Salzburg – long on my list and always reinforced in my annual viewing, usually at Christmas, of The Sound of Music.
Another beautiful city where I spent 2 nights at Camping Aigen. Along with almost all the campsites visited this trip, I would stay again. It’s about 5k very pleasant cycle ride along the river Salz to the city centre with lots of space, lovely setting and with a bustling cafe/restaurant which is used by many locals.
After my arrival I decided to cycle in to get my overview knowing that thunderstorms were in the offing. My tiredness from a bad night’s sleep, the drive, albeit not too long, and a change in the weather affected my enthusiasm, but the Mirabell Gardens, scenes for some of musical, were host to young people from the States in choirs and bands performing a variety of music with great positivity despite the threatening weather. 
I love coming across live music unexpectedly and it was just what I needed to sit and listen for a while before deciding to head back to the site and leave the proper visit till the following day. I was disappointed that my chosen bit of culture I wanted to pay for – The Sound of Music performance by the Marionetten Theatre, in preference to a avery close second of a live performance of some of Mozart’s music, Salzburg being his birthplace – was only on the day after my departure. This couldn’t be postponed given that I was now on a timetable for driving a long way to reach my ferry reservation at the Hook of Holland, it would have to wait for another visit in the future. I just about beat the thunderstorm which lasted most of the evening and through the night.
I woke up to a resumption of the beautiful weather, and decided to get on a walking tour, which was fantastic and like the ones in Spain well worth doing. 1.5 hours of potted history from enthusiastic qualified guides. What was interesting to me, was that similar to Verona, the previous day my lack of enthusiasm had not been mitigated as I missed discovering the existence of the stunning old town squares and streets, overlooked by the fortress on the opposite side of the river to the Mirabell Gardens. The walking tour of course focussed on this area. Two visits to a city are always better, particularly when the first is after a taxing drive. I had a coffee afterwards with fellow tour attendee Mia from Glasgow, visiting her partner who had just transferred to the Red Bull headquarters there for work. That was a really nice meet-up. I then spent the next 2-3 hours walking up to the fortress, Festung Hohensalzburg, and then around the green space up there taking in the views over the other side of the city to the mountains, to the Museum of Modern Art, before heading back down and enjoying the river area in the heat.
-
- The university kirche with the foreground some of the gherkins art installation created by the 1-minute sculptor Erwin Wurm
-
- Looking to the mountains of the Hohe Tauern National Park with the Schloss Leopoldskron, also a scene in the musical, in the foreground
Once again, a small city for living – well-used cycling provision, lots of green space, open-air swimming pools, and of course with the mountains close by. I was sorry to move on as there’s more to see and do there and I recommend for a city visit. Hopefully I will return sometime.
The journey to Cologne was a minimum of 720km so I decided to have a 2-night stopover to visit the university city of Wurzburg, on the Main river, about 120k southeast of Frankfurt. As I only drive around 60mph I expected this to be about 4 – 5 hours of driving which, as I have learnt, is more than enough for me when I don’t need to push it. It’s certainly great to have air-conditioning as it was in the 30s when I arrived at my selected site. This was a 17eu a night, including electricity at a village boating centre on the river. Although tired from the driving, I felt that using the cycle path along the river to the city – some 10km – would be good after sitting for so long and used the Brompton. The cycle path was great, and it was good to see how the river is used along the way for swimming etc. But due to the heat and underestimating the distance, I’d had enough just short of the main part of the town, so returned to the site knowing I could try again the next day.
Although the site was a really nice setting and perfect in terms of what it offered for the fee, and I did feel comfortable there, overnight the reviews accorded with my experience in terms of intrusive noise from the nearby rail, river and the main road traffic. So I considered moving on the next morning to Cologne or to an official motorhome car park offered by the city right on the river opposite the centre which had good reviews. The latter was a good decision and is where I am now sitting, along with some 30 or so other vans watching the river traffic, having spent the morning and earlier part of the afternoon exploring this pleasant place, again full of lovely cafes, streets and squares. Not quite in the league of Verona, Lucca, Salzburg or Maastricht, but worth a stop nontheless. The towns/cities that I have enjoyed on this trip all seem to be around the population size of 125,000 and have a university.
Tomorrow I continue the journey north to spend 3 nights in Cologne. I am seeing my eldest son and partner and their new rented apartment together which they have just moved into this week in a central part of the city, but will be keeping out of their upheaval’s way, staying at the city’s campsite a 3.5km cycle ride along the river.
I will be leaving the continent this time on the ferry from the Hook of Holland to Harwich on Monday.
My strong recommendations for the town, the campsite, and the setting confirm what I had read, and I will hopefully also revisit this place for a longer than 2-night stay. Beautiful, bustling historic town centre at a confluence of 2 rivers with fantastic infrastructure including cycling provision to visit further along the river valleys and up into the mountains, and a beautiful indoor/outdoor swimming centre.
The 4-star smallish campsite is by a beautiful little river, at the bottom of the Grosseck-Spiereck cable car to this small ski area starting at 1100m, about 1km by lovely walking/cycling route along the river to the historic very small town. A gorgeous setting for hiking, cycling, and relaxing at the site and in the cafes in the town, with fantastic site facilities and small but very welcome swimming pool. It’s still mid to late 20s during the day, but thankfully significantly cooler for sleeping.
Yesterday I cycled to the small town of Mariapfarr, claiming to be the sunniest place in Austria, to spend a few hours for free at its outdoor swimming pool. The further pool is the first I’ve ever seen whose sides and bottom appear to be either stainless steel or zinc/aluminium. The cleanest pool in which I’ve ever had the pleasure to swim.
One strong contender for inclusion at the outset were Salzburg and the Dolomites – a national park in the Italian Alps north of Verona and Venice – despite the fact that driving up into the mountains and then coming back down again was ‘not me’. Previous posts have made mention of this. In the end I settled on my initial ideas rather than avoiding mountains and heading even further east as Ljubljana and Vienna vied for contention, or west as I have missed France over the last 2 years.
Given a continuing very hot weather forecast I thought I would regroup and reset the van and equipment for single travel after 2 weeks of company at a campsite with cold water immersion potential. The not too far site Lago di Lago fitted the bill with what looked like a very inviting swimming pool and lake in the foothills of the mountains. Really beautiful area, small towns and villages, good roads, and a happy 2 days stay.
After a siesta of sorts, a major faff ensued in trying to find the digital tickets which were not in my email anywhere. Fortunately I had taken a screenshot of my order, the monies had been paid, and I had created a portal account which eventually I found the right way to log into and retrieve them. I might well have been happy to have written off the price of two tickets and the experience in not finding them, thus avoiding the effort. What an admission.
Of course it was a worthwhile experience: the incredible location, a ‘cast of thousands’, wonderful orchestra and staging of the opera. But all this could not keep me awake as we approached the interval. In my defense I had driven the 300km or so from Lucca that morning. My guest, who had wondered whether her back would be upto the 3-hour seating arrangements, had more staying power and would have stayed to the end. But she sacrificed with me the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves so that her campsite wristband, in hindsight I should have got one also, would open the gate for us both at the bottom of the campsite, at around midnight when we got back. My portable chairs and water bottle were still there.
