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Date:         Wed, 23 Apr 2014 09:10:43 -0400
Reply-To:     Pete O <pnoceanwesty@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Pete O <pnoceanwesty@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: With the Westy through Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia
Comments: To: Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@yahoo.ca>
In-Reply-To:  <1398256866.31363.YahooMailNeo@web140102.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

Great write up! I spent 18 months at FSA Augsburg in the early '80's. Spent some time camping at Chiemsee - so beautiful! Would have loved to do it in a Westy, but used rented tents and camping items.

Pete '87 Westy "JoesVan" '79 Westy "Aardvark"

On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 8:41 AM, Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@yahoo.ca > wrote:

> My two daughters, wife and I traveled though central Europe over Easter, > mainly through parts that historically were part of the Habsburg empire. > While these countries have seen a lot of change in the past 100 years, > they retain much of the Habsburg architecture and some of the habits. > > We live and work west of Munich this year, so this was the starting point. > Our goal was to reach the Adriatic, where we had not been before, and it > would be a bit warmer for camping than north of the Alps. A bit of route > research on google maps and viamichelin revealed several routing options. > The quickest route is almost all motorway and goes through Munchen (D), > Salzburg (A), Villach (A), Ljubljana (SLO) and Rijeka (HR). Via Michelin > has routing options such as cheapest, shortest and "discovery". Many of > these would instead of the new motorways and tunnels, take us on smaller > mountain roads and passes through Kitsbuhel (A) and Udine (I), or Innsbruck > (A), Brixen (I), then following near the (A)/(I) border in the mountains to > Udine (I). Particularly the last one looked appealing. Several years ago we > had been in the Meran region of Italy and liked it. I assumed this would be > similar. However a cold front passed through just before our departure, so > we > were unsure ow road conditions would be at high altitude. Therefore in > the end we chose the first, almost all motorway route through Munchen (D), > Salzburg (A), Villach (A), Ljubljana (SLO) and Rijeka (HR). > > Germany has by far the most traffic of these countries, and not > surprisingly we ran into congestion when trying to go through Munich. There > were roadworks on the middle ring road, and we missed turns a few times. > The most annoying had no immediate turn opportunities and lead us on a > motorway almost back to where we started. After some 50-60 km unnecessary > extra driving we finally made it out on the east side of Munich. I had > wanted to avoid Munich altogether as we live south west of Munich and > wanted to go south east. However there are no significant east-west roads > going south of Munich (but many north south). > > More surprisingly than the Munich congestion was another hour or two of > congestion on A8 in the middle of nowhere near Chiemsee. Here the local > autobahn gas station profited from us and others by upping the gas price to > Eur 1.70/l (Normally about Eur 1.50/l in this region.) Another tactic some > gas stations have here is to raise the price 10c in the morning when people > are on the way to work and don't have time to look around, then lower it in > the afternoon. We had originally planned to stop in Salzburg, or one of the > scenic small towns nearby. Unfortunately due to the congestion instead our > stops were forced at unpleasant motorway plazas for gas and food. When > finally out of the congestion we kept driving to make up for lost time and > had to leave the Salzburg area for the return. Germans have a very short, > distinct word for congestion "Stau". I guess that is appropriate as it > seems to happen (all too) often. > > After the frustrating motorway stop-and-go I was worried how it would be > on A10 in Austria, which is a major European through-fare. Luckily, > wherever the A8 traffic went it wasn;t onto A10. We had a congestion free > trip through the Alps. Before the trip I had worried that A10 would be > dull. However after the cold front all the peaks were snow covered, and the > scenery was rivaling the world famous ice fields parkway between Banff and > Jasper in Canada. A10 is a modern motorway, and all grades were below 5%, > which was also very Westy friendly. We were able to go uphill at 90km/h in > 4th on the way to the Tauern tunnels at 1400m, then coast downhill at > 100-110km/h towards southern Austria. We stopped at Ossiaticher see, near > Villach, and camped right on the eastern lake shore. Price was Eur 30. It > is rare to get a shore spot in Europe, but Easter is pre-season. We noticed > the pre-season aspect overnight when the temp fell to about 0C. There was > some frost on > the grass in the morning. Daytime highs were on the other hand a pleasant > 15-20C. That's typical for the mountains. The campground was impeccably > maintained and had a nice playground for the kids. > > Most people drive right through Slovenia in their hurry to reach the > Adriatic sea. We stopped in a small village Prestranek. In the middle ages, > the local kingpin (Furst) would usually build his castle on the highest > point. In Prestranek instead the hilltop was crowned by a group of high > rise apartment buildings. Socialists all over Europe favored public > housing. The communists also thought that rural village people should live > communally in apartments instead of farm houses (that they had owned > themselves prior to communism). These Slovenian public apartment blocks had > stood the test of time better than many others. (E.g. in Sweden, Britain, > East Germany and Romania much of the 60's and 70's public housing stock is > in dire need of renovations or tear down). However, after the abolition of > centralized economic planning, the inhabitants of the apartments have had > to become more independent. Previous lawns in front of the apartment > buildings now housed > chicken coops and vegetable gardens. The apartment dwellers were busy > chopping and stacking wood for heating during the next winter. The > apartment buildings appeared to have newly installed chimneys for wood > stoves. (Before several of these buildings would be communally served by > one hot water heating plant - usually providing an unreliable source of hot > water for showers and heating). Overall everything appeared neat, and a > good example of adaption to new conditions. Not far away a few new villas > were rising. Perhaps built by the winners of the new capitalist system. > > Upcoming in part 2: Croatia: Rijeka, Krk, Baska. Austria: Salzburg and > Hallein. > > Martin (and '85 Westy 1.9l) > >


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