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Europe Tour 2006, Part 5 - Hungary - Croatia - Slovenia.

May 04, 2006 Thursday. Continued - Hungary.

We crossed into Hungary near Banreve with the now usual lack of border problems, just a passport check and a stamp that only took a few minutes.

The countryside on the Slovakian - Hungarian border is very picturesque, forested hills intermingled with undulating fields, combined with roads in reasonable condition provide a more pleasant driving experience.

Hungarian roads, like those in Slovakia still have isolated hazards and one still has to watch closely for occasional large pot holes, broken edges and unmarked road works, such as sections cut out of the pavement at partially completed repairs. Rest areas and viewing points are few and most are only a rough unpaved pull off beside the road, devoid of any amenities such as rubbish bins, tables and shade trees.

We drove on to Eger and intended to stop at a campsite, but found it was closed permanently and a notice in English informed us that the nearest one open was about 9 kilometers out of town on one of the highways, so we opted to stay at the Tesco 24 hour supermarket carpark. So it is still the same story, there are no special facilities for campervans and the campsites are often located far from the towns. There are quite a few bicycles on the roads, but almost no bike paths, so like most of Eastern Europe this is not a country conducive to safe and enjoyable cycling.

Driving standards are noticeably below those of western Europe, particularly in Slovakia and Hungary, with more frequent tailgating, passing on bends and cutting in with inadequate clearance time to oncoming traffic.

I exchanged a Czech CZ2000 note for some HUF17,400 at a bank, they even spoke a little English.

Beer is much more expensive in Hungary than in Slovakia, around HUF130 (€0.55 a half liter) compared to Slovakia where it was about SK6.00 (€0.15) Wine other than locally produced Hungarian wine is also dearer. We are still mainly using our stock of French reds, but also bought several bottles of Hungarian wine for around HUF250 a bottle which is about €1.00. The first was pleasant but had a sweetness to it when we compared it to a 2003 Bordeaux which we had been drinking and which is one of our favored French reds.

May 05, 2006 Friday. Eger Hungary. We spent the night at the Tesco supermarket quiet and undisturbed. See you can boondock in Eastern Europe. In fact you need to, as the tourist experience is so pathetic that you wouldn't want to be paying a lot of cash for it! In fact I think the concise advice is that apart from the capital cities like Prague, Krakow, (OK I know it isn't a capital) etc there just isn't much of great interest in Eastern Europe. Except the birds, who are mostly blond and slim with great arses and nice tits.

If we could get more of these spuky Eastern European blondes to immigrate to Australia I would be pleased, instead of the African black sambos that the elite bastards in control of the NWO are now importing to pollute our Australian gene pool. There, I am a a fully fledged racist, and proud of it, and the "politically correct" brigade have made me that way with their anti racism propaganda. They want me to enjoy seeing white European culture destroyed in their political games aimed at world domination, and I don't, and I won't, and the more multicultural propaganda they try to feed me the more racially conscious I become. I enjoy being as politically incorrect as possible, so if you are a prudish, politically correct, psalm singing, sexually constipated wowser, and you ignored my warning, I hope I have suitably offended your delicate sensibilities.

We drove on, and on, without finding a decent place to stop, really this lack of roadside facilities in Eastern Europe is the pits, don't bother to come here in a campervan, it really is a pathetic place to visit. My curiosity got the better of me, and I said, "You don't know, if you don't go". Well now I know, it is a shit of a place and no wonder they were all risking getting shot to escape through the barbed wire when the communists ran the place, it must have been the absolute pits then, and it is only starting to recover from 50 years of total time warp. Apart from a few scattered highlights there is nothing here to see except mile after mile of shabby houses and blocks of communist flats.

Thank god for all the nice bits of arse you see along the streets to relieve the monotony. However I must say that you see more fat people here in Hungary than in Czech and Slovakia, and I haven't seen so many really hot chicks here in Hungary as earlier in our tour.

They are not ready for campervan tourists outside the capitals, there are no roadside facilities and not even a decent place to park to have a coffee break when driving. Some restaurants have parking, but campervanners don't often want to go to restaurants. There is a veneer of modernity with the myriad new supermarkets, and gradually they are rebuilding the roads, but they still don't seem to understand, we want some where to STOP!!!!. And there just isn't anywhere, for miles and miles, and miles.

