Day five: Date with Dracula

Started the day enduring the familiar rigmarole of changing cash in an under-developed nation – the search for a bank, the search of the correct teller, the race back to the car to get my passport and then the disconcerting sight of the woman beside me pulling multiple bricks of tightly packed notes from her handbag.

Then it was off to Bran Castle, also known as Dracula's Castle - although any connection to the world's most popular vampire is dubious at best. In fact, the attempt to link the fortress to Dracula is a bit sad, as it's a wonderful attraction in its own right – compact and full of funny passageways, cosy little rooms and amazing views. It almost feels like a large house perched on a hilltop – somewhere you could actually imagine living. (The Dracula 'connection' has also led to the accumulation of a rather tawdry collection of horror-themed tat stalls at the entrance to the castle.)

After touring the castle, we drove to our 'hotel', which turned out to be a local woman's house. She turned out to be a typical Romanian granny – plump and head-scarfed – with no English at all. She hadn't made our room up yet, and proceeded to do so as we stood around feeling slightly uncomfortable.

We then headed out to the small city of Braşov, which was about half an hour away. We found a nice parking spot close to the city centre, but then had to spend 15 minutes accosting pedestrians and asking them for change for the pay and display.

The centre itself was lovely - pedestrianised and pretty - and after wandering around for a while, we had a pleasant meal in a 104-year-old Art Nouveau-styled restaurant.

Made it!

Just a quickie to say that we've made it safely to our house-sit in Greece. The weather is lovely, the beach is close and the water is warm... And there are lots of cats!

Day four: Road to Romania

Morning, Hungary

Hungary is undergoing an amazing amount of road building

Today we drove into Romania, which was something of an eye-opener. Moving from Austria to Hungary, there was a definite socio-economic/developmental drop, but it was nothing like the drop that took place when we moved from Hungary to Romania.

The border itself had a rather Wild West feel to it. First up, Kate had an amusing but slightly unnerving encounter with the woman selling vignettes (essentially a form of road tax). She demanded our car documents and got increasingly indignant as Kate produced her passport and drivers licence. 'Car documents! Documents for car!' Luckily, Kate had read something before we left about needing your car registration papers and miraculously, I remembered where I had stashed them, and soon enough we had passed the first hurdle.

After having our passports checked by a decidedly disinterested border official, we were in Romania, where we were immediately hailed by numerous strange, toothless people. There were big long-distance lorries all over the place and lots of seedy looking change booths and we just carefully made our way through.

We then added another entry to my list of superlative encounters as we drove past the longest queue of trucks I've ever seen.

Initially, our passage was slow and tedious, as we fought with traffic congestion of one type or another, but eventually the roads opened up and we started to make more rapid progress leaving the towns behind and driving into the Romanian countryside – falling-down buildings, horse-drawn carts and those distinctive haystacks with the bits of wood poking out the top.

This one photo sums up our Romanian experience pretty effectively

As usual, we had underestimated the congestion and overestimated the journey time and it was after dark when we arrived in the town of Deva, our destination. We had splashed out and were overjoyed to open the door to our luxurious suite.

The hotel didn't do dinner, so we walked up the road to a nice little local restaurant, where some very friendly English-speaking diners helped us with the menu. Although it was a bit chilly, we sat outside because Romania hasn't instituted a smoking ban yet and the dining area was wreathed in a lung-coating fug.

Day three: The mystery of the missing campsite

Today we drove all the way across Austria but I couldn't tell you what it looked like because the motorway was almost completely fenced off. It was only after we had passed Vienna and were approaching Hungary that the fences came down to reveal the biggest chemical plant I've ever seen. We then drove through the biggest collection of wind turbines I've ever seen. 

We hadn't timed the afternoon's journey very well, so it was after dark by the time we entered Hungary, en route to our campsite. We hadn't booked anything, nor even chosen a site beforehand – we were relying on Sally's profound knowledge of local points of interest.

Tired and disoriented, we started to count down the minutes and then the metres to our arrival, only to pass by our 'destination' without seeing any sign of a campsite. We went around a roundabout and made another pass, but there was still no sign of the promised land. Stopping to reassess, Kate spotted someone standing outside their house and went to ask directions. Although he didn't speak English, she managed to ascertain that the campsite was shut, but there was another in the next own – about 15 minutes away.

