Tuesday 29th July

Ptuj

Today we went to the town of Ptuj heading east towards the Hungarian border. We found an easy park next to the river with a view of the old town and walked over the footbridge to the town, we started out at around 11.00 planning to have some lunch at a café but after walking through some of the town Jenny decided to have a haircut and with a bit of hand signals and gestures she had her hair washed and cut. The lady was very friendly but spoke no English, and she did do a good job so 18 euros later Jenny was a new woman.

After wandering some more through the streets we walked up the hill to the castle, paid our 5 euros each and went to explore. We were pleasantly surprised when we got there and found that the castle was intact and had many room with costumes, artwork, musical instruments, and an armoury. We certainly had our monies worth wandering through many of the rooms and were there for a few hours.

 

Returning back to the town we were getting hungry as it was close to 4 pm and we hadn’t had lunch. We found the best pizza place in town (on their sign) so we ordered a lasagne and a pizza with some beers and while waiting we used their wifi . We walked back to the motorhome satisfied and moved the camper to a large carpark and settled in for a quiet night near to the river.

Wednesday.

Frustration day

Every now and then you have a day that does not go to plan, everything seemed to be going against us. In the morning we wanted to go to the Hofer [a supermarket] as they had some cheap sheets we were after. It was only about a kilometre from where we had parked overnight but as were drove there we struck road works and had diversion after diversion until about 10 km’s later, when we reached it they didn’t have the one we were after. There was another Hofer back in town so we drove there and had some luck with the sheets only to find out that we had a flat tyre. I asked at the local service station and was given directions to the tyre place. It was the rear inside tyre and as we have dual wheels we could drive there and had it repaired. The young man didn’t speak English but with some gesturing we were fixed up and 9 euros later, [very cheap] and a new valve and we were on the road again.

We were heading for the village of Verzej where there was a floating mill which sounded interesting. We found the village but the road works here again prevented us from getting near and as parking was difficult we decided it was destined for us not to see it and so we continued our travels crossing the border into Hungary.

It was around 4 pm in the afternoon and we had had enough driving, campsites were nowhere near so we pulled into a restaurant asked the owner permission to park overnight in his car park in exchange for us eating there. He was very friendly and we had a big meal, a meat platter with salad, fries and some drinks. For $23 AUS [16 euros] we had a great meal and a place to stay for the night.

Thursday – Friday – Saturday
We headed to a campsite that we had been to 4 years ago to have a few days’ rest, along the way we stopped at the Tesco supermarket for some supplies and walked through the town of Szigetvar. It was a small town but had a large square and was very quiet.

Back on the road and after we reached the campsite we saw a sign on the door “Gesloten” “Closed”. It appeared that  only recently the campsite had closed and we had to change our plans. So after looking up some information about campsites in the vicinity we again took to the road to find a place to stay. (Later we found out the owners wife is sick and that’s the reason the campsite is closed). We headed to another campsite about 19 kms away a Dutch campsite called the‘t Tussendoortje [the in between] in a small village called Gerde. To our dismay we couldn’t find it and started to make other plans. As we were leaving town I spotted the sign on a gate and a lady standing next to it. This was the right place but the campsite was now closed as the owners were retiring. The lady [Mary]however said we could stay if we wanted  to and they already had some other guests staying. We were sick of driving and took up her offer only planning to stay for the night. Three days later we were still there but leaving on Sunday. They have been running the campsite for 14 years and have it on the market for sale. It is a small campsite in a rural village about 24 kms for the town of Pecs. They were very hospitable feeding us apple strudel cake one afternoon and giving us some palinka (a strong alcoholic liquor) which she makes herself. The added bonus was the swimming pool which we used every day while staying there. We also made use of the opportunity of catching up with our washing and doing some housework in the camper. This doesn’t take a lot of time but when you are on the road it can get pretty dirty.

Sunday
We did end up leaving on the Sunday morning after having a great few days with Mary and Chris, they were very hospitable and we enjoyed their company. Upon leaving they gave us some a bottle of homemade palink as a farewell gift. A big thank you to Mary and Chris. Just a final point that the campsite is closed and not accepting further campers.