13th June, 2016

We had a great night’s sleep and awoke to a lovely day and the prospect of not doing too much. However, Nick’s property has some 367 olive trees (in quite good condition to my less-than-trained eye), numerous fruit trees (the apricots are just coming to fruition) and a small vineyard – MUCH overgrown and in need of considerable TLC. So it was not long before we were out with the secateurs and loppers in the baking Tuscan sun slaving in the fields. Actually it is immensely satisfying (and completely voluntary, I would add), as vine after vine is discovered and released into the open. Mind you, I get the impression that it is going to take quite a few years of training, pruning and general care before we are tasting the first vintage of Casa Nick. A few photos…

We all went out to a nice local town, Lari, that evening to eat out and it was wonderful to be reminded how good local Italian food is. Sorry, no photos of what we ate!!

14th June, 2016

It was off to Lucca today. A wonderful town (city?), surrounded by a very impressive wall along the top of which it is possible to cycle all the way round the city. The city was founded as a Roman colony in about 180BC and the centre still has the standard Roman street plan. It is very accessible with virtually the whole centre being pedestrianised and small enough for one to feel that you have seen most of the main sights in a day without feeling exhausted. That said, we managed to have just a few hours in between rain on our way there and rain on our way back. Fist stop was a lunch in the Piazza Anfiteatro, where the old Roman amphitheatre had been. Houses had been built up against its walls in medieval times and the stones of the actual amphitheatre stolen for other uses, but this left the current elliptical piazza.

We then split up between the ‘shoppers’ and the ‘culture vultures’, the former heading for the street with all the shops, the rest departing for the duomo or cathedral. I was in the latter group (surprise, surprise!) and we had a nice stroll to the south of the city past some good sights.

We then arrived at the cathedral, a small one by the standards of the area, but full of colour and light. The campanile is positioned at a rather odd spot cutting into the facade which, if you are a bit highly strung about symmetry like me can be unsettling! It looks like the inside has been well restored with strong colours on the ceilings. There was also a sublime tomb of  Ilaria del Carretto by Jacopo della Quercia of Siena, the earliest of his extant works which was commissioned by her husband, the lord of Lucca, Paolo Guinigi, in 1406. situated in a side chapel it is wonderfully atmospheric.

It was then off for a well-earned ice cream and some more lovely church exteriors before Nick, Stella and Tom cycled the walls. As you can see there is a good view of the city and it is a great way to ‘walk’ the dog. Nick then took us on an unexpected tour of the area on our way home!

15th June, 2016

A strenuous day in the vineyard plus swimming, boules amid the olive groves and Chianti. Molto bene!!

11th June, 2016

I left you last with a few thoughts about Austria and after a week there we were on our way to Tuscany – but not before we traveled through some truly stunning scenery on our way out of the Austrian Alps and then through the Dolomites.

I had spotted on the maps one of those roads bordered with green – aha, I thought, scenic route. It was certainly a bit further than a more direct alternative, but what the hell, we are on holiday. So it was due south from Harham where we had been staying, through Zell am See and up the 107 along the Grossglockner High Alpine Road (that is what it is actually called – but in German, of course – Großglockner-Hochalpenstraße). The pass is some 2,400 meters up and was originally mooted as a possibility in 1924, but was laughed out of court as unfeasible at a time when the combined car ownership of Austria, Italy and Germany was 154,000 with a further 92,000 motorcycles – especially as Austria had no money after WWI and was one seventh of its pre-war imperial size. Then, after the 1929 Wall Street Crash and massive unemployment, it was revived as a way to give employment – and also to raise money as a tourist attraction by charging a toll (they still do – and quite a lot!). It went ahead and was opened in 1935 with twice the number of visitors than originally estimated. And it is stunning! A bit cloudy on our visit, but it still takes one’s breath away. Not recommended if you are prone to car sickness!

That night we decided to have a stopover at Trento (as in the Council of Trent held between 1545 and 1563 to launch the Roman Catholic Church’s Counter Reformation response to the spread of Protestantism). Trento was on our way, but I had spotted a nice-looking hotel on Tripadvisor that was just a bit off the beaten track, let’s say. It was up a mountain road that Val describe very effectively as looking like a very large Large Intestine on the satnav. It was a bit wet on the way up and distinctly cloudy and misty, but the Hotel Montana was very nice indeed with lots of facilities such as gym, pool, tennis court and ping pong etc, that Val used selectively whilst I did some blogging. A very nice and imaginatively designed room, a so-so dinner (reminded me of school trips) and it was an early night.

12th June, 2016

It was lucky it was an early night as Val, who is somewhat of an early riser, woke me at about 5.00am to come and look at the view that we could not see the previous evening – with the sunrise! And what a difference!! It was like waking up in a different country from the previous night! I will let the photos do the talking…

And the view of where we were could now reveal itself…

A good breakfast and it was off down the intestine and through the Dolomites to what was supposed to be our lunch stopover, Mantua. However heavy rain dampened our enthusiasm and we sped along the autoroute with the rest towards Florence, then right onto the road known locally as the Fi-Pi-Li (Firenze-Pisa-Livorno) highway, trying to remember the instructions to get to our destination from a long email from our great friend and host for the week, Nick. We did well except that we had not made a note of the number of the house, so after some driving about and fruitless enquiries, we made the inevitable phone call and arrived at Casa tra colline Toscane to be welcomed by Nick, Stella, Tom and Carlitta at Nick’s lovely villa (available to rent – ask me about it if you are interested). More in the next blog!

8th – 9th June, 2016

Oh dear it is catch-up time again, so I will get on with it. Well, the weather we had in Salzburg proved to be somewhat transitory and Wednesday and Thursday were wet and very overcast, so we decided to stay in and use the gym, play some table tennis and pool and generally slob out. They have a reasonably good DVD collection, so we entertained ourselves! I am sure that many of you have been wondering where we are with the Great Yahtzee Competition between Val and myself. Well, i managed to open up a 10 game lead, but Val has come back strongly and we are currently level on 124 games apiece. More updates soon!

10th June, 2016

The weather was lovely today, so we made the 1 hour drive to climb up one of the best waterfalls I have ever seen (OK, not as good as the Lower Falls in Yellowstