Two more trips into Eastern Europe today. The first was to the Czech Republic and I decided to go completely away from the motorway and take an hour and a half long drive (each way) from the Autobahn, through the countryside, to my destination, Bayerisch Eisenstein, a lovely German village set inside a great landscape.
On the journey here and yesterday I really noticed the difference between the flat Northern European countries and here. At a point on the motorway yesterday hills suddenly started appearing – and then mountains. Makes for great motorway driving as there’s lots of curves, hills and long-distance panoramic views to keep you busy. But as you would expect, the country road drives are even better.
So I walked over the border into the Czech Republic. As you might have noticed, I find these borders between countries interesting – it’s all about crossing new frontiers – also it’s the way everything changes – and there’s something quite cool about being able to look both ways and clearly see the two different cultures in either direction – and the fact that I’ve actually walked into a completely different nation. Also, the fact that I can’t drive into these countries means another reason to enjoy borderlands! Anyway, this one is marked with the usual border markers, euro-flag sign and a bridge over a small stream.
All that’s on the Czech side is a row of shops selling various crafts and cheap football strips, so it’s back to Bayerisch Eisenstein to have some lunch and enjoy that another great view.
Quite a long drive followed. I’ve spent a lot of time in Germany so far, but that was now at an end as I crossed over into Austria. You have to buy a sticker to go on the windscreen to drive on the motorways here – it’s their version of a toll – so once that was done it was off to my next trip – another 400km to Slovakia.
It was dusk by the time I got there. There’s something different about the Austrian borders. This particular one was a land border, but the border marker posts are huge so you can see the place where you leave Austria and enter Slovakia. On a footpath on the Austrian side there is an old sign mounted on a big post, stating the equivalent of “Warning! Country boundary!”. It looks quite worrying and it’s old because of course it’s a free passage to another new bit of the EU. Hopefully it’ll stay there as a reminder.
On the other side, there is an equivalent sign in the Slovak language and the Austrian welcome sign is not the usual EU flag one but a massive red and white one. Three metres over the border and there’s a bar selling cheap cigarettes again but even so, it’s quite a picturesque place to walk between these two completely different nations and as I went back to the car, in the distance (it’s only 10km away) I could see the sun set over Bratislava. I’ll save a visit to that capital city for when I can drive over there.
My destination this evening is the outskirts of Vienna, where I will be staying tonight. Today was by far the longest drive of all, but well worth it – not just for the destinations but the drive through the German and Austrian mountains was simply stunning.
KM TRAVELLED TODAY:967 km TOTAL: 3406 km
