The Wachau wine region between Melk and Krems west of Vienna was beautiful and we followed the Danube until we reached Jamek’s restaurant which had been recommended by our friend Lena and which belonged to her uncle. We had a wonderful lunch in the garden and then continued on to the Czech Republic in the afternoon. The trip took us a couple of hours and it got quite hot.
It was only an hour and a half drive from the Wachau to Znojmo in the Czech Republic and it was such a nice drive in the warmer temperatures that seemed to be lasting for more than a day at a time. We hardly noticed that we had passed into another country apart from a small sign on the road with the EU stars and the Czech Republic’s name. This was in contrast to the border between Croatia and Bosnia with immigration and customs checks.
We noticed that some of the trees were still dormant the further north we went but there were still many with pretty bright new leaves. The silver birch were especially beautiful with their oscillating leaves.
The heavily forested mountain and hills of Austria flattened out into plains with unending lush grain crops which were waving in the quite strong wind. There were many avenues of trees along the way and very little traffic which made for pleasant driving. The roads were not bad but not
as good as those in Austria.
All of a sudden from this landscape we came upon a fun park and the most incredible sight of a cafe built onto an old Tupolev plane as well as giant dinosaurs in front of the park.
The camping ground “camping country!” just north of Znojmo was as neat as a pin with friendly owners and only one other camper. It was nice to be able to sit outside until it got dark about 9.30pm! We loved the twilight. We had had such a good lunch in the Wachau that we only needed a glass of our good red wine for dinner with a cracker.
The town of Znojmo was full of historical buildings similar to those in Vienna. Like Vienna there were many people cycling in and around the town. From Znojmo we made our way to Brno which someone told us was for Czech people and Prague was for tourists. They cities were not entirely comparable as Brno did not have the magnificent Prague castle or interesting town square or the Charles bridge or the river in the centre of the city.
It was the first time that we could find parking for our camper in the city of Brno and there seemed to be ample parking all over the place which was refreshing for us as in some cities we drove around and around only to find that a parking area did not allow campervans or had a height restriction which made it somewhat stressful. We wanted to avoid the toll motorways driving through the Czech Republic however without any notice we found ourselves on one and managed to pass through a couple of cameras before we could stop and buy the obligatory “vignette” which cost us about 15euros (minimum of 10days) which we only needed for the next hour or so! We will wait to see if we get a fine in the mail.
There seemed to be few foreign tourists around and we enjoyed strolling through the historic city for a couple of hours. It got to 30degrees which was very much in contrast to the 12degrees a few days before.
A good coffee in the town square set us up for our next leg to Poland.