“Nothing is so difficult but that may be found out by seeking." Terrence [BC 185 - 157] [Roman writer of comedies.]

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Europe Tour 2006, Part 6 - Austria & Germany.

May 09, 2006 Tuesday - Continued. - In Austria.

We crossed into Austria near Dravograd and there was another immediate improvement in the roads. There are cycle paths beside the Drava River before Lavamund, and you might find somewhere to park down several small tracks off the road toward the river. We headed east towards Ebiswald along a scenic road, which climbs to about 1300 meters through forested hills, and then continues on towards Leutscharch and Spiefield through intensively cultivated steep hills covered in grape vines. There are excellent views over the very pretty countryside and they even have some viewing areas

Small SONP on the road to Ebiswald at St.Magdalena. We rate this one X because it is very small and too close to the road.

We found several excellent SONPS near the dam where the road passes across the dam wall, and there are more parking areas on the side road to St. Vinzenz. There is a forest parking area with piped spring water and a WC about 600 meters along the main road up the hill west of the dam, which would also be an excellent SONP and we stopped here to fill with water and shower. Being at over 1100 meters elevation and raining with hail and sleet, we decided not to stay for the night but pressed on in the hope of finding another good SONP at lower lever where it would be warmer. Although the drive is pleasant with excellent views there are no good SONPS before Spiefield. Here we came to a Park & Ride parking area near the railway station and stopped for the night.

While there are some good SONPS in Austria, they tend to be very much restricted to "tourist areas" such as in the mountains and a section of the Danube River. Austria is much better than Eastern Europe in this respect, but this is not France, and small towns and villages do not generally make any provision for campervans. However as is the case in Germany you will occasionally find small parking areas cleared on the edge of forests outside towns where you can park for the night. Also small tracks leading into forest off the roads can sometimes serve if there is some firm ground to park on. Such places are not usually indicated by any signs and you just have to be observant. Along rivers it seems many small parking places are deliberately blocked off to deny parking, so even though roads frequently run for miles beside a river there will be nowhere to get easy access.

May 10, 2006 Wednesday. Spiefield - Austria. Travelling north to eventually reach the Danube River we passed through Graz and noted a P&R (Park and Ride) area on the north off route 20 where you could park for the night.

We stopped along the road at a EuroSpar supermarket, but bought NOTHING because we thought they were too expensive, and there weren't many local customers, a good sign that value is not to be had. Nearby was a LIDL where we stocked up on supplies, now we are back in Euro land, and don't have to worry about changing funny money every few hundred kilometers. I bought two Austrian white wines for €1.49 a bottle and am drinking the Trocken Welschreisling now, nice white, like the other Austrian wines we have bought at LIDL and ALDI, who call themselves HOFER here in Austria. Maybe Aldi means something rude in Austrrian-German?

Roadside SONP along route 20 near Thorl. Rated one X, as it is too close to the road. This is a VERY quiet road at night or we would not list a place so close to the road at all, but the river is easily accessible. This is the sort of place you might stop just overnight, if desperate.

Not only are the roads better here in Austria, but the scenery is generally better than Eastern Europe, with the exception of Slovenia, which is also very picturesque. We are heading north through the Austrian Alps along route 20, which offers some spectacular mountain views.

This time there are Kangaroos in Austria! We have some on our van.

But there is no LPG (Autogas) in Austria, at least not readily available. We have seen NO service stations advertising LPG, and despite some vague information obtained from the Internet, including a very small scale and vague map, purporting to show cities where it is available, extensive inquiries and numerous wild goose chases in LINZ failed to locate any Autogas. We were referred to one VHO brand service station in Ansfelden SW of Linz that sold Erd Gas, a type of compressed natural gas from bowsers. However they said that it could not be used by foreign vehicles, and the bowser fittings would not fit either of our German or French LPG adapters. Other service stations referred us to ones that sold bottled LPG and Camping gas, indicating that the use of LPG as a vehicle fuel is not commonly understood in Austria and you should definitely not rely on being able to refill a refillable LPG cylinder if you have one fitted to your vehicle. Strange, as the surrounding countries, with the exception of Slovenia, have readily available LPG. Switzerland has some outlets according to Internet information, but they are few.

We are not using the Austrian motorways because they require a toll pass, which must be bought and which lasts for anything from ten days to a year, depending on the amount you pay. They are distinguished by green signs, and Austrian free roads are marked by blue signs, unlike in France where tollways are marked by blue signs, free roads by green. If you use the motorways you miss a lot of the best scenery. They often go through tunnels where you see nothing, and the free road goes over the mountains, where you see it all for FREE! Not only that but there is only very light traffic on the parallel free roads, as all the poor pissants are so busy hurrying to meet some imaginary deadline, that they thunder along the motorways, while I meander along the old roads, that are generally excellent, at 50-60Km/h enjoying the sights, without much traffic to bother about.

