The Road Home from Austria

Saturday 19 August 2000. We have to say goodbye to Austria as the coach set off north for Belgium. We were to stay overnight in Belgium and then back to the UK the following day.

Gazing out of the coach window brought a few reminders of the scenery we had enjoyed during our few days in Austria.

At times it threatened to remind us of some of the weather we had sheltered from during our evening walks!

We said goodbye to the musical box chalets that had been almost the only shape of building we had seen for a week!

We had seen so many chalets and other buildings of the same basic design that I was actually looking forward to seeing a house without a balcony and with a four-sided roof! The Austrian-German border came and was crossed and we turned onto a road with markers every kilometre. We would stay on this one road for several hours and the first marker read 510 km.

The Germans were building a new high-speed railway and we saw construction works every now and then as the road weaved its way alongside, over and under the embankments and cuttings of the railway.

There were also the occasional castles to break the monotony of the flat landscape. I watched throughout the day as we stayed on this one road until a marker said 1 km and we reached the border with the Netherlands.

The following day, rain spattered the coach window as we left the hotel in Belgium. "Where's your camera?" demanded Janet! It didn't do very much though and we set off from Antwerp towards France and the ferry port of Calais. A stop at a Belgian chocolate factory found the factory already full of visitors but the same firm had an outlet at the wine cash & carry near Calais so no-one seemed unduly worried! The border posts on the Belgian/French border were still there but were now deserted for most of the time as Europe had opened its frontiers to other European countries.

Er... the white bits (top left) are the reflection of the coach windows on the opposite side of the coach and not - as they might at first appear - a ghostly washing line of Y-fronts...

The odd reminder that 2 world wars were fought over this land and several typical French farms and villages flashed by until we reached Calais. The ferry crossing was smooth and we transferred to our feeder coach, swapping news and views with the people we had travelled from Blackpool with 8 days before.

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Zell-am-See, Austria 2000

Saturday 12 August 2000. Another morning outside Blackpool Tower at 4:30am in order to catch the coach down to Dover for the ferry to Calais!

We set off in a taxi from Blackpool, catching our feeder coach at Preston. We reached the Interchange at Dover without incident and found some time to eat there whilst the other coaches arrived. Leger don't have coaches of their own but instead use coach firms from around the UK.

These pick up at various places on the way down, zig-zagging across the M6 from town to town. One particular coach seemed to have zig-zagged on the actual motorway, the passengers from that feeder had nothing polite to say about the driver or his firm... However, he had nipped off smartly in a car at Dover so wasn't about to put anyone else at risk. He probably stood a good chance of being lynched by the sounds of things!

Onto the boat! The coaches are left on the lower decks whilst we go up to see how easy it is to stand still! (It was!)

In fact it was a lovely day, the sun was shining, the White Cliffs of Dover were receding in the distance so the risk of bluebird droppings was fading and all was well with the world.

Once at Calais we turn left for Belgium and motor through Flanders in order to stop overnight at a hotel in Antwerp.

Tomorrow will be a long day. The drivers of our main coach, Keith and John, warn us that we have to cover over 700 miles to Austria!

Sunday 13 August 2000. Our coach was from the Essex firm of Harris's and was in their dark green livery rather than the Leger white with blue and green highlights. John and Keith struggled to fit all the luggage into the lockers. "I like a jigsaw!" was John's comment. "Ah good," I said, "shall we bring the rest out now?"

We passed from Belgium into Holland and then to Germany. Markers pointed out the distance travelled every half kilometre - every 1/10 in Holland and Belgium - and I had to reflect that this was far better than the English system of none at all!

Late in the afternoon Keith called over the intercom: "You've come to see mountains - have a look through the front window so I can turn round and go home again!" We'll see them later in another article. For now we are at the hotel - the Pinzgauhof in Schuttdorf. "They've not made up the beds!" says Fran.

Never mind that! The loo is back to front! Now apparently this is a feature of toilets in Germany and Austria and sometimes in the Netherlands too. Here's why, because I know you are fascinated... The shelf allows an examination of poo - you may wonder why doctors say "have you seen any blood in your poo? when you know and they know that you would have to go excavating through layers of toilet paper and then dipping to find a bit of poo to examine. This handy shelf accomodates a close examination without all that!

You're dying to try it now aren't you? And...! No splashbacks! There's a whole science behind this but I'll spare your sensibilities for now and just point out that you can get a nasty surprise if you don't check and flush before... well let's just say that a splashback might be preferable...

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