29 September We set off bright and early, and the sun keeps us company all day long on our journey towards Hungary. We pass Venice and head for Austria, finding a distinctive landscape: little villages with low houses, sloping roofs and windows full of colourful flowers. Every small town welcomes us with its sign recalling where we are, and flowers everywhere. Even the bus stops look like flowering gardens, and when we reach our destination we spot flowers on the little bridges used to cross tiny streams too. It is five in the afternoon when we arrive at the campsite where we will spend the evening. We settle into the campsite at Klagenfurt, on the shores of its lake, on a lovely lawn. Before dinner we take a very long walk along the lake, waiting for the sun to set.
30 September In the morning, before we leave, a few little hares come to say goodbye and we photograph them, then we set off for Hungary. Along the road, before crossing the border, we stop for coffee. What a mistake – we won't do it again: two very long coffees with barely any milk and a few local biscuits so hard they seemed like stones. …and the price? 4 euro! We hardly notice crossing the border, the landscape is so similar, except that the houses, always small with sloping roofs, are more modest, without flowers, and almost all have small farm outbuildings.
Day 130 Sep 2008
At the first service station we change money so that we can pay - from now on - with Hungarian forints instead of euros. It's still broad daylight, so we have all the time we want to visit, before going to look for the campsite, Keszthely castle. We park right in front of the castle and we're also very close to the centre, we enter the well-kept gardens and finally go to visit inside the famous library that contains over 100,000 volumes. It's a very large hall completely lined with finely inlaid wooden bookcases. A castle custodian realises we're Italian and, knowing a few words, explains the importance of the library and then also accompanies us into other rooms that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see. It's six o'clock, we go to spend the night in the beautiful campsite right on the shore of the very famous thermal lake of Hèviz.
In front of us, in the campsite, there's a small river of radioactive water at thirty-eight degrees, completely covered with brightly coloured water lilies, crossed in several places by little bridges.
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