SONP along route 20 a few Km South of Turnitz. Basic, but the river is accessible for water, and the road is very quiet at night. This is good for Austria, absolutely fantastic if you could ever find such a place in Eastern Europe, and would hardly rate mentioning in France. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, have an Orgy! So we like rivers! We rate this place XX.

We are retracing some small part of our 2000 route and now, with greater experience, finding more SONPs than we did then. Such as the one above along route 20, where we have stopped for the night and I am writing these notes. They are all recorded in the waypoint file that can be downloaded. This file contains all the SONP's we found, noted as we passed or stayed at on our 2006 tour.

One of the two servers hosting this website will not allow upload such files. If the link does not work e-mail if you want to have them.

The waypoints are in OziExplorer format, but this can be converted to any other waypoint type using programs freely available on the Internet, which you will be able to find and use when you have developed sufficient expertise in the use of GPS navigation systems.

OziExplorer format includes a comments field were we record brief details of the SONP. Such as the facilities it has, if any, such as rubbish bins B, picnic tables T, shade trees S, toilet WC, dumpsite D, electricity E, views V, river R, potable water from hose or other tap HT, OT, or EP for potable water not from a tap but from a spring or stream, . The waypoints also usually contain the elevation in meters and the date and time recorded.

When displayed using OziExplorer they are colour coded to indicate our rating of the overall aesthetic quality of the site Red on Gray one X, desperation overnight stop only, Red on White two XX modest SONP, but you probably wouldn't want to stay long, and Red on Gold three XXX a nice stopping place with either good facilities or aesthetic appeal where you could linger a few days if you want. Those with a good water source of potable water are coloured Red on Aqua. Those with a rural, forest or park like setting have a Pine Tree symbol, those with a more urban, or bare open setting have a campervan symbol.

Where the location is not precise the name of the waypoint has [A] appended to indicate it is approximate only. Such waypoints have been established from descriptions of the location plotted on to the best available map and are not taken directly from a GPS reading.

OziExplorer waypoint files are simply text files which can also be imported into Excel if you want to have an easily readable database. The latitude and longitude are usually taken direct from the GPS and are accrete to within a few meters, but may be perhaps a hundred meters or so off target if taken while we are driving along a highway, as we don't stop to inspect all the listed SONP's in detail if the main features are apparent from the highway.

May 11, 2006 Thursday. Turnitz (Route 20) - Austria. Route 20 was exceptionally quiet during the night, so you can often stop close to a road and be undisturbed if you choose well. Were the access to the river easier (steep deep banks here) and the area better maintained and grassed we would probably stay longer but we will move on towards the Danube. We drove on towards Graz but found no better SONP along route 20. Heading north to Krems we found a XX grade SONP, a rest area along road 37, a few kilometers south of Krems. Along the Danube we rediscovered several places noted in our 2000 tour. Krems has an interesting old town section with a picturesque gate although the walls are gone.

SONP at Km119.5 beside the Danube at Durnstein.

On the 03 road on the North bank near Durnstein at Kilometer mark 119.5 is an excellent XXX SONP, a parking area by the river with good (non potable) water access, bins and shade, where we decided to spend the night. We use clean river water when available for washing dishes, cleaning the van and washing cloths to conserve our drinking water in the tank. There are cycle paths along both sides of the Danube in this area.

On the south bank of the Danube off road 33 at Km27.2 the track to the river, where we stopped for several days in 2000, is still there but it is not suitable for campervans larger than a VW transporter or Transit van, as it is partly overgrown, and has been badly cut up by vehicles. Our small campervan is too big to go in there. However if you have a very small van, and want a free secluded riverside site, where you won't see anyone except the occasional nudist in summer, have a look. There is also a small clearing in the forest near Km27.2 on the other (South) side of the road, just room for one camper van, a few meters off the road, easy access for any campervan, entrance is through a narrow gap in the trees at a break in the roadside guard rail.

May 12, 2006 Friday. Durnstein - Austria. We decided to explore along the Danube to Krems and along the way at Aggsbach Markt found a new campervan parking place that had just opened, next to a small restaurant. The charged only €4.40 a day for camper + 2 persons. Very basic with just water and use of the WC, so you could empty portable toilet tanks therein, but no gray water dump, and not much shade. However mainly because it offered some security with other campervans around, so we could leave our van and go cycling, we decided to stay a few days. There isn't much shade and the surface is course dusty crushed rock, in fact the free SONP at Durnstein was aesthetically much better, but with no security for the van left unattended.

Personal security while parked with your van overnight does not seem to be an issue in Austria. Crime can of course occur anywhere, but Austria is generally a very safe country. It seems some people in Austria are beginning to realize the need for low cost campervan service and parking places. Very crude compared to many in France, but perhaps the start of a trend in Austria.

