Austria 1985 and 1988

(Except Vienna, Salzburg, Melk, and Hallstatt)

There’s a law in Austria (and some other countries) that big trucks cannot be on the roads on the weekend. As we entered Austria from Yugoslavia on a Sunday, we saw a trucker who had crossed the border from Yugoslavia, trying awfully hard to find a parking place before the police found him.

What a change from Yugoslavia, the roads in Austria are wide, smooth, and in good shape. There was a billboard advertising McDonald’s, so we assumed we were again in a civilized country. In Italy and in Yugoslavia we saw no McDonald’s. We found no French Fries in Italy that we can remember, and in Yugoslavia, they weren’t worth the effort.

We drove to Vienna and took the freeway toward the southern part of the city. We had been here one other year, so I said this looks about right, let’s take this left turn, and maybe the next right turn, and there we were at Camping Wien Süd, in Vienna. A map might be a impediment!

In 1988, when we arrived in Austria from Italy, we stopped at the last service area in Italy, then the first one in Austria, and the difference was amazing. The Italian station was nicer than most in Italy, but the Austrian rest stop was just excellent in design, and so different from Italy’s.

We were having a problem with the alternator “not working” light, so in Villach, we found a Renault dealer. It was 10 minutes to 12:00, and that’s not a good time to find anything in Europe. His friends kept trying to get him to stop and go to lunch, but since it was a rather simple problem, the mechanic wouldn’t go until he finished, at about 15 minutes after 12. I asked how much we owed, and when the man saw the cashier had also gone to lunch, he indicated we should just leave. The wonderful people we meet.

We drove through Spittal, and on toward Salzburg in a rather heavy snowfall. We followed the snowplow over the Austrian Alps then drove through the Katschbergtunnel and the Tauerntunnel, two long tunnels (5.4 km and 6.4 km), that shared a toll booth. I handed the man a 100 Schilling note and waited for change. The toll-taker said, “No change.” I said, “I didn’t want to buy your tunnel, I just wanted to rent it for a few minutes.” The toll-taker laughed, really.