We are chilling out at a nice campsite North East of Dresden after a rough couple of weeks travelling up through Slovakia and Poland. Apart from in Krakow it was virtually impossible to find a campsite open at this time of year. We knew this would be a challenge as there are no listings in any of our guidebooks for these countries and we would have to wing it, so we have spent the night in some interesting places en route! We like to wildcamp and are usually happy to pull up anywhere for the night, but not so much with the weather being so bitterly cold and security on your mind considering some of the areas we have driven through. We have had a great time but we are more than happy to be back in Germany with electric hook up, hot showers and the works :)

After finally leaving Switzerland we cut back through Germany and stayed in Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria which is smack bang on the border with Austria right next to Salzburg. Bad Reichenhall is well known for its Thermal Spa resort 'Rupertus Therme' and we decided to stay at their adjoining motorhome camp and take advantage of the discount for the sauna and spa to see in my 37th birthday. This a lovely typical Bavarian town and we had a great few days here getting in the Christmas spirit, drinking Gluhwein (mulled wine) at the lovely little Christmas market, walking in the forests and not forgetting the Spa. Which we won't be forgetting for some time to come!!!!

I was really looking forward to my day of R & R and couldn't wait to get into the spa. We decided to start with the Sauna area before heading to the pool complex and bowled straight into the first Sauna to the delightful sight of two very big, very naked old ladies laid out flat! We know it's common for people to Sauna naked here so shouldn't really have been surprised. But being typically British we fought the urge to laugh and took a place on one off the top benches (in our swim suits)..... Within 5 minutes we found ourselves totally hemmed in by another dozen or so naked people! We were trapped!!!! After sweating long enough we made our way out and into another sauna room and debated whether or not we should strip off or stay as we were?? That decision was made when a lady who worked there came in who didn't speak English but with a bit of sign language made it clear that she wanted us to take our clothes off as clothing is banned in the sauna area! So strip off it was and actually we felt less self conscious naked than we did clothed! I didn't have any problem being naked but seriously we witnessed some sights that we really could have done without. Not quite the birthday treat I had in mind!

After the Sauna we headed to the main spa area where clothing must be worn! The whole place is really cool with various different heated pools and whirlpools of different salt content and warmth. There is an dark underground pool grotto which has a high salt content which means you can float weightlessly, and a lovely warm outdoor pool with different massage jets with views out onto the snowy mountains. So that was a pretty unforgettable day followed by a delicious meal at a traditional Bavarian brewery restaurant. Braised Beef in onion sauce, Fried potatoes and Apple Strudel ....Yum!!

So enough pampering and being spoiled and it was time to set off East across Austria to reach Slovakia. With time ticking away before we head home the idea was to just stay a couple of nights and check out the hiking areas. We had already had a sleepless night en route where we decided to spend the night at a motorway services south of Vienna just to break the journey up. The place was kitted out with police panic alarms which was a bit worrying and we kept getting woken by a constant stream of cars pulling up towing trailers with dodgy looking vehicles on with no number plates! So with little sleep we drove into Slovakia and unfortunatley first impressions were not good!! To be fair driving 200 miles across the motorway is probably not the best introduction to any country but that aside everything we passed was pretty grim! We passed through the capital city Bratislava and various other towns which became increasingly more depressing looking with scrubby countryside with the occasional sprinkling of tower blocks thrown in. When after 3 hours we reached our first destination, the town of Martin, it was so grim there I thought we must have ended up in the wrong place. We took one look at each other, didn't bother venturing off to find the campsite and John put his foot down.

To be fair shortly after this as we approached Poprad the grimness gave way to pretty countryside and before long we could see the High Tatra mountain range which borders Poland in the distance. This was much more what I had in mind and although due to time and weather we only stopped the night but we will come back here to explore further afield. We drove up around the mountain to the pretty little village of Stary Smokevec and couldn't find any campsites nearby so decided to just stop over in the village. We stayed at the Grand Hotel... well their car park anyway, but they didn't seem to mind. This was actually a peaceful enough wildcamp if it hadn't been for the ferocious wind battering the van. So after another sleepless night we nipped back down to Poprad to get some supplies at Tesco! As we approached the entrance we saw the usual signs...No Smoking, No Dogs etc with a No Handguns thrown in!!!!

Next it was back up North through the mountains and over the border into Poland. We headed for Krakow and turned up at Camping Smok which was open... Yey :). This was a great little find as it was on the edge of the city with a bus stop at the entrance so within 20 minutes we were in the main town square. I love Krakow, the old town is beautiful and with the Xmas market on it is magical. We tried the mulled wine but had to bin it as it tasted like petrol (not a patch on the Gluhwein).

We also visited the war museum which is based in Oskar Schindlers enamel factory which is on the edge of the old Jewish Ghetto area. We tracked down Schindlers Factory when we were here in 2005. When we saw it in 2005 it had just been taken over by the local authorities as it carried on as a factory until around 2001 so they had only just started work. We managed to sneak in and see bits of it before they started to renovate it and transform it into the museum. They have done a fantastic job and it is well worth a visit for an insight into life in the Ghetto and the impact of the war in Krakow.

We left Krakow and headed an hour's drive west to the town of Oswiecim, the site of the Auschwitz Memorial Museum. We arrived at the campsite we had read about to find surprise, surprise it was closed!! We were stumped for a minute until we realised that a section of the Auschwitz museum car park was designated for campers to stay overnight. So with 25 zloty paid (approx £5) we were camped up for the night near the entrance to the museum. This has to be the strangest place we have spent the night on our travels and I must say neither of us slept easy that night either.

We spent the following day touring the Auschwitz Memorial and the neighbouring Birkenau site and then we headed here.

It has been snowing off and on and from Poland to here it has turned bitterly cold. It is very windy so think we are picking up the tail end of the storms that have been raging round Europe.

Next stop Dresden......

Cheers for now

Sarah, John & Rudy xxx