We drove on towards Budapest approaching from the north east through the Danube Bend area. There are no bridges until you get close to Budapest, although there may be one or two ferries, it isn't clear from the detailed maps I downloaded from the Internet. Not that you get to see much of the river from highway 2, perhaps the scenery is better on the other side near Esztergom and Visegrad. We were heading for a campsite on the west side of the Danube about 8 kilometers North from Budapest, that I had been told of by an Internet corespondent, but as it was getting late in the day we opted to stop at a large Auchan supermarket.

There are excellent supermarkets in Hungary, very large and modern with a wide variety of food and other goods. In fact the variety of competing chains Carrefour, Tesco, LIDL, Billa, Penny Mart, Auchan in all of the Eastern European countries we have visited is far superior to the situation in Australia where only two major chains Coles and Woolworths and a few very minor players compete, and most supermarkets are much smaller and offer a much restricted range of goods. It can't be due to the old excuse of economy of scale, many of the towns where there are new hypermarkets here in Eastern Europe are far smaller than Australian state capital cities.

Throughout Eastern Europe the supermarkets and car dealers provide the veneer of kitsch modernity, but much of the housing stock retains its communist era drabness, and the blocks of high rise communist flats are in every town. It will take an eternity for these countries to eliminate the dismal architectural legacy of the communist era. What a tragedy for countries which until the twentieth century practiced architectural and artistic excellence, with individual designs and elaborately decorated buildings providing a visual diversity appealing to the senses in the built environment, to have had inflicted on them this drab architectural monoculture.

Mercifully what you don't see in Hungary is a lot of American fast food outlets, just a few. Maybe the people will have the common sense to reject the insidious advertising to eat junk food, and avoid being converted into a nation of overweight slobs, like Australia is becoming, on the American junk food diets so many people have adopted.

May 06, 2006 Saturday. Budapest Hungary. We drove into the city from Auchan supermarket and easily found the campsite about 8Km from the city east off route 11. The Campsite costs HUF4400 for two sans electric, sans dog, or about €18.70 a night, far too expensive considering local costs, and compared to France, even dearer than Prague. There is no toilet paper, and some of the hot and cold taps are mislabeled, and the showers have a hand shower with no hook to attach it to the wall, but there is hot water. The makeshift campervan dumpsite is a sewerage manhole with a very heavy steel cover. When I go to fill the van's water tank some goon appears to tell me I can't, but I ignore him as he speaks no English. On leaving there is no one at reception to open the barrier, but a person who apologises for that appears and demands to see my payment receipt before they open the gate for us to leave. No wonder I begrudge the bastards the money and stay in supermarkets when ever possible. The campsite is pleasant with large shade trees, and the usual mediocre amenities block with no where to put your cloths in the showers, that we campervaners don't need anyway, because we have our own. The ONLY reason to stay in one is for some modicum of security when you leave your van to go into the city which is accessible by nearby train for HUF200.

You can buy a Budapest Card for HUF5,200 (about €20.00) which lasts two days and gives unlimited use of public transport and discounts of usually 20% on admissions to innumerable museums of obscure interest, and discounts on tours. Like most such city cards I think they are a rip off and not of real value to the tourist. You would be better off paying HUF800 over two days for four train tickets into the city, and then one or two admissions if any of the myriad museums are of any interest to you. However it seems that the best sights of the city are free anyway. Even spending 1600 on tickets (they don't seem to have ordinary day transport passes) you would be hard pressed to spend more than 3000 total with a couple of admissions. So unless you intend to get up at 4AM and rush frantically from one obscure museum to another all day without stopping for lunch, I don't think you will get your money's worth with the Budapest Card.

The campsite has no useful tourist information, only the Budapest Card book which is of little help, the transport maps it contains are too small and limited in coverage, and the book fails to properly point out the highlights of the city, it is just a lot of advertisments. So all we get for our money at this campsite is water and the use of a dumpsite, which we can get FREE all over France, or for one or two Euro at most. So in my opinion Budapest fails to capitalize on its attractions properly, by an overreliance on this piece of commercial overpriced hype. Don't bother to come here, they haven't got their act together for campervan tourists yet.

