30 April 2025 – Vienna Stress Part 1

Miles driven today = 177

Total Miles to date = 4,766

Let’s just say that today didn’t go entirely to plan.  It took us best part of an hour initially to escape the clutches of Budapest’s rush hour traffic, but once we had done so the M1 motorway sped us fairly smoothly toward the Austrian border.  The topography of Northern Hungary is far more undulating than the South and the roads rather more curvaceous and interesting as a result.  We encountered a number of lengthy sections of resurfacing roadworks but the speed limit only ever dipped to 80kph which isn’t far off our normal cruising speed anyway so there were no serious delays for us, unlike the poor people who were stuck in a monumental traffic jam heading in the other direction.

We had a similar quandary about whether we should obtain a go box to allow us to legally drive on the Austrian toll roads as we did for Hungary but we were so impressed with the non-toll option we took on our way back from Italy last year that we decided to repeat the experience, so we hopped off the M1 at the last junction before the border and followed the amazingly smooth country roads north through the attractive Austrian villages of Nickelsdorf, Zurndorf, Gattendorf, Potzneuseidl and Prellenkirchen before crossing the Danube once more at Bad Deutsch-Altenburg.  Then at Groissenbrunn we swung West to Lassee, where we stopped at Hofer (the Austrian name for Aldi) for supplies and a late car park lunch.

A little way after Leopoldsdorf im Marchfelde we encountered a Police roadblock.  No idea what for.  There was no evidence of any sort of accident but they were flying an industrial looking drone around so were obviously looking for something or somebody.  We were diverted along a series of dusty farm tracks following a cement lorry, so if the van wasn’t filthy enough already it certainly is now.  We then continued via Gross Enzersdorf to our destination at the Neue Donau campsite (Donau is the Austrian name for the Danube and the site is just a short walk from the riverbank).  By this stage it was already 3pm and we had been on the road for nearly 6 hours.

I chose Neue Donau purely because it’s the closest, and has the best transport links, to Lisa’s brother Michael’s home in Gerasdorf.  It’s a huge place with 200 pitches so I didn’t think for one moment I would ever have to book in advance.  How wrong could I be!  The first thing the guy on reception asked me was “Do you have a reservation?” When I said “No” his response was “Then I can’t help you”.  It had completely passed us by that tomorrow, being the 1^st of May, is a public holiday and every motorhome owner in Austria had apparently got their beautifully polished vans out of storage and headed here. 

Reception guy did manage to make a reservation for us at their sister site over on the west side of the city but that was much further away from Michael’s house.  Lisa lived in Vienna as a small child and has visited many times since and I’ve seen the City before.  The whole point of us stopping here was to see Michael and his family, so rather than head over to the West side we had a rethink and decided instead to try the Donaupark site a little further upstream at Klosterneuburg.  The Reception there had already shut up shop for the day so all we got on the phone was an answerphone message but we decided to try our luck anyway.  And when we arrived there seemed to be plenty of space.  There was a list on the reception door of pitches which were reserved so we made sure we didn’t pick one of them and settled ourselves in.

It's a lovely site with spotless facilities and Klosterneuburg has lots of interesting things to see.  The majestic spires of the Stiftkirche are clearly visible from our spot on the campsite.

I’ve never seen one of these before.  It’s a machine which for the grand sum of €2 swallows your toilet cassette, empties it and gives it a good swill out and polish before spitting it back out fresh as a daisy.  Can’t wait to give it a spin before we leave.

We’d been keeping Michael informed of our progress and as soon as he finished his last appointment of the day he jumped straight on his vespa to come and see us.  We gave him a guided tour of the van and sat in the bar catching up until well after their 9:30 closing time.

So alle ist gut it seems.  All I need to do is pop over to reception in the morning and book ourselves in for another couple of nights.  But I’m writing this retrospectively and the best laid plans don’t always come to fruition.  So read on dear reader.  Read on…..

1 May 2025 - Vienna Stress Part 2