What a saga! Still, some nice serendipity at the end. The Danube certainly is full. I’d like to go to Hungary — partly because it’s a matter of seeing it before it disappears (the traditionally farmed countryside, with its space for nature, anyway) and partly because I had a very interesting Hungarian great-uncle (married to my paternal grandmother’s sister). He was in Vienna as a teenage apprentice at the Spanish Riding School when WWII broke out and managed to escape to England rather than be conscripted. He and my great-aunt met on a troop ship at the end of the war carrying Australians back home from Europe and north Africa. She was a nurse and he was a displaced person (who had presumably applied to go to Australia). After the communists government fell the new government wrote to him and asked if he wanted to reclaim the fairly substantial family property. He went over to look at it, and to see his sister, but the property was in poor repair and he decided his commitment was to Australia now. The government was hoping that former owners would take on the responsibility of maintaining historic properties to save them some money.
Rosemary Kneipp
June 28th, 2013 at 9:45 pm
There’s plenty of farmed countryside, though I’m not sure how natural it all is. Very interesting story about your Hungarian great uncle. The only Hungarian I have known was the man who sold me my second apartment in France and he gave me a guide book that we’re using at the moment.
Femme Francophile
June 28th, 2013 at 3:04 pm
I am so enjoying following your trip. I am sorry to hear that not everything has been as you would have liked. I know that as always Rosemary you will be optimistic and make the best of the situation. You have seen some very beautiful places and buildings.
Rosemary Kneipp
June 28th, 2013 at 9:46 pm
Thanks Femme Francophile. Actually the good far outweighs the bad as you will see from my next post!
Linda
June 28th, 2013 at 5:16 pm
Washing…oh and toilet stops for females! the biggest bugbears of travelling as far as I am concerned.
I absolutely loathe laundromats, hated using them ( when we could find them ) on our travels in France and Italy. Dirty, dingy, demeaning places. Every washing day at home, I am truly grateful for my own washing machine and all the amenties in my own laundry and always say a little “thank you”.
Don’t start me on the toilet issue. Apart from that, travelling is there for us to excperience all the ups and downs that come from being out of our comfort zone.
Rosemary Kneipp
June 28th, 2013 at 9:53 pm
As we’re not restricted in terms of quantity, we’ve brought a lot of clothes with us but we don’t possess enough to last 4 weeks! The lack of washing machine, carefully planned for the middle of the holiday, was actually more annoying than missing out on the home exchange. The hotel here is very good though and they have a boiler room where the clothes dry very quickly. In Italy, we’ve always found very cheap laundries with one-day services which I expected here as well.
Surprisingly, I haven’t found any problems with toilets which are all clean no matter where we go, with the exception of motorways. That was not so twenty years ago!
[…] nearly missed out on one of the highlights of our trip. If our home exchange in Budapest hadn’t fallen through, we would have passed over Washau altogether. It was Jean Michel’s fault, […]
[…] to our change of plans because of bad weather near Linz a couple of weeks ago and our accommodation problems in Budapest, we have an extra two days after Wachau without any planned accommodation. The weather is looking […]
[…] main street and only meet the locals. And we had one of our best dining experiences this summer at Muvesz in the Main Square. The architecture is mainly 18th century baroque and there are no fewer than nine […]
What a saga! Still, some nice serendipity at the end. The Danube certainly is full. I’d like to go to Hungary — partly because it’s a matter of seeing it before it disappears (the traditionally farmed countryside, with its space for nature, anyway) and partly because I had a very interesting Hungarian great-uncle (married to my paternal grandmother’s sister). He was in Vienna as a teenage apprentice at the Spanish Riding School when WWII broke out and managed to escape to England rather than be conscripted. He and my great-aunt met on a troop ship at the end of the war carrying Australians back home from Europe and north Africa. She was a nurse and he was a displaced person (who had presumably applied to go to Australia). After the communists government fell the new government wrote to him and asked if he wanted to reclaim the fairly substantial family property. He went over to look at it, and to see his sister, but the property was in poor repair and he decided his commitment was to Australia now. The government was hoping that former owners would take on the responsibility of maintaining historic properties to save them some money.
There’s plenty of farmed countryside, though I’m not sure how natural it all is. Very interesting story about your Hungarian great uncle. The only Hungarian I have known was the man who sold me my second apartment in France and he gave me a guide book that we’re using at the moment.
I am so enjoying following your trip. I am sorry to hear that not everything has been as you would have liked. I know that as always Rosemary you will be optimistic and make the best of the situation. You have seen some very beautiful places and buildings.
Thanks Femme Francophile. Actually the good far outweighs the bad as you will see from my next post!
Washing…oh and toilet stops for females! the biggest bugbears of travelling as far as I am concerned.
I absolutely loathe laundromats, hated using them ( when we could find them ) on our travels in France and Italy. Dirty, dingy, demeaning places. Every washing day at home, I am truly grateful for my own washing machine and all the amenties in my own laundry and always say a little “thank you”.
Don’t start me on the toilet issue. Apart from that, travelling is there for us to excperience all the ups and downs that come from being out of our comfort zone.
As we’re not restricted in terms of quantity, we’ve brought a lot of clothes with us but we don’t possess enough to last 4 weeks! The lack of washing machine, carefully planned for the middle of the holiday, was actually more annoying than missing out on the home exchange. The hotel here is very good though and they have a boiler room where the clothes dry very quickly. In Italy, we’ve always found very cheap laundries with one-day services which I expected here as well.
Surprisingly, I haven’t found any problems with toilets which are all clean no matter where we go, with the exception of motorways. That was not so twenty years ago!
[…] ← Budapest – more accommodation problems […]
[…] nearly missed out on one of the highlights of our trip. If our home exchange in Budapest hadn’t fallen through, we would have passed over Washau altogether. It was Jean Michel’s fault, […]
[…] to our change of plans because of bad weather near Linz a couple of weeks ago and our accommodation problems in Budapest, we have an extra two days after Wachau without any planned accommodation. The weather is looking […]
[…] main street and only meet the locals. And we had one of our best dining experiences this summer at Muvesz in the Main Square. The architecture is mainly 18th century baroque and there are no fewer than nine […]