Week 20 - Germany Back To Austria

From Kempten we headed for the Hymer Service centre in Bad Waldsee. Monday morning arrived and we booked ourselves in. Not long after Guntrum came to collect our keys. We explained, embarrassingly, that the nozzle from a hose pipe had fallen into the water fill pipe inside Harriet and got stuck. In an attempt to retrieve it, and even more embarrassingly, we’d damaged the cupboard door. It had only been booked in for a service and to have the winter tyres fitted so now, they would need more time to hopefully put things right, so we handed over the keys and walked into town to have a look around. It was still really cold and damp so headed for a coffee shop. We walked round a bit more and found a cafe for lunch. We were trying to kill time because Erwin Hymer were treating us to a factory tour at 1pm.

Two lovely apprentices, Laurine & Albina introduced themselves and took us around the buildings where Harriet (Hymer ExsisT 588) was made. We enjoyed every minute. It was so lovely to see how happy everyone was and how well built the caravans and Motorhome’s were. We were very impressed. 

In fact we’ve been very impressed by Harriet full stop. We’ve driven down roads that make your teeth rattle and the Hymer is still in one piece.

Back at the service centre we had a look around the shop and bought a more detailed map of Europe (to help with the planning), some more blue loo and a metre of thermal insulation stuff that looks a lot like silver bubble wrap. Just after 5pm we got the keys back for Harriet. After a quick drive up the road to a Rewe supermarket for supplies, we were back at the service centre, parked up and plugged into the electric (1€). We had tea and made some window inserts out of the bubble wrap we’d bought. Harriet is snuggly and warm with the heating on, but as the temperature drops overnight, you can feel the cold from the bedroom windows. So using gaffer-tape and an Ikea tape measure we now have more insulated windows next to our beds.

The next morning Guntrum came to see us again. He very kindly drove us to the Hymer museum before taking Harriet back to the workshop for part two.

The museum tells the story of the history of caravans & motorhomes. It was brilliantly laid out and there was lots to see. 

We were given a hand held device so we could read about the exhibits in English. The writing was very small, and because we are both optically challenged, we gave up. It’s quite self explanatory without having to read anything thankfully.

One of the things you can do at the Hymer museum, is dress up and have your photo taken. There are 4 different scenes and you can use your each entrance ticket once at each place. Great fun.

After eating lunch in the cafe, Guntrum came to pick us up. Not long after, we were back on the road, fully winterised, no blockage in the water fill pipe and the the cupboard door mended.

One of the best things about travelling, is not only seeing beautiful places and experiencing different things, it’s catching up with old friends. After we left Hymer, we traveled to Centre Parks Leutkirch to meet up with my lovely friend Uwe who works there. It was great to see him again after all this time.

Our plan was to drive through Austria, over the Brenner Pass into Italy. Visiting Verona, Padova and Venice. But we’d learned that Venice had been flooded by the recent storms. The beauty of having a motorhome is that you can change your route at any time, so we decided to head for Slovenia instead. We called in to Mittenwald near the Austrian border. We’d spotted it on the way to the Bad Waldsee. It’s a fascinating little town and so pretty. Typically Bavarian with painted buildings covered in murals depicting religious scenes and village life from days long ago. 

They’d even decorated the church. 

They have a stellplatz there too but we chose to stay in the car park as it seemed a lot quieter.

We decided on a truckin’n’lookin day, so left Mittenwald and zig zagged back and forth over the invisible German/Austrian border. The scenery was just out of this world. We even had a view of the mountains when we parked up that evening.

The next morning we continued over the Hochkonigstrasse and the 99 to Villach in Austria. To say the scenery was stunning was an understatement!! The road, at times, was more like driving the Trollstigen Pass in Norway than a ‘B’ road in Austria. Amazing!!

We stopped off for lunch in one of the beautiful alpine villages and to stretch our legs.

Andy had found a launderette in Villach using google maps so by the time we got there it was dark and raining. The launderette was the cleanest we’d ever been in. Washing done, and tea eaten, we drove half an hour up the road to Klagenfurt. We found the Stellplatz but unfortunately it was full. It was getting really late by now so there was nothing else for it, we did our first bit of street parking. It’s difficult to be inconspicuous in a 7m white Motorhome but we thought if we didn’t put the silver screen round it would help?!! It seemed to work. We had a reasonable nights sleep and nobody bothered us, phew.

There’s a great free leaflet in the Klagenfurt Tourist Information called “Walks Through The Old Town”. We picked up a copy and followed the red route on the easy to follow map, “Discover Arcaded Courtyards and Passages”. It was great fun trying to find hidden doorways into secret courtyards that we would never have come across just walking through the town. We even came across the Carinthian Museum of Modern Art which, during WW2, was the Gestapo Headquarters in Klagenfurt!! 

We visited 2 coffee shops on route, a Harry Potter themed one and one that looked quite ordinary from the outside but were shocked to find they had a separate room where people were smoking. I thought, in this day and age, this had been stopped? Anyway, Klagenfurt was a lovely town to wander around. 

Our lovely friend Sarah had also recommended Mini Mundus to us. The world in miniature. It’s just on the outskirts of the town. We were lucky to visit as it’s closed tomorrow for the rest of November. 
When we first looked at the scaled down models from a distance, they didn’t look anything special. But when you get up close to them (all 159!!), you can see the work and the detail that’s gone into them. Amazing. Well worth the 19€ entry fee. We spent most of the day walking around “the world” and reading the plaques (which are in 4 languages including English).