At this stage in our travels, I am starting to feel the need to give back. I’d always planned to do some volunteer work as we travelled, but so far I’ve just been having an interesting, educational, or wonderful time. Time to find a way to contribute.
Steve’s sister suggests Helpx, which is where people with or short term projects on the go offer board and lodging in exchange for muscle power. In this neck of the woods, that is mostly on organic farmsteads or other eco communities.
That is all too strenuous for me – but then we find Barry (yes, I know), who is setting up an Arts and Music Centre in Nepomuk (Google it). His dream is about using this space to bridge cultural boundaries and language barriers. Steve is going to be installing a basic kitchen and I will be doing some decorating.
After that we book up some more placements, this time spending a couple of weeks helping local people in a ‘language immersion’ program to improve their English. Just by speaking to them. Which I can SO do. Talk about playing to ones strengths.
Before we set off, we send a gazillion emails to Barry, along the lines of: –
‘Our motorhome is ten metres long. That’s ten whole metres. Read it again to make sure you’ve got this – ten metres.’
‘Yes, I understand and it’s no problem’, Barry replies.
‘That means we need room to turn, and no low bridges or 3.5 ton limits. And did we mention it’s ten metres long?’
‘Yes, absolutely fine. No problem.’
Then the day before we are due to set off, Barry says, ‘your van is too big. Sorry. Gotta cancel.’
Flake!
Austria
As we now have some time free for ourselves, we decide to go and see Vienna, as I’ve never been and it’s, well, Vienna.
So we fetch up at a suburb just north of the city, called Klosterneuberg. It’s on the Danube and has a spectacular monastery overlooking the campsite. We go for a quick walk around and it is beautiful. The tiles on the roof form a pattern that turns into pure, sparkling, silver in the setting sun.
Inside, the various sections are all decorated to the nines, with different colour schemes in each room, and every vaulted facet beautifully painted.
It was just as well that the monastery is so nice, because then we find a café to have a late lunch in. OK, I know it is a Sunday, but after Czechia it’s still a bit of a shock. We are charged about 600 euros for a tiny slice of French bread with some sort of vinegary egg on it. Oh, the horror.
Back at the campsite bar that evening, we meet our next-caravan-neighbour, Rudi. We’d hoped to have a meal at the campsite but have arrived too late. Rudi keeps insisting he has food, he will cook for us, no trouble. But we can’t be bothered even with that, we are too tired, so instead we have cake, and wine, and a nice chat with him.
The next night we invite him for dinner (he brings beer, wine and schnapps – good man) and we talk about volunteering. Apparently, he has done A LOT of fund-raising, and almost single-handedly paid for a school in Tibet (principally because he fancied the blonde who was volunteering there. I’m not judging).
He gets a bit over-happy on the schnapps, starts talking only to me, and tells Steve to watch out because – and I quote – I am dangerous. It seems I have a mysterious allure, which, sadly, only works on blokes over seventy.
The next day we go to look at Vienna. I nearly kill Steve by encouraging him to climb the 343 steps up the bell tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
Once up there, we see a guy wandering along the ridge of the incredibly pitched roof, doing some repair work. Don’t care if he has a rope around him – he’s still an idiot.
The view of the city is certainly impressive. I think everyone here lives in an amazing building, even the dustmen, because every house is stunning. Unfortunately, we’ve arrive here too late to see the snow-coloured, dancing, Lipizzaner horses, which have gone to the country for the summer. But we see plenty of others and the settings are spectacular.
Plus, at the top of the tower are these cute pigeons, doing a spot of family planning. 
We pass a church that has beautiful choral music wafting out. An American choir is on tour with a famous-and-important-composer, so we sit in on the rehearsal. Afterwards, I tell the famous-and-important-composer how much I’ve enjoyed it and he kisses my hand. Honestly, I am catnip to these old guys.
