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Day 13
Tuesday June 26 - Thursday June 28
A cloudy
day. Yes, that's right a cloudy day. And cool. This is
different. We have had a continuous heat wave since we arrived in
Budapest almost 2 weeks ago. It has always cooled at night for
some relief, but the days have been brutal.
We had planned to go the the Belvedere this morning, but we changed our
minds & decided to head for Sopron a little earlier. The 1st
task was to get an Autobahn sticker. When we drove in & passed
the border, I wondered why everybody seemed to exit at the roadside
plaza just inside Austria. It completely slipped my mind that we
should have too, to get a pass. Now we needed one again. A 10
day sticker for a
1hour drive. But finding one was a challenge. The concierge
sent us down the road in search of a 'Tabac'. The 1st one didn't
sell them & the 2nd only had expired ones. So we aimed the car
toward the gas station on 227 where we had asked for directions.
No dice again. Down the road a couple of kms we stopped again at a
gas station. No. This was not easy. But they suggested
an Audi dealer next door who was sure to have them. And they
did. For 7.60€, which was a euro or two more than the Tabac that
had the expired ones, but at least we got one.
Now legal, we followed the signs for Linz, then Graf & then Sopron.
A23 - A2 - A3. Another easy drive. One thing I noticed was that Austrians seemed
to drive slower overall that the Hungarian drivers. I didn't
expect that with all of the Autobahn stories you hear.
At the border the disinterested Austrian guard waved us through, but the
Hungarian guard took our passports & wandered over to the other side
of the car to stamp them while having a loud conversation with 3 other
guards who were just standing around. We were the only car treated
to this show.
After the border, a short drive on the 2 lane Hwy 84 brought us to
Sopron. Once again, I'll deviate from the play by play since this
time was spent with another cousin - Etus & her husband Imre.
The difference here was that I parked the car & they drove us around
to see all of the local sites. I actually got to look around
rather than trying to drive & look around. And much to our
consternation, they wouldn't let us pay for anything.
I'll confess here that I loved Sopron. It somehow just felt very
comfortable. It is not a large town & it has maintained it's
small town luster. A couple of industries are based there -
Soproni Beer for one & a brick plant - but it also relies on its
proximity to Vienna for tourist income. Wellness hotels are
sprinkled all around the outskirts - in the hills & small villages
in all directions. Dental clinics abound to feed the Austrian need
for cheap dental work. And the lower stretches of the hill that
rises to the east are dotted with their vacation homes. Most of
the hill is a national park & from the lookout on top, you can see
well into Austria. Since it survived the Mongol & Turkish
scourges, it has a wonderfully old feel & its belváros is a maze of twisty
streets with wonderful Baroque buildings. Of course there are also
modern touches like supermarkets like Tesco, a football stadium &
car dealers etc etc.
We drove up through the houses & hotels in the hills & had
lunch at one of the restaurants that cater to the wellness crowd.
Expect menus in Hungarian & German but they sometimes have an
English one. We cheated & drove up to the Károly
Lookout & admired the vistas. You can see snow-capped
mountains in Austria in one direction & the Fertö-Tó beyond Sopron
in another. We visited the old quarry at Fertörákos that started
life as a Roman quarry & provided stone for Schöbrunn in Vienna
along the way. Concerts are held in a massive underground gallery inside the
quarry. We also went to the buffer zone between
Austria & Hungary. When the Russians were around, Hungarian
border patrol restricted access to this whole area. The Russians
weren't allowed with 5 km of the border due to agreements. But nobody else was
either. Nearby we passed the 'Communist' school & then stopped
at an old miner's bar in the bottom of the local church for a
beer. It certainly was a rural area. I started humming the
banjo music from Deliverance.
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