien Sud, on Breitenfurter Straße, I rode the streetcar downtown. When I returned I had a McDonald’s bag with a Big Mac and French Fries for the invalid. The next morning Emmy said, “I feel much better,” and I said, “That's not possible, you have always felt fantastic anytime I felt you!" Like Paris, Vienna is stately and majestic, and very, very interesting. A city that must be seen more than once, if at all possible.

In 1980 a family from Poland, camped next to us in Vienna. They invited us to visit them in Poland, but by the time we could visit, the country of Poland was having great political/military problems, so we canceled. In 1981 the family defected to Austria from Poland, and we were able to help them immigrate to the US and get settled in Los Angeles. The greatest outcome of any of our European travel days.

The first year we camped in Hallstatt, there was not enough electricity to run our electric heater, so we looked for another place. A large digital clock is next to a traffic light that directs traffic at a one-lane tunnel, but the tunnel was not big enough for the camper, so we had to go over the hill, but we found a delightful campsite right along the lake. For our other visits, they had done a lot of work on that first campground where we had stopped, and all was fine for a night or two, a year or two.

It rained almost all day, so we camped early at the Zellea Zee. It was not raining the next morning, but the sun didn’t shine until late in the afternoon. Several people in this area were wearing Alpine hats and knickers, and “lader hosen,” the short leather pants we often see in Germany. A man from the US, was camping in a VW Van. We have seen an American in an European campsite, not more than 6 or 8 times.

We stopped at a $10 campsite on a farm, just west of Innsbruck. In the restaurant, large bowls of food were being served family style. Fifty people, at least, were in the restaurant, inside and out, and they waited until all were served. When they started to eat they made a very loud clatter as the knives hit the forks, and both hit the plates, as if they had rehearsed like an orchestra. A real clamor. Have never heard anything like this elsewhere, wish we had a tape recorder.