We cycled into Melk in the late afternoon, about 10 kilometers and very easy on the level cycle paths that run along both sides of the Danube. Many houses have rooms to rent indicated by a red and white "Zimmer Frei" flag or sign outside, to cater for the cycle tourists who want to ride a long way and stay overnight. Being more observant of such things than in 2000 when we last toured this area, we noted more SONP's along the way and close to Melk where you could stop free overnight if visiting the Abbey.

May 13, 2006 Saturday. Aggsbach Markt - Austria. Many campervans arrived early in the day, weekenders from Vienna we supposed. More cycling along the Danube Valley to Spitz. From Aggsbach Markt walking trails extend into the hills. River boats cruise the Danube. Melk to Krems one way costs €16, Melk to Spitz €10. Several cross river ferries also carry cyclists for about a Euro.

May 14, 2006 Sunday. Aggsbach Markt - Austria. Being too wet for cycling we drove to Melk to explore the town and overnight at Abbey carpark with the intention of visiting the abbey next day. Melk is a pleasant small town with good parking facilities several of which make good SONPs.

The car park of Melk Abbey, an excellent SONP, it only lacks water and a dumpsite.

May 15, 2006 Monday. Melk - Austria. Highly Commended . Admission to Melk Abbey with a guided tour costs €8.80, about an average price for such places. There is one guided tour a day in English at 2.55PM, but if you buy your ticket early in the day you can ask to be allowed to wander thorough the abbey on your own, and then do the guided tour later. This we did, and I can highly commend this approach to anyone. The Abbey has a lot of interesting museum artifacts and you can't take it all in on the guided tour, which although it isn't rushed, taking about an hour, simply does not allow time to linger at some of the displays. The museum interpretive signs are in English and German, but without the guided tour there is little information on the Abbey's history, and I recommend you take the guided tour too. They do not have any multi-lingual audio CD players to hire and do your own guided tour, as do some if the places in France we have visited and recommend such as Fontainebleau and Haute Koningsburg Castle in Alsace.

There is a large garden which is included in the admission price of the tour, that you can visit yourself before or after your tour of the Abbey. Admission to the garden alone is €3.00, but I do not recommend that, it is a nice garden but nothing on the grand scale of The Palace of Versailles gardens, which are free to visit, you don't even need a ticket to wander through hem. I recommend you allow at least half a day to visit Melk, and you can easily fill in the whole day with an hour spent in the gardens and browsing through the Abbey, before or after the Guided tour if you ask.

Melk Abbey is of course a religious site, and of some significance in the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostella some 3,200 kms away in Spain, being an Orthodox Iconoclast (not to mention also being a pompous, narcissistic, self-serving, egotistical, condescending sociopath, as pointed out by one American, who omitted to mention my other notable qualities which include racist, sexist anti Semitic irreverent bigoted Nazi, at least that may be how I appear to "politically correct" armchair do gooders, with sponges for brains and the logical analytical ability of a suet pudding!) I have no belief in any religious aspects of anything. However not believing the religious dogma does not detract from the immerse historical and sociological interest and importance of such places. The Abbeys or Monasteries were an important element in the preservation and development of literacy and science in the early and middle parts of the second millennium and stood as islands of culture and learning in the seas of ignorance of the dark ages. For this reason they are of great interest, regardless of ones views of the merits or otherwise of the religious dogma, which although I don't believe any of it, is also of interest from the point of view of social engineering and propaganda for control of the masses. The history of religions is the history of social control and some understanding of it is relevant to understanding modern propaganda and brain washing of the masses to believe whatever the ruling elite want the peasants to believe. This subject I have expounded upon at length in various asides to these series of travel notes, leading to the glorious description of me given by the American man of the press.

After our tour we decide to explore along north bank of the Donau for a SONP, but after driving as far as Marbach a.d.D.(where the next bridge is located) and finding no good SONP's we crossed back to the south bank and returned to Melk and spent the night in another smaller parking area beside a small backwater of the river close to the town and with the Abbey towering above us. Melk is well provided with such parking that makes good SONPs and I highly commend a visit to you. Unfortunately there is no campervan Air de Services with water and dumpsite, but then no other places in Austria have them either, it isn't France.

May 16, 2006 Tuesday. Melk - Austria. After a wet start to the day almost caused us to abandon any such plans we set off cycling along the Donau to Pöchlarn and return. There we bought lunch at a small shack that they refer to as an Imbiss. German hot dogs. Served by a Lebanese. A flat tire beside the river. Help from an Austrian who stopped to assist and aided me in changing the wheel. Stopped on bank of the Danube in a small rest area south of Wellersbach, close to the road but there was almost no traffic at night.