The wool hunt
Whenmy CFS makes things difficult I do needlepoint tapestries, and I’ve nearly finishedmy second one when I run out of a particular blue wool. So Steve Googles woolshops for me, and we set off to spend at least a euro. And find nothing. Nada.Nil. Plenty of weird crocheted things and, frankly, terrifying lace objects, butno blue wool. Back at the campsite we are told, ‘Go to Muller, they haveeverything’, and they are not wrong.
Muller is a big warehouse that mostly stocks fabric and thread, lace, ribbons and buttons. Also, a million other things that I can’t imagine anybody wanting to have. They have shelves full of the kind of thing that don’t even sell in a charity shop, and you only consider buying – as a joke present – for someone you hate (or is that just me?). They have a real of tan-coloured yarn that a mouse had eaten into, and it is still for sale!
There are whole walls of buttons – mostly brown, it must be said – and aisles of ribbons. It covers two floors, spills out onto the street (for which read dirt-road car park), and surrounds some steps, open to the air, on one side.
What would you pay? 
As you can see, tidiness is not a priority. Nor is service. But it is incredibly cheap, and I find a goodmatch for my wool in a massive, chest-high bin that I have to dive down.Sorted.
Art
We go to the Wien Museum to see the Klimts, and are promptly distracted by a fascinating exhibition showing the history of the city as depicted by maps and relief models.
Then it is on to the Hundertwasser Museum and house. Hundertwasser was an architect who believed that the curves and undulations in nature produced a more natural way to live. So none of the floors are flat. Even in the café.
He also wanted every building to have a ‘tree tenant’, so they are built into the structures and given priority over other things. But it’s his sense of joyous, abundant colour that really does it for me. And, although none of his paintings are quite my style, the effect of seeing so many works of rich exuberance is food for my soul.
The museum also houses an exhibition by celebrated photographer, Edward Burtynsky, on the subject of water in all its glorious forms. Marvellous, dramatic, thoughtful, and inspiring.
Trencin
But now it is time for us to move on to the English immersion course, and that’s in Slovakia. We cross the border and stop for a night in Trencin. Amazingly, we arrive on the day they have a festival too (but only a small one as it’s only a small town).
Our campsite is situated on an island where they are organising the show. We walk a few hundred yards down the rough road to see a stage set up by the riverbank. We clamber carefully down the steep grassy slope and find a place to sit with the gathering crowd on the steep grass bank.
After a while, a group of children come walking through the trees singing a folk song. Then they climb on a stage and act out something unintelligible, interspersed with more singing, and dancing.
A loudspeaker gives a voice-over. They are telling the story of King St. Stephen, but we can’t work it out from what we are seeing. Never mind – we’ll just enjoy the charming children and their folk songs. Then a klaxon sounds and everyone gets up and rushes off. What a shame, we think, it’s over – that was short.
But no – we are wrong. They’ve all just moved to another place further down, where a guy is suddenly lit up on the roof of the leisure centre, and starts doing acrobatics. More music, more mysterious voiceover, and us with no clue as to how this fits into the story.
This process continues a dozen or so more times, with people almost stampeding for a good place at the more spectacular events. The story of the King is told by loudspeaker, by dramatic light shows projected onto walls, and by various circus performers twirling in hoops and fire-eating, and guys jousting. Don’t know anything about this King, but looks like he was multi-talented.
Sometimes we get a good view, sometimes not. There are no clues about where we have to sprint off to each time the klaxon sounds, and sometimes the crowds gather in more than one place, so we can’t trust them. Plus it is now dark, the road is not lit, and most of the time we are all stumbling along the grassy slope, tripping over things, or suddenly finding ourselves waist-high in stinging nettles.
But we reach the water’s edge for the final display, and it is lovely. Across the water drift three maidens in orbs, doing graceful, balletic poses to a wonderful piece of choral music. Then the fireworks start on the far shore and are reflected in the water, as the music soars to it’s finale. Last bit of voiceover, much cheering and applause, then everyone heads off to the leisure centre to dance and get drunk.
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