From Cairo to the Connemara: A Sojournal

 PT3 - 4: CZECH REPUBLIC 3 rd July – 7 th July   Back home I wouldn’t think twice about driving 5 – 600 kilometres in a day, even more if necessary. But in Europe? Two hundred and fifty’s about par. Apart from the fact there’s a village every five minutes, there’s the sheer amount of foreign language signage, speed limits changing rapidly and regularly, constantly cycling anticlockwise through  the  mirrors, pedestrians, local traffic, left-hand driving through unfamiliar terrain while trying to follow sketchy directions, sorting your A roads from your B roads from your toll ways, your eintrags from your ausfahrts . Getting out of Vienna was a minor nightmare and I was already mildly stressed when we joined the A22 north to Stockerau.   The further we travelled away from Vienna the more serene the countryside and my mindset changed with it. The plains unfolded endlessly, seemingly pinned to the milky sky by the hundreds of random church spires piercing...