May 17, 2006 Wednesday. Willersbach - Austria. The great LPG search, in Linz, many false leads, and often bottled gas was confused with what we were seeking, autogas from a bowser, and we were sent to service stations that only sold bottled gas. There is no LPG Autogas to be had in Linz.

Tires are much cheaper in Europe. A new Michelin 185 R14 8 ply for the van cost €78.00 including fitting and balancing, a similar tire we bought just before leaving England, because it really urgently needed replacing, cost £75.00, over 50% more expensive. I later decided to buy another similar tire in France and it cost €112.00.

So if you need new tires, buy them in Europe,Austria or Germany, like most other things they are MUCH more expensive in England.

Scrooge's Money saving hint. Use ASDA Perfumed Toilet Cleaner, which costs £0.28 a 750ml bottle in your portaloo or campervan toilet. It works just as well as the special toilet chemicals sold in camping outlets for about £10.00 for a 4 Liter bottle. We put it in the flush water, and also add about 50ml each time we empty the toilet cassette. It is just as effective, and 4L will only cost you £1.50.

Scrooge's Wine Price Guide. The resultant saving on toilet chemicals, converted to Euros will buy you about one dozen bottles of fine French or Spanish wine, if you buy at Aldi or LIDL in France, and follow some of our wine recommendations. The very cheapest wine you can buy in England costs about £2.00 at ASDA, and is a cheap Spanish quaffing wine, a vino de mesa, a basic but pleasant enough cheap red, that you can buy in France for €0.80 or equivalent to £0.55. So see how you Poms are ripped off yet again. And when it comes to high priced (so called "quality") wine, the sky is the limit. Wine is priced for fools. There is no sane reason to pay high prices for wine when the cheaper wines, if selectively sampled and purchased are just as pleasing. Bullshit advertising terms are used to part the fool and his money.

We never pay more than €2.50 a bottle and mostly less than €1.50, and by sampling and selecting the ones we like, and recording the results in a book with digital photos of the labels, we are able to generally have highly enjoyable wine for very little money. Price is a poor guide to quality and there are excellent wines to be had for no more than One Euro a bottle. All you have to do is sample, and methodically record the results. If you very rarely come across a bad one, and its rare to find a really bad wine, pour it down the sink. You have probably found six others that are excellent and that other fools are paying five or ten times the price of for wines that are not significantly different. The whole wine business is riddled with jargon and snob appeal bulldust advertising hype. At Aldi in France one good one to look for is a Bordeaux by Andre Lalbert, about €1.25.

May 18, 2006 Thursday. Linz - Austria. We stopped overnight in the same riverside parking area where we had stayed six years ago in Linz. Then it was newly painted and smart and we stayed several days. It hasn't improved, in fact Linz is looking comparatively run down. Graffiti is spreading all over walls in public places, which wasn't seen here in 2000, and black faces are appearing on the streets, as the enforced racial integration policy of the NWO takes its grip on poor Austria. The parking area on the North bank of the Danube where campervans park has not been improved at all since 2000, and if fact the place looks dirtier. We felt it wasn't as appealing as in 2000 and only stayed one night.

Linz parking area in the north bank of the Danube, used by campervans. Quiet at night, shade, bins and WC, where you can fill your tank with water if you have a special rubber tube adapter to enable you to connect to any odd shaped basin tap.

When the Austrians objected to too much immigration a few years ago through democratic political action, and elected to the Austrian Parliament representatives that truly represented the desires of the Austrian people, and opposed immigration of racially incompatible people, well, just look up The Austrian Peoples Party on the Internet and Georg Heider their leader, to see how any attempt at the expression of genuine democracy is suppressed by the hidden ruling global elite. Austria was condemned as "racist", a term to be proud of, for having APP members in its Parliament, who had been democratically elected, and was threatened with economic sanctions by the European Union, which is a principal instrument of the New World Order and its bid for one world government and the destruction of individual national identities through enforced racial integration. A very similar thing happened in Australia in the late 1990's to the Australian One Nation Party, led by heroine and political martyr Pauline Hanson. . You don't believe it? Well you just haven't been asking the right questions my friend. You have been watching too much television, having propaganda subtlety fed to you to colour your thinking, to destroy your national pride, to destroy your racial identity and racial pride. There is NO real democracy, it is all an illusion.

I am a racist, that means, I love my race, the white race, as part of humanity, and I do not enjoy seeing it destroyed by the Jews, who are the worlds most dedicated racists, and who are principally responsible for promoting this worldwide racial integration, migration and multicultural agenda, so that they will be, in the end, the only cohesive elite racial group remaining on Earth, among a coffee coloured dumbed down global populace, subservient to the whims of the "Chosen People". While their controlled mass media propaganda preaches that race consciousness is evil, and that so called multiculturalism is enlightenment, they practice the most extreme racism themselves.

