I didn’t particularly like the campsite and nor did the Dutch couple who camped near me. They left just before me – to find another campground closer to Villach. There was nothing I could see on Google yesterday but they located one.
Google Maps has been generally untrustworthy in Europe. Sometimes places don’t exist, sometimes they’re closed permanently, sometimes the opening hours are completely wrong and some places listed as campgrounds or grocery stores are simply people’s residences. Even here in Austria, it said that there was only one supermarket open near here this afternoon. There were three open and it’s Saturday afternoon. I’m assuming they’re all shut tomorrow but you can never be sure.
I’m not angry with google nor the people who don’t update their business details. There’s no law that compels them to. The result however, is that Google Maps is pretty useless to me. I simply can’t use it in the same way as I do back home.
I had some breakfast and a chat with the nice German family as I left the campground. They’re from the former East Germany, and were telling me about some of the differences between east and west.
I went back into Villach to pick up the Alp Adria trail north and stopped for a coffee in town before heading out along the river.
And that’s where I stayed all day, beside the river Drava. The scenery is very nice. It’s a flat valley between two huge sets of mountains. It’s certainly not as spectacular as the sections between Gemona and Tarvisio and on to Kranjska Gora. That was just amazing.
The cyclists were different too, with most saying hi as they went past. That’s a pleasant and rapid change.
However, I was a bit bored as I always am on these sorts of bike paths. I suspect that the valley will narrow for the next section, my last on this path. I’m sitting in the campground at Möllbrücke looking at the valley now and it looks a lot more interesting.
Saturday afternoons are very quiet in central European countries, so it was a very very quiet second half today. The campground here is small and really nice with the usual nice people here, but not many cyclists.
Möllbrücke is a small village with just a couple of restaurants and not much happening. It should rain tomorrow, so I might stay here another night as I’ve ridden every day for the last five and riding through the predicted thunderstorms wouldn’t be fun or very smart.
