Lake Balaton, Zagreb & Vinica

Balaton

We were leaving Budapest, which was a shame, but this also meant we were leaving the campsite where you washed your pots in the exact same area that you washed your arse, so on balance I was fine with leaving.

We spent about 7 hours driving around a huge lake in west Hungary called Balaton. It's got to be one of the most densely packed campsite areas in Europe, but none of them were open. Not one. The lake was beautiful though. It was great to be near the water again. We stopped to spend some time walking and watch the sun go down. The scenery in this part of the country was really impressive. Some great landscapes. And so many birds! Hungarian skies seem to always be full of flocks of birds, or at least they did where we were.

Soon it got dark, so we got serious. We decided to call the next campsite, to check it was open before driving to it. The best bet looked like a campsite about an hour south of the lake. We dialled the number. To our surprise an English voice answered. He said they were open, so we said we'd see him in an hour.

The English couple

Two hours later we arrived. The English owner, Andrew met us at the gate and directed us in. He offered us some wedges to level the van out, then invited us into his kitchen for a chat once we'd settled in. The campsite was basically a garden set up, outside their house. Not that it was small - there were 25 pitches.

I've given up beer for January, so when I walked into Andrew's kitchen and saw two large bottles of ice cold beer, with glasses, sat on the table waiting for us, I could've strangled him. What a lovely gesture. It's not his fault it actually amounted to torture. It was so hard not to drink those beers, but we both managed it. I have no idea why Rach didn't drink hers, she hadn't given it up. I can only put it down to moral support.

Andrew proceeded to talk us through his life, how he came to own a campsite, how he met his wife, his former incense business, his philosophy on running a successful market stall, the neighbours, previous guests, the weather, the climate… it's fair to say Andrew liked to talk. Every now and then his partner, Sharon would poke her head round the door to check on how we were getting on.

The time was now about half 9, and we hadn't yet eaten, so you can imagine our delight when, just as we thought his spiel was coming to a close, Andrew got out a campsite folder to talk us through the campsite rules, the amenities, their famous Hungarian goulash, their dog policy, nearby attractions, a book they've featured in, cuttings of newspaper articles they've appeared in, awards they've won... 

I occasionally looked down at the curvy, dripping beer in front of me. We were edging ever nearer to February. I may get to drink it after all. 

Andrew also told us that he'd recently suffered a stroke, which had really affected him physically, mentally and, most touchingly, emotionally. He said he often found himself just bursting into tears with confusion. It was really sad to hear. He really was a lovely guy and his over-talking could definitely be excused. He admitted himself to having verbal diarrhea, as he and Sharon didn't often get to meet English people to talk to. 

In the morning, we gave Andrew and Sharon a tour of our van, as they had plans to sell up the campsite and go travelling themselves. It was good to be able to lend them some tips. After having our photo taken for their photo wall, we left in high spirits. It was so nice to meet some friendly fellow Brits.

Croatia

As we got on the road out of Hungary, Rach asked ''which country are we going to today?'' What a great question that is. The answer was also a good one - Croatia! 

We had to show our passports three times in the space of about two minutes when crossing the border. The third guy heard me when I over-muttered 'Jesus Christ' on his request for our passports, which I'm not sure he liked.

The first thing we noticed about Croatia was how smooth the roads were compared with those north of its border. They were also extremely empty. It was a really relaxed drive into the country. 

On our first night in Croatia we met another pleasant, if less talky, campsite owner. He didn't know a word of English, so I attempted to communicate with him using Google translate. It wasn't working, until I realised it was because I was translating into Hungarian rather than Croatian. 

There's something about haggling with someone who doesn't talk your language which somehow makes it easier. I got him down to a tenner for the night. Once we'd settled up, the guy's wife came to give us a plate of cheese, ham and bread. God bless 'em. Rach gobbled up the cheese but didn't touch the meat, as that was her 'give up' item for January. I thought about providing moral support, before realising I was already chomping on the ham. It was the smokiest ham I'd ever had, by far. I swear, if we were in Britain I wouldn't have been allowed to eat it indoors.

The next morning we awoke to a loud rooster, a gang of moderately clucky chickens and a friendly and serene black dog frollicking on the icy ground around van. The campsite owner's son came to greet us and check we were okay, but I sensed he was also politely nudging us to either commit to another evening or bugger off. We decided to stay another night, as Rach had a web call with someone she'd connected with on LinkedIn about us doing some social media/ graphic design work for them. I listened and admired as Rach conducted the webcall. She's such a great communicator. In fact she's great with people in general. It's one of the things I hate about her.

We're trying to pick up some regular freelance work for the second half of our trip, to replenish the coffers. So far we've built a website, designed a logo and put together a social media campaign, so if you're reading this and need anything in that area, let us know. We also accept donations.

Rach left her customary 'thank you' card for the owner and we left the campsite and made our way to the Adriatic coast. On the way, we stopped over in Zagreb for a few hours. It's hard to do a place justice in such a small space of time, but we enjoyed wandering round. We had a drink in a really smokey bar (no ban in Croatia). This reminded me of ham, which for a second baffled me.

Vinica, Slovenia

Halfway to the coast it was getting dark, so we decided to stop somewhere for the night. The only decent place we could find lay less than a mile over the other side of the border, in Slovenia - a little village called Vinica. Once again, we had our passports checked three times - once aggressively (Croatian check), once politely (Slovenian check) and once completely unnecessarily (a police woman knocked on our van door after we'd parked up about five minutes after passing through the border checkpoints).

We'd struck gold with the stopover though. The owners were again so kind. They let us stay in their empty guesthouse... for free! I tell you, travelling in winter isn't so bad! We had a stroll into the local village under an amazing purple sky, then made our way back to the house we'd somehow blagged for the evening to find the owners had generously left us their grape and apple homebrew to try.

It almost dissolved our teeth.