Perhaps you don't believe it, because you have been fed propaganda all your life to make you blind to the reality that is happening around you. If for just a few minutes you open your eyes, you will see what is happening and ask, "Do I want this?" Did I vote for this? Who benefits from this? Why is it so? Then you will begin to understand that. No you don't want it! No, you didn't vote for it! No, you don't benefit? No, there is no simple obvious reason why it should be happening! So ASK! Who benefits? Who causes it to happen? Who makes your parliaments and elected representatives vote to cause and permit it? Read more real news on the Internet and watch less propaganda, and you too will know: "Why is it so?".

In Linz I was able to use my custom made adapter, made from bicycle inner tube, PVC pipe, 2mm venetian blind cord and hose fittings, to connect a hose to the basin taps in the WC to refill our water tank. Do the fools in authority not realize that when campervans park in a place that they need to refill water tanks? Apparently not.

We drove north west to Passau in Germany, mainly to get some LPG, and also explored along the Danube as we went. We found several low grade SONPs along roads 130 and 131, but nothing really worth staying at for more than overnight. Beyond Passau we located an LPG station from an Internet listing. However even in Germany LPG is not common and you need a listing or GPS waypoints preferably to get supplies. Autobahn service stations are the easiest to find LPG at.

The old East Germany is as devoid of roadside stopping places as is the rest of Eastern Europe, and we found no stopping places along road 12 from Passau to Vilshofen, but there the town has provided a small dedicated area for campervans on the river bank. Great river view, but it is very NOISY at night!! The road is a German RED road, and I had forgotten what I had learned in 2000, just how endless the night traffic can be on German RED roads.

The campervan designated parking is located at the remote end of the riverside parking area, as far out of town as possible, and because of the bad design cars use the parking area as a speed track. There is a one night posted time limit, no water, no dumpsite, but it is an improvement on nothing. It is very noisy at night with traffic never ceasing on road 8.

Maybe in a few more years the dumb bastards will begin to understand that campervans need water and dumpsites and if you make them feel welcome, and give them quiet centrally located parking, they will come to your town and spend money. We left as soon as possible in the morning, and bought out fuel and groceries elsewhere. Not good enough Vilshofen!

May 19, 2006 Friday. Vilshofen Germany. Displeased with the noisy location, we did not wan to stay another night in the town, as we would have done in order to go cycling along the Danube, if we could have been assured of a peaceful night. As soon as possible we headed south via the A3 autobahn to Reid and Vocklabruck in Austria, toward the Austrian Alps and passed by the Attersee. This is a large lake, which like most European lakes is horribly over developed, with private houses fronting much of the lake shore, and with minimal public access.

Most lakes in Europe are the same, overdeveloped, restricted public access severely limited by private land abutting the shore, often not campervan friendly, and few good SONPs. Where we find exceptions we will tell you.

There are no good SONPS along road 152 on the eastern shore, and I would think the same goes for the western road 151. However along 153 running east to meet 145, there are SONPs, although there are no camping and no fires signs, there are no posted restrictions on campervans parking. This is an area that could be magnificent for campervan tourism if it were properly managed, but it isn't and there only a few rough SONPs, several of the best are in the 2006 waypoint file.

We decided to explore to the Offeresee, a small lake east of road 145, and found that the parking area at the end of the road is neither overlooking the lake or near the rive,r and retraced our steps to a good SONP on the road in, where there is reasonably good river access and shade, but no other facilities. The river is crystal clear, straight from the Offersee So many points along this road have potential with an a couple of hours work with a small earthmover, but nobody outside of France realizes the potential market. You don't charge the campervans to park, you give them a free parking place, then they will come and spend money in village shops. Only the French can follow the plot so far.

May 20, 2006 Saturday. Offersee - Austria. Oil and filter change at 49,184 miles and lots of washing and small jobs filled in the day. Plotted the 2000 European tour track into an OziExplorer track file. Lots of locals came to the parking area opposite our SONP to go hiking in the mountains. All the cars were Austrian, not a lot of foreign tourists find their way in here.

May 21, 2006 Sunday. Offersee - Austria. A four hour hike up the Eibenberg to a mountain hut.

May 22, 2006 Monday. Offersee - Austria. Clear day for drive into Alps. Finally stopped at clearing on the steep road to Enzingerboden which affords excellent views of the Alps. Picturesque views of lakes and mountains with the traditional Austrian houses and hotels dotting the landscape.

Despite the spectacular scenery, there are very few stopping places or viewing points provided along the roads. It seems the Austrians just take the scenery for granted and don't make any provision for others to stop and admire it, except at the various lakes or Sees, where there are usually some parking places. At most of the lakes the majority of the shoreline is cut off from public access by private land abutting the lakes. So SONPs are not as easy to find in Austria as in France where there are frequent rest areas along most roads.

