Amadeus and all that.

Thursday 19th April. Onwards and upwards, we decided that today was going to be a determined day of driving so we packed and were on the road by 08.00 and avoided paying the day rate for the car park. Our good intentions were thwarted by the Germans, they are obviously making the most of our contribution to the EU and rebuilding their entire autobahn system, well that is what it seemed to us! Finally made Salzburg and found a camp site. We took the bus into the city centre but by this time the museums and Mozart’s house were all closed. We enjoyed walking around the old city and along the river and decided that we would bus back to campsite and eat in the adjacent hotel. The flaw in this plan was that we knew we had to catch bus 21 but I thought it’s route was just out from the city centre past our camp site. Wrong it runs from north of the city through the centre and then southwards. We ended up going on route 21 in the wrong direction, however the helpful bus driver didn’t just dump us at the next stop he carried on until he met the bus returning in the opposite direction and told us to get on that one. When we git back to base the hotel was closing the restaurant and the waitress took pity on us and served us with apple strudel. Friday 20th April. Today we were going to make it to Slovenia where we had planned a vague route for our trip. After more road works and numerous tunnels some over 10km long and with 2 way traffic, Liz drew the short straw on these we made it to Maribor. Our “camper stop book” came to the rescue with a tastefully situated free to use site next to the railway station. Maribor is a small Slovenian city with nearby ski resorts. It has an attractive river side and lively area of cafes, bars and restaurants called the Lent Quarter. We visited a renowned jazz bar called Satchmo’s but the music didn’t start until 22.15. So as an alternative we were looking for somewhere to have supper and found a street café called “Repvblica” the menus explain that they had reverted to the Latin spelling, but more to the point there was a live jazz / rock band 6 piece with 2 female vocalists and a range of local craft beers as well. A no brianer to choose between this and a cellar bar full of students and “only standard euro larger.”