24 May 2007

A day of kindness

What a day today was. Somehow our pocketmail device got screwed up (probably John's fault), which led us to get up an hour earlier than we thought. We navigated our way through town without a problem and made our way to Fertorakos. From there it was only 3 km's to the border. Well, in our search for a bakery to spend our few remaining Forint coins we missed the bikeway to Austria. Our error was not discovered until we reached the village of Balf for the third time in three days. We retraced our way back to Fertorakos and crossed the border on a cycle and foot path. The plan was to ride to a town close to Vienna and camp or get a room, then go into Vienna from there for a couple of days. When we reached the town of Rust several cycle ways appeared and thoroughly confused us. Then along came two gentlemen riding the cycleway around Neusiedler See who guided us 13 km's to Donnerskirchen. There were some small mountains ahead of us and as we were looking at a town map we asked another gentleman named Ekkehard if he knew where the info center was. He wasn't from there but invited us for a drink at the restaraunt just 50 meters down the road. Here is where we experienced our first taste of almdrudel. Ekkehard was a biologist studying beatles and even had a live sample in a film cannister. He also gave us a nice map of Austria.
From here it was up over the hills to Hof, where we started to think about finding a place to stay. We knew there was no camping but figured maybe we would get a room. We rode past a few small villages that we could have stopped in but we were feeling good and decided to head for Perchtoldsdorf where one of our guides from this morning said there was a huge campground. The riding started to get a bit more nerve racking the closer we got to Vienna and keeping on route was tough. We came to a split in the road where we weren't sure which way to go. Marie did her best polite German and asked a woman coming out of a flower shop the way to Perchtoldsdorf and if there was camping. She asked another person walking by and was told there was none. This was not what we wanted to hear. She went back into the flower shop and called the police in Perchtoldsdorf and was told there was none. Hmmmmmm
Now what to do? Well, Elisabeth suggested that she drive John to the campground in Vienna (we didn't know there was one) to show him the way. So off they went leaving Marie sitting in front of the flower shop with the bikes. It turned out that that campground didn't open till June 1st. Elisabeth made a few calls and told John that we could camp in her mother's garden (backyard). It was over a half hour before they returned to Marie. Now how to find her mother's house? Again Elisabeth came through by driving ahead with us following and her pulling over to wait for us to catch up. Two km's later we were setting up our tent in Leni's garden. We were welcomed like family. After showering, we walked next door to a restaraunt for a very nice dinner. Leni must have been worried we were lost because she came over just as we were finishing up. Back at her house we enjoyed a shot of schnapps and conversed the best we could with our little German and her little English then called it a night.
Note: This is a holiday weekend with a huge concert at Castle Schönbrunn for aids with many dignitaries attending including good old Bill Clinton and Sharon Stone.