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Poland and Czechia - into Czechia at last

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 Three and a half weeks into the tour, and we finally get into Czechia. It's long willowing countryside, with occasional deep valleys to climb into and out of. The roads are mostly good, with some rough patches in the small villages. The villages here are look more lived in than those in Austria, are have more life. Chechia does not have an abundance of campsites, so unless you travel city to city, you have to go out of your way a bit to find them. They are usually around a lake, and of a decent quality - with some exceptions. First stop was at the city of Brno, but we saw some magnificent buildings on the way. Brno is a small city, but like a lot of the cities in central Europe has impressive building facades, and large central squares in the old town parts. Again, all very tidy and well kept. On the way out of Brno we called into to view some caves. Our stop that night was at Camp Darko, a lakeside that allowed windsurfing and boarding, but needed a bit of tlc. The views were fin...
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Poland and Czechia - Bratislava and Austria.

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 Bratislava is a lovely place to visit. It's on the Danube, very close to both Austria and Czechia, and quite classy. The site we chose was just outside Bratislava on a lakeside, and it seems a favourite place for the locals to visit - It would probably be jammed full at the weekend, and with a water temperature of 22C, plenty of swimming going on. There is a chairlift type affair at one end of the lake, but instead of going up it pulls water boarders and skiers around a circuit which included ramps and jumps if wanted. There are boundless grand old buildings in Bratislava's old town area, just a 30 minute tram ride away, and a great vibrancy to it. The crowning glory, however, is the Bratislava Castle or Hrad. It looks stunning and immaculately preserved and kept, with domineering views over the city. They say you can see three countries from there. It was roasting, well above 30C, and locals were saying it was unusually so. It meant the city tour bus we took was....a little w...
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Poland and Czechia - Krakow and into Slovakia

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 We had intended to stay three nights in Krakow to look at Auswitz/Birkenau, the famous Wawel Royal Castle, and the salt mines at Wieliczka. However, Krakow had decided to say no. Krakow introduced a low emission zone in January, basically covering the entire city inside the ring road and unfortunately including all the camp sites. It's quite harsh, and basically won't allow in any diesel engines built before 2014. There were ways around it, but you needed to apply in advance and pay an hourly charge. Fortunately the Salt mines were outside the zone, and the allowed us (for a fee of course) to park up overnight in the car park. The salt mines themselves are huge, and they descent over 300 metres, so there is a LOT of walking involved. Apparently they have proof of the mines being used in Neolithic times to make salt lamps! At each chamber you reach the have tried to set up scenes of what happened there mainly in the mid 1600's. After that in the 1800's they built superb...
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