Friday morning, we landed in Krakow. It is a thoroughly modern airport, although not very large. There were Polish military planes in one section of the airport, although we didn't get too close. They don't have jetways - you board a VERY low slung bus (probably six inches of ground clearance, if that) and they take you to the terminal.

In the terminal, it was obvious we were in another country. The restrooms were now "WC" (Water Closet), English was a foreign language and things were slightly different.

We had a three hour layover for the plane for Vienna. Teresa and I considered going into town, but decided against it. However, we did walk a bit around the area. Before doing so, we went by the ATM and requested Polish money. If there is ONE tip that you get from this write up for international travel, that should be it: use the ATM to change your money. It is MUCH more cost effective than carrying American dollars around and then exchanging them. It is also a lot safer�.

We walked down to a gas station/convenience store (well, sort of - Poland apparently didn't have what we would consider a convenience store)/bar/restaurant not too far from the airport. This is where I made two important discoveries:

• Europe plays LOTS of American music (in English). Usually about 5 or 10 years old (the first two songs were "Mike and the Mechanics" and Joe Cocker) but they play the good stuff.
• Soft drinks in foreign countries are NOT made to the same formula that they are made to in the USA. I got a Pepsi and could not drink it because they have a different formula for Pepsi(this is the start of Jon's continuing saga to find things to drink - it lasted until Jon switched to Tap water).

We also walked by the entrance to the military base.

We then walked back to the airport, read and dozed a bit and waited for the plane to Vienna.

The plane flight to Vienna was brief and uneventful. Again, a significant change in culture - the most obvious clue was that almost everybody on the plane spoke German or Polish.

Teresa and I had decided to rent a car (which was a very good choice) we went by and picked it up. I was an Opel "Comfort" - good little car, manual, no air conditioning. Air Conditioning is rare in Europe, having it in the car would have cost an extra couple of hundred dollars (American).

The car was a four seater, black, with a small hatchback trunk, but I personally wouldn't have wanted to be in the backseat for very long. The back seat made a GREAT storage area, though.

We got everything packed and ready to head out. By this time, it was around 4:00 PM (Austrian time). Teresa and I really couldn't feel WHAT time it was Eastern Standard time, but we knew wanted to find a place to sleep.

Coming out of the parking lot, I was looking for Vienna (we had planned to stay a couple of nights in Vienna before the timeshare reservations on Sunday). What I didn't know was that "Vienna" is spelled "Wien" in German� and all of the road signs were in German.

The directions were there - Wien, with an arrow to the left - but I didn't know what they meant. I asked Teresa what she thought, her gut feeling was to go right, and right we went into some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen.

On the flight over, I had been thinking how much I would like to see some Roman ruins while I was in Europe. I've heard about the roads and such (actually, I STILL want to see a Roman road) and was very interested.

As we began to drive, away from Vienna, we got into some beautiful countryside. I starting seeing some signs by the side of the road that had what looked like an "old arch" on them. I started following the directions on them. I figured it would be some place historical, and left it at that.

It turns out, I was following the signs to a national archaeological park which was excavating the ruins of the HUGE Roman frontier camp from this area. This area had been one of the borders of the Empire, and they had a large, permanent camp there with one of the Legions based out of it.

We drove right to the Roman ruins that I wanted to see�.

(this was in the main "tour" area)

We decided to stay in Hotel Marc Arelius, directly across from Roman ruins. Very nice place. The lady at the front desk spoke English well - everybody else had enough second language skills to get by, including us.

We expected things to be kind of crowded: we had been told that July and August is the time that everybody in Europe goes on holiday. That may be the case, but we didn't have a problem with crowding any time during the trip. I think there were only three or four other rooms rented at the hotel.

We were dealing with jet lag, we planned to go to dinner, then go on to bed. Dinner was in the restaurant in the hotel - since it was early for dinner by European standards we were the only people there. The menu was in German.

It is actually amazing how many German words you can pull from watching "Hogan's Heroes" (I'm not kidding). Some, however, are impossible. We were looking at the soup menu and trying to figure out what was what. Sparkle soup sounded intriguing, we discussed what we thought it might be and then asked our waiter.

Our waiter was one of those people that spoke just a bit of English, and we spoke very little German; the three of couldn't communicate what was in the soup. This went on for a couple of minutes, then he asked us to wait for a moment, disappeared back into the kitchen and brought out an asparagus on a plate (those that know me well will not be surprised to find that I skipped that soup�). I went for the pancake soup � excellent, by-the-way.

Dinner was excellent. However, we were still a bit too hyper to go to bed, so we decided to drive a bit. We had checked the tourist information for the local area and found that there was a recreation of a Celtic ruin in the area and off we drove. We ended up about 5 miles from the hotel, on a fairly tall hill overlooking the Danube. The best estimates is that this was the furthermost extent of a Celtic kingdom and that a fort had been placed here.

The recreation was small - about 20 feet of wooden ramparts and a tower - but interesting.

The other interesting part was that, evidently, all of the mosquitoes in Austria lived on the other end of that hilltop. There was a historical marker up there: Teresa and I went to read it. About every five steps, we were swatting at mosquitoes. We didn't encounter any of them anywhere else in Austria, but had enough there to make up for it. Very strange - just on that end of that hill.

We had a really nice view of the area, including a castle in partial ruins on another hill near by. We decided to tour it the next day.

Day 3 (Austria)