Notable are the large numbers of guest houses and Pensions in the alpine area catering to the local tourist and ski markets, and campervan tourists are not specially catered for in any way. We have not seen a single campervan waste dumpsite so far in Austria, and we don't expect to. Probably the proprietors influence the local governments and don't want to spend money on any facilities for people they don't see as their customers. So we have to dump gray water into drains where there are roadside grates, or onto the grass in a forest clearing or grass verge of a road. We use public toilets where these are available to empty the toilet cassette, but these are not frequently encountered and we are sometimes forced to dump toilet waste into forest land. We choose an isolated spot and the material will rapidly biodegrade. In France you don't have to do this because of the many Aires de services with free dumpsites.

After driving a long way with no SONPs since near the Dientner Sattel before Saarlfelden and finding none around the eastern side of the Zeller See, nor along road 168, we turned off the main road onto the side road to Einzingerboden which afforded spectacular views of the 3203 meter high Kitzsteinhorn and eventually we found a small forest clearing by the road to stop for the night.

SONP at Einzingerboden, a forest clearing beside a very quiet road.

May 23, 2006 Tuesday. Enzingerboden - Austria. The changeable weather is today completely overcast and none of the surrounding mountains are visible. This has been the pattern, one fine day followed by a wet and overcast day, so you can't rely on the weather.

We began to see a lot more campervans on the road today,more in a day than we saw in all of eastern Europe.

Heading west along the 165 road we came to the Krimmler Wasserfalls where there are large parking areas that would make good SONPs, the smaller ones up the road above the main car parks are not signed no camping, and are XX grade SONPs with good views, but no facilities.

There is a FEE of €1.80 to walk to the waterfalls, so we didn't pay. There are plenty of free waterfalls to see, and I object in principle to the commercial exploitation of natural resources. So whoever collects this FEE, for what should be FREE, can stick their wasserfall up their arse. You can see it free from the several view points along the road towards Zell am Ziller.

Further along the road to Zell am Ziller there is a TOLL of €7.00 per car. As this was the only road through to the west we had to reluctantly pay. While the scenery is picturesque along this road it is nothing unusual for this part of Austria, and I recommend you take the road to the north west from Kitzbuhel to Rattenburg and avoid the toll. I will not pay any toll I can avoid, and had I known of it I would have gone the other way. However to turn back would have cost more in fuel than the toll. Tolls are an evil capitalist exploitation of the right of way to free passage, and by boycotting them they will wither and die.

The first ADS (Aire de Services) for campervans in Austria was found at Schwaz, where the city fathers had set aside a corner of a disused carpark in a remote and unattractive corner of the town, well away from the river, and really a pathetic choice of location. They had installed a toilet dumpsite and water for 1 Euro coin in slot, but the parking overnight was FREE. Crowded into a back corner of an old carpark the only redeeming feature was the views of the hills. Austria has not got the plot yet when it comes to campervan tourism.

While we were there a campervan came in and one of the occupants applied a sticker to the dumpsite referring to www.camperstop.com which is apparently some new listing of campervan stopping places in Europe. They sell a guide book for €28.50 from the website, but guidebooks are old hat when it comes to finding places to stop. The way to go is GPS and to obtain the information from the internet for FREE. Then you can see exactly where the SONP is on your map system and use your GPS to navigate directly to it instead of struggling with directions in foreign languages and trying to find road signs.

May 24, 2006 Wednesday. Schwaz - Austria. Drove through Innsbruck Hundreds of campervans and caravans seen along 171 &189 Good SONPs on 189 overlooking Nassereith.

May 25, 2006 Thursday. Nassereith - Austria. A great day for mountains. We drove through Landeck, St. Anton, Lech, Au. We crossed into Germany and immediately there were a few rest areas noted along the roads.

May 26, 2006 Friday. Kranzegg - Germany. Cold wet and windy night in the forest, but it didn't stop the locals from going walking next morning. Drove to Fussen the southern end of the Romantic Road, and swarming with German tourists and campervans. The main attraction is the castle of Neuschwanstein, which we toured in 2000. If you haven't seen it before I recommend it as one of the more worthwhile tourist castles of Europe.

Forest parking area at Kranzegg.

Several commercial campervan parking lots have sprung up in Fussen providing basic facilities such as a dumpsite and water with small sized bare parking lots, and charging €9.00 a night. Not at all attractive, the parking lot at Aldi or LIDL supermarkets have better landscaping. They are not as good as a lot of the free aires de services in France. They are merely an opportunist response of local businesses with some spare land to capitalize on the lack of proper public facilities. They are not worth the asking price, as far nicer parking places are available free, such as the forest parking area at Kranzegg. Fussen swarms with too many tourists, and we opted to drive on to Landsberg, a quieter town. There are a number of rest areas along road 17 "The Romantic Road" but they are small and none are particularly good in the section between Fussen and Landsberg, so we opted for a town parking area near the river on the south side of the town. 3 hour max during the week, but unrestricted Saturday after 1PM and Sunday. Lots of campervans stop there during the day and a few also spent the night.

