Aufwiedersehen Österreich, Hello England: Saturday August 2, 2008

We had one last Austrian breakfast before loading up the car and driving to Munich to catch our plane. We left a few minutes before 8:30am. All my sources said the trip to Munich would be 3 hours and our flight was at 3:28pm so we had plenty of time. We were aiming to be at the airport checking in by 12:30pm.

It was a little foggy on the way down the mountain, but not enough to slow us down and the police waved us to a stop as we exited the 6 mile tunnel to check that we had a valid vignette. We also had to stop twice at rest stops to use the facilities, but overall we were making good time and enjoying traffic free, well maintained autobahns in Austria. However, as soon as we crossed the border (the only indication of this was the change in road surface), the road changed, traffic increased and we began to fear delays. It was really terrible. Everytime we approached an junction with another autobahn (we had to pass 4) traffic slowed to a crawl several miles in advance. In the end, we didn't arrive at the airport until about 1:30pm. Thankfully, finding where to turn in the car and getting around inside the airport was very easy. The airport is relatively small and it was easy to recognize how to retrace our steps from our arrival a week before.

Aside from Alamo insisting they had to charge us for 1/4 tank of gas even though we had filled up just 30 miles before the airport, everything went smoothly and our flight was on time and not affected by the Lufthansa strike.

We arrived in Heathrow on time after circling 3 times and were really annoyed that our luggage took about 50 minutes from the time we landed until it arrived on the belt. This left us only 10 minutes to get through customs and find the central bus station to catch our pre-booked coach. By some miracle despite having to take an elevator and race down a long tunnel, we found the station and the correct bus AND the bus hadn't left yet. We were the last to board and were so grateful the bus had been running late.

90 minutes later we alighted in Southampton and walked a few blocks to catch the free ferry link bus. We ended up on a 7:30pm ferry and 20 minutes later we were picked up on the Isle of Wight by Graham's parents and our niece Alice.

The day had been long We were traveling over 12 hours by car, plane, coach, bus, ferry and car again, but we had arrived safe and sound with all our luggage. Our luck was holding out.