A caravan filled with diapers

Sometimes one forgets the lessons from the past. It is fantastic to be directly on the waterfront. My view on one side of the Danube river consists of the Lentos Art Museum and on the opposite side the Ars Electronica Center. However, the wind blows relentlessly. During our late night arrival we had hastily positioned the caravan scaringly close to the edge of the water. The boulevard slopes down and the wheels only barely touched the edge of the quaiside. We pulled the handbrake to its maximum and thoroughly screwed down the supportlegs onto the frozen pavement. I didn’t want my caravan-hitchhike adventure to end in the freezing water of the Blue Danube.

So as said, the wind blew fiercely, blowing out the gasheater every two minutes, just like it happened in Cologne by the Rhine a week erarlier. So we woke up the next morning again with icicles down our noses. Anyway, we have now really learned our lesson: think about the direction of the wind when positioning the caravan.

After breakfast we were visited by an Austrian TV crew. Dachs spontaneously performed his now well-known ’snow-show’. He is quickly becoming a TV hero on his own! I sang my song of praise to the city of Utrecht ‘Domstad’ and happily added the name of the city of ‘Linz’ to the big map of Europe at the side of my caravan. In the afternoon we did several radio interviews and quickly wrote another blog-entry. Before we knew it the evening fell. I would love to stay in Linz for much longer but Peter has to leave from Vienna railwaystation to catch a train back to Berlin again,

We found Mister Schmidt and his two funny dogs prepared to take us to the first petrol station alongside the A1 motorway, so we could arm ourselves with cardboard signs and newspaper articles to catch a lift to Vienna. It struck us to see how friendly and enthusiast the Austrians react to our presence. Pretty soon Michael Winter from Erlauf offered to take us 70 kilometers in the right direction. He had no time to can a fresh aspiration, as his kids had to go to bed, but we were happy to hand him the latest ‘Tjerk Ridder Band’ album and a ‘Speelklok tot Pierement Museum’ musicbox.

Petrol station Ybbs: a top spot in the petrol station category! Comfortable, clean and friendly staff. We distributed many tow bar caps, but found few potential lifts to Vienna. Until 23.30, when we thought “this is not going to work out tonight”, when a fully loaded van entered the parking lot. ‘Popolini’ is written in colorful letters to the side of the van. I thought it would be a clown or theatre company, but it soon becomes clear that it is a local brand of diapers.

Gerhard Feyferlik and his family are on their way to Vienna and like the idea of our project. Unfortunately the van is fully loaded. So soon the caravan is filled to the roof with diapers and Peter, Dachs and myself are comfortably seated in the back of the Popolini van. To cut a long story short: in the middle of the night there is a caravan right in front of the Schönbrunn Castle in the heart of Vienna. No Sissi, no Andre Rieu, no clowns, but a dachshund, a guitar, two caravan-hitchhikers and a colorful pack of diapers! Olé!