May 27, 2006 Saturday. Landsberg - Germany. Cycle riding and walks; around Landsberg.

May 28, 2006 Sunday. Landsberg - Germany. Drove on to Ottobeuren, which I had heard of in the Internet travel notes of another tourist, it is as reported an interesting neat small town. There is a campervan parking sign pointing to the sportsplatz, but there appear to be no facilities, and no specific parking places for campervans, and it is not close to the town center, so we didn't stay.

In Germany one source of good SONPs is forest parking areas which are often located not far from towns and from which forest walking tracks emanate.

In most German forest areas there will be tracks leading off the road into the forest. Sometimes they are signed no entry, but often there is a small clearing or parking area just off the road where you can park for the night, and where locals will park to go walking or walk their dogs. Some tracks have no restriction signs and extend a long way into the forests, here the main thing to watch is not to get bogged on soft ground along the track. Such places can be useful if there are no rest areas along a road, such as the 312 between Memmingen and Biberach.

At Memmingen they have a campervan parkplatz for €5.00 a night, with a dumpsite, water for €1 and coin in slot electric. It is new and a few small trees have been planted. It is located in an industrial area close to a noisy road and not near the center of town. They just don't understand the requirements, I will not pay to park at night when there are free alternatives available, so we were not tempted to stay. We drove on and parked overnight at the parking area of Jordanbad Spar near Rissegg along road 312.

May 29, 2006 Monday. Rissegg - Germany. Drove south to Ravensburg and found they have a campervan parking place with a dumpsite and water for one Euro. The location is not ideal, on the outskirts, but then this is the pattern in Germany, whereas in France many villages give them a central position close to the town, with often excellent free facilities. Viva la France!

The Ravensburg site appears to be free, so we stayed, but at 9PM a woman arrives seeking five Euro and claimed there was a notice of the fees. So there was, a small typewritten letter on a notice board among a whole lot of commercial advertising that nobody would see without carefully looking for it. I expressed my displeasure and refused to pay and said we would leave immediately, which we did, and went to the Wal-Mart carpark a couple of kilometers north. There we enjoyed an undisturbed night.

Ravensburg has a few remnants of old wall, town gates etc, but it is nothing special and not so well preserved as some of the towns along the northern sector of the "Romantic Road" such as Rothenburg, Nordlingen and Dinkelsbuhl. So as they don't offer good FREE campervan facilities in Ravensburg, I don't particularly recommend that you go out of your way to come here

May 30, 2006 Tuesday. Ravensburg - Germany. More rain most of yesterday and overnight. We are getting tired of not being able to get out to cycle or walk when we want to. This is the wettest spring we have experienced in our several tours of Europe.

Piped Spring Water. NW of Ravensburg on road 32 there a rest area with a piped spring which is as usual labeled "Kien Trinkwasser" or not potable, but as usual the water appears to be perfectly clean and odorless. All of the piped springs we have seen in Austria and Germany have been labeled as non potable, and I am reminded of the situation in Gavernay France last tour in 2005, where the tourist office advised that although the springs were similarly labeled, they were perfectly clean natural springs and people drank water from them all the time. The water was not polluted in any way, simply not treated or chlorinated, and some general bureaucratic policy resulted in all natural water sources being labeled not potable.

I suspect the same is the case in Germany and Austria. I believe that this situation may have resulted from the push by large corporations to create a market for bottled water, which is now sold widely even in places where the piped water supply is perfectly fit to drink, and often has no unpleasant taste. Some people in Australia have been so conned by the propaganda about bottled water that they refuse to drink rain water from their own roofs because of fears that it might contain bacteria from bird droppings. It does, but such things in small amounts do no harm. People have been conned into drinking bottled water where there is no need for it, and into hyper cleanliness rituals using needless household disinfectants and cleaning products containing toxic chemicals, all marketed by multinational corporations on the basis of irrational fears about bacteria, generated by their own marketing campaigns. Truly - "The ignorance of the masses is profound".

In Spain along rural mountain roads one finds numerous piped springs that are used by locals for water and only an occasional one is labeled non potable. These are not places where the ground water is liable to be contaminated with sewerage, as was the case in London before it was sewered in the nineteenth century, causing outbreaks of bacterial diseases. They are areas which are usually mountainous with low population density and not grazed by cattle, and the water is perfectly pure.

In any case water from such places is very useful for washing, filling the toilet flush tank, windscreen washers etc, even if you don't want to put it into your main water tank without local advice.