The train system is obscure to use with no indication of what value ticket to buy at the station, although the campsite clerk mentioned HUF200 one way to the city. The Budapest card book tells you what a wonderfully comprehensive transport system they have, how they have trains, busses, trams and an underground railway, the first in mainland Europe, they brag, but the bloody book does not contain any good scale usable maps of any of it, apart from a tiny map of the central city that you need a magnifying glass to see, nor is there any other useful transport interchange information, fare schedules or indications of service frequency, just what amounts to endless advertisements for the innumerable museums, etc, most of which would not be of the remotest interest to the average tourist.

There is a notice with an English translation at the railway station saying that a bus service is operating this weekend between certain stations that seem to include the one we are at, but then along comes a train. So I don't know, the bus description is just too cryptic, so we simply decide not to bother and return to the campervan and have a beer. I simply can't be bothered contending with inefficiency and stupidity, there are plenty of other places to see in the world, so tomorrow I'll drive into the city for a brief tour, then I'll be voting with my wheels and moving on, bugger Budapest.

Budapest is too big, and when a town is too big, if it does not really cater for campervans with close in parking near the center of city activities, like Brugge in Belgium it looses much of its appeal.

Bbuy your beer in Slovakia not Hungary because it is MUCH mote expensive here, although still cheap by Australian standards. Top up with fuel in neighboring countries as they are generally cheaper. Hungary has the dearest fuel in Eastern Europe.

LPG is readily available at service stations in Hungary.

Being a long time disciple of Scrooge McDuck, and as tight as a fishes arse, I never like to waste a single Karuna or Zloty or Florint, or whatever type of funny money is the current medium of exchange.

Overall prices for general merchandise in Hungary seem very low, except for fuel and beer. We have bought some bottles of Hungarian wine for under one Euro equivalent a bottle and it is of fair quality. A lot of the local wine is semi-sweet, both white and red, but it is often labeled as such in English, so watch what you buy if you prefer a dry wine, as we do.

May 07, 2006 Sunday. Budapest Hungary. We decide to drive through the city to do our own bus tour, but not to leave the van parked anywhere, because we believe foreign vehicles are frequently targeted by thieves. The traffic going out of the city to the Danube Bend area is heavy as we head south towards the city, across to the east side of the Danube and on to the Hero's Square area. We have no GPS because the Etrex can't see enough satellites in a city area because of the lack of an external antenna. So we use the computer maps just as ordinary maps and navigate with the compass and street names. I was able to obtain detailed city maps and satellite photo-maps of the city from the Internet when planning the tour, but these are of no help when out walking or using public transport when you need an ordinary paper map.

Budapest has some spectacular buildings, and is a very large city, worth a visit, but the information available at the campsite was totally inadequate, and because of concerns for the security of the van we did not leave it parked to explore on foot. After a quick tour through the city we headed south towards Pecs and found the traffic quite heavy for a Sunday. There is a new motorway under construction going south from Budapest and judging by the present roads is sorely needed. The lack of bicycle paths also makes the city and the roads in Hungary not very bike friendly. For these facilities go to Austria, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium.

We chose the route south to Pecs to avoid Lake Balaton because we felt it would be too busy with local tourists and day trippers to be enjoyable. Also we are not at all impressed with any of Eastern Europe as a campervan touring area, and are looking forward to completing our planned circuit through Zagreb and Ljubljana, and then heading into Austria where facilities are a bit better. No doubt we will spend the balance of our time mainly in France, because that is by far the best country in Europe for campervan touring. They provide for our needs at little or no cost, so we stay, enjoy and spend money there.

The road from Budapest to Pecs, about 190 kilometers is generally in reasonable condition for Eastern Europe, except for the uneven surface "tram lines" made by the wheels of heavy trucks depressing the road surface. Smaller cars can straddle them with one wheel in a depression and one in the middle, but wider wheel base vehicles like our camper are more affected by the uneven surface. Most hazards are marked on this road, but there are still isolated large holes, and you can never relax when driving, so although this isn't by any means the worst road we have come across in Eastern Europe, driving is not a pleasure here either.

May 08, 2006 Monday. Pecs Hungary. We parked overnight at the new Tesco supermarket on the Eastern outskirts of Pecs. Driving towards the Croatian border traffic was very light and the roads improved, but still no rest areas or parking places. On crossing the border with again minimum formality, except the Hungarian border guard wanted to look in the back of our van. Presumably to make sure we weren't stealing any of their potholes! There was an immediate and lasting improvement in the road on entering Croatia, not a pothole to be seen for miles.

Yet another currency to contend with the Kruny at 7.21 to the Euro. Fuel is cheaper in Croatia at KR7.00 for diesel than in Hungary. I was able to change a Czech KR1000 note at a bank, but the nearby money changer didn't want it. Spent it all on diesel so now we have no funny money except for a few small coins worth about 20 cents.

The countryside is green and the villages look more colourful and prosperous than in Hungary. However despite the better roads there are still no rest areas.

Near Bjelovar we came upon an area which is a memorial to the Croatian Serb war of 1991 where there is a shaded parking area near a small memorial and a chapel.

This would make a good SONP, and we stopped for lunch, just as I was again fuming about the lack of decent stopping places and beginning to get too hungry.

LPG is readily available at many service stations in Croatia.

 

We drove on to Zargreb and were confronted with the grottiest looking communist flats and the most graffiti we had yet seen in Eastern Europe, we looked along the river for a good SONP, but saw none, and then took a short drive into the city. Apparently it has a old center, but after more grot, heavy traffic and communist flats, we decided that we simply didn't want to be here and decided that we were so fed up with Eastern Europe that we would cut Ljubljana out of our schedule altogether, and head through Slovenia straight to Austria. This place is not ready for tourists in campervans. I have persevered with my intended tour of Eastern Europe mainly out of a spirit of determination, but Zargreb was just too much, I don't want to see any more "communist flats", potholes or grot.

The roads in Croatia are relatively good, almost NO POTHOLES, but there are still no roadside facilities, rest areas, view points etc. We crossed into Slovenia, unfortunately on what proved to now be a toll road, and then headed north through Krsko and Celje. Great scenery along the river valley, but no where to park to enjoy it. I saw some stunning blonde Slovenian babes along the road, really hot chicks. They should immigrate to Australia, and improve our scenery and help reduce the growing proportion of fat sheilas munching on their Big McFat burgers.

Slovenia has a lot of very picturesque countryside, sprinkled with castles and churches on hilltops, and has great potential for touring, but when there is attractive scenery, there is nowhere to stop to enjoy it. I'm out of Eastern Europe tomorrow morning into Austria, and heading for France.

LPG is not widely available in Slovenia. Fuel is cheaper than in either Hungary or Austria and some service stations will take Euro's but give change in local currency.

Eventually we found a parking area in the village of Lasko beside the river and about four meters off the road. However it was unexpectedly noisy for a small town with traffic and trains all night.

My marks out of ten for Eastern Europe as a campervan destination 2, and that's being generous only to give the poor bastards that suffered so long under communism some encouragement. Tell your grandchildren to come here some time later in the 21st century, by then they may have their act together. Don't come here yet, this is campervan hell, they simply don't understand or provide for our needs, and the so called camping grounds are overly expensive, and often with very mediocre facilities, located far from the center of interest in cities.

May 09, 2006 Tuesday. Lasko Slovenia. The good roads in Slovenia continued all the way to the border, but they are very busy with heavy trucks, and being quite narrow it isn't relaxed driving.

SONP in the town of Lasko. Too noisy, unexpectedly so for a small town. Rated one X.

We took a short diversion to Starigrad Castle which we could see from the main road near Celje. It is being restored, but is not yet open to the public. However it has a small quiet parking area that would be a good one night SONP, and there are good views over the charming countryside.

Between Hudna Luknja and Slovenj Gradec there is a rest area with a WC, but no readily available water. It might be noisy at night, but could be a one night SONP. For Eastern Europe it's not too bad.

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"The ignorance of the masses is profound." - DB Philosopher B. 1944.

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