First stop was auswich I was driving , it was back the way we came for a stretch then through some back roads and villages to get to the museum car park , we had read the lonely planet guide on it and thought we were reasonably clued up on what we had to do to see all the sites ,there's really strict security to get into attempt first aushwitz camp and set timings for tours of different nationalities it was nearing midday our only option was 3pm which we felt was too late ! So we tried to blag in with a 3pm ticket security weren't having it ! Go to birkenau and come back so we went on the shuttle bus to the birkenau camps , I had been previously so I could tell cammy some of the stuff , but to be fair on him he had a very good grasp of the history of these death camps and how they were operated , he certainly impressed me with his knowledge we had a right good march around this huge site reading all the information boards strategically placed around the camps, when we got the shuttle bus back to aushwitz we were very conscious of our time ! it wasn't yet 2pm and we had a really long drive to Budapest to do , so I tried to charm the girl at security for a second time the outcome of which was I could pretend to be a polish person and buy a ticket for the polish tour time IE now , so off to the ticket office we went and bought two tickets for the polish tour , back to our friendly security guard who told us to march through and speak to no one , after going through airport style metal detectors we were into the camp , it's really a horrific spooky place and even having seen it now for the second time the scale of an industrial way to torture and murder people is shocking to even the hardest of hearts , the displays of hair ,spectacles , and shoes etc have to be seen to be believed , we felt a little guilty and privileged to go back to our car filled with luxuries that those poor murdered people could not have dreamed possible
Cammy was taking the next spell of driving , we had a long way to go the sat nav said we would not arrive at our destination until 21:30 ! And it doesn't calculate in any stops to refuel or eat, it was a long trek on back roads before we hit the motorway and headed for Czech Republic border the weather was overcast and drizzly a bit too dreich for site seeing really ,but at 10087miles we crossed the Czech border with no krona ! Hopefully if required we can use some unspent zlotys or our stashed euros and pounds , I was worried about cash for tolls and any road tax , and at 1137miles we could do with fuel and something warm to eat and drink we pulled into a Czech service station it was reasonably busy but the plan was to ask the girl about taxes buy the food and petrol on my Visa card and use the toilet ,I put in 34ltr of fuel which was going to cost 1451.20 Kronas I asked if she spokdenglish she nodded her head which I took to mean she did ( some Eastern European countries a nod means no a shake of head means yes the opposite of us ) , she didn't speak English and I ended up just paying the petrol on my card no food or water and no knowledge of road taxes , we were still hungry and after a few more miles seen a sign for a KFC ! Now I'm no lover of the Americanisation of the world but you get good toilets a nice coffee and can point at a familiar menu and pay by cArd it was a no brainer in we went , at some point in our fast drive through the check Republic I drove straight past one of there point of sale road tolls but thankfully we got away with it and at 1283miles from home we drove into Hungary , I was getting tired of driving cammy had taken a snooze and was ready to take over for our last stretch we seen the point of sale sign this time and pulled over to pay our road tax , it was possible to pay by card or euros I chose card as I wanted to keep euros for changing if required , it was 2975.00 HUN whatever that was in £'s it's about 375! To the £ , from here it was an easy drive straight to the hotel over one of budapests lovely bridges ,it looked like a lovely city , the hotel we picked had free parking and after what had been a busy long day so far at 21:40 we were ready to park up and go for a beer it was 1397miles now ! We had done just over 400 mile today but had stopped a lot so had been on the go for nearly 12hrs
The room was on the 8th floor and had a nice view over the city , we changed €30 for Hungarian cash at reception , then worked out how to get into and use the underground while standing with our city map in hand looking like a right pair of tourists ( which of course we were ) it was raining in the centre of town we found a couple of bars had a couple of beers and when it was 00:30 we decided to get a taxi back to the hotel ,the taxi fair came to exactly how many Hungarian notes we had left from our €30
Are you on target for arriving at Bulgaria on Friday? X
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