Further NW along 32 is is an excellent SONP at a rest area adjacent to a nature park picnic ground beside a small lake. Had the weather been better, it was raining and bitterly cold, or had it been later in the day, we may have opted to stay a day or two, as this is one of the best free places we have encountered this tour. The drive west along the Donau from Sigmaringen to Tuttlingen is very scenic, passing through several gorges.

Like all the rest areas along German roads in this area the rubbish bins have been removed some time since 2000, and replaced with notices to take your rubbish home. Well at the moment the campervan is home. So do the stupid bastards expect us to accumulate all the rubbish until we are driving a garbage truck instead of a campervan? Greed and the mentality of reducing public services is behind these policies that have also infected Australia in many places. We have taken to sometimes depositing our rubbish in the bins outside supermarkets, which seems reasonable as most of it is the packaging of items we have bought at their other branches.

May 31, 2006 Wednesday. Tuttlingen - Germany. Tuttlingen has a FREE campervan parking place at one end of a large parking area close to the Donau river and close to the town. Water is available for €1.00 coin in slot, and unusually the toilet dumpsite has an ingenious shutter mechanism which also requires you to insert another coin for it to open for four to five minutes. This is the first time I have seen a camper service point where the toilet dump is locked off and requires payment, and perhaps they may live to regret their greed if campervanners empty their toilets onto the ground outside the shutters, or into the gray water drain in protest. Only the drain for gray water is freely accessible.

The Donau River is much smaller than where we last encountered it in Austria, but there are still bitumen paved cycle paths all along to explore. Despite the unseasonably cold conditions we rode east to Muhlheim a quaint small town with half timbered buildings over five hundred years old. Along the way we passed the small village of Stetten, which is not marked on many less detailed road maps, where there is a small parking area beside the Donau and a picnic table and drinking water tap for the the Deutsches Donau Radweg, the cycle path, and this area would make an excellent SONP for a day or two cycling along the Donau. We passed another drinking water point on the cycle path, so it seems that they are regular occurrences along the Deutsches Donau Radweg, and can if accessible with a campervan, as only some small sections of the cycle path are accessible to motor vehicles, be useful water supply points.

June 01, 2006 Thursday. Tuttlingen - Germany. Another ride along the Donau to Immindengen about 30Kms return filled in the morning. The Donau cycle paths (radweg) are very well signed and easy to follow. Usually they have an exclusive cycle path with no traffic, but will also follow quiet roads through the small towns along the way. Meandering through picturesque countryside they are an excellent way to see the area at a relaxing pace while keeping fit and avoiding becoming a grotesquely obese slob, as happens to so many Australians and Americans, who have been conned into the junk food diets by the evil fast food corporations, cursed be there names.

After returning to the van we decided to move on and followed the 311 and 31 roads to Titisee, but it was very cold weather and none of the Bikini girls came out, so sadly we didn't see any tits! We sought out a SONP we had discovered in 2004, a nature Park parking area at Haldennof on road 750, and found that it was beginning to snow as we arrived. The weather has been unseasonally cold over the last week and we were suprised to have snow on the first day of summer.

June 02, 2006 Friday. Haldennof - Germany. . Quite a changable day, but that is how Europe is, except that you don't usually get snow in June, but last night we had about 50mm, falling from late afternoon and during the night.

Buy your beer in Germany,it is cheaper than most countries in Western Europe. (Eastern Europe is much cheaper for beer, particularly Slovakia)

Be aware that if you buy the plastic 500ml bottles which cost €1.69 for six in Aldi and LIDL there is a refundable deposit charge of 25 cents per bottle, which almost doubles the cost. German beer is among the best in nthe world particularly if it is "Gebraut Nach Dem Deutschen Reinheitsgebot", the beer purity law of 1516, which will be stated on the label. Oh. for such a law in Australia, which prevents the adulteration of beer with any form of preservative or chemnical additave, and hence the beer is is a pure natural product, and it does not give you terrible hangovers like most Australian or Asian beers do because of the preservatives used in them.

The bottles can be returned to any German branch of the store for a refund when empty. Some stores have a machine which takes empty plastic bottles, checks them for origin, and munches them up and gives you a credit docket for the total at 25 cents a bottle. So if you don't want to take some of the plastic beer bottles home for use in home brewing, as I do, return your empties.

"There are only two men in history to whose graves I have made a pilgrimage, Mozart and Beethoven. The third and only other, to whom I would accord such an honour, is Adolph Hitler, but alas he is denied the honour of a burial place, lest real history reveal the true humanity of this martyr to the progress of the human condition, who saw the Jewish problem of the world and met it head on, and accord to him in posterity the honour the Jews denied him in life." - D.B. Philosopher B. 1944.

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