We drove there and after flailing around searching for an entrance and then an owner, we got the tent up and had another intimate meal in the foyer.

Day two: Congestion and a castle

I spent some time re-organising things in the car before we left, which meant that we didn't get away until after 9.30am. The morning went smoothly enough after that and we were very pleased when, around lunch time, Sally informed us that there was a shopping centre just off the motorway. We quickly grabbed some provisions, including a lovely rotisserie chicken from a little grill restaurant in the car park, and the girls had a jump around in a bouncy castle in Haribo Land, which is apparently located in middle-of-nowhere Gemany

We got back on the motorway and were just tucking into our salami rolls when the traffic ground to a halt – the beginning of a couple of hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic as we made our way through several kilometres of roadworks.

We lost so much time to the traffic congestion that it was getting pretty late by the time we made it to Neuschwanstein Castle, the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. As it was five euros just to park our car at the bottom of the walk up to the castle, and the hour was on the late side, we decided to forgo an actual visit and instead headed to the campsite that Sally had pointed out on a lake nearby. 

After putting up the tent, we sat and had a picnic by the lake as the sun went down and the bats came out to hawk insects over the water

  

Day one: Ferry, France, Belgium, Germany

What with all of the last-minute cleaning and tidying, we left the house about 20 minutes late, so the drive to Dover was more than slightly tense as we tried to make up the time (not to mention cramped, as all of my careful packing had gone out the window as I crammed stuff into every available space). In the end, we arrived pretty much exactly at the last minute and were the last car on the ferry.

We then drove through France and into Belgium, stopping for lunch at a random restaurant that happened to be adjacent to one of the most amazing playgrounds we've ever come across. Kate and the girls spent ages bouncing on trampolines and paddling around in the watery area. 

We then headed for the campsite, which was another few hours away. There weren't many petrol stations on the motorway, and as we approached our destination, the fuel light came on. Now, on the day before we left, on a whim, we finally joined the 21^st century and bought ourselves a sat nav, which we have now dubbed Sally. She more than endeared herself to us as she directed us through the forest to a town with a petrol station. The town was on the Mosel River, right in the heart of wine-growing country, and it tore my heart out to drive down through vines bathed in a warm, afternoon glow, so desperate to get to the petrol station before it shut that we couldn't stop to take photos. I snatched a few from the car, but they really don't do justice to the absolutely stunning view we had as we drove down out of the hills.

Thankfully, the petrol station was open and, car replete, we headed back out to the campsite, where we put up our new tent for the first time in the near-dark and then sat in then 'foyer' dining on crisps, dried apricots, cucumber and flapjacks.

Nearly there...

I'm cheating a bit here. We're on the road now, so I'm going to backtrack a bit to fill in the past couple of days.

The weeks before we left were one big faff. Because we didn't have a set departure date, we didn't really knuckle down and get right into it until the last few days, so in the end, we left more than two weeks after we had planned.

But, we got a new fusebox installed, so we got our electrical safety certificate.

Matt the electrician hard at work

And as we were leaving, the plumbers were installing our new boiler, as we continued to accumulate more and more stuff for the trip, so with luck, we should have our gas safety certificate soon.

Chaos!

I'm going to digress here and write the final chapter of the Baxi Bermuda Inset 2 part 239280 front coals story. Just after we booked the plumbers in the replace the boiler, we got an email from Bob in Wales, who said he had found our missing part and was just waiting for it to arrive. Elated, we rang the plumbers to cancel the installation. But then, just as Kate was about to go online to pay for the elusive part, Bob called, devastated. As he was double-bubble-wrapping the coals, he broke one of them. And yes, it was the left one, the one that we needed, so the installation was back on...

With time running out to get to Greece in time, we finally puled our collective finger out and got to work in earnest. On the night before we left, I was up until 3am building an Ikea futon and doing a bit more tidying – before getting up at 5am to do the final pack and empty and clean the fridge.

The good news is that in the last few days before departure, we got our first booking for the house – four builders down from London for a job – hence the Ikea futon. They're booked in for four weeks with a possibility of an extension, which is great, as the booking will almost pay for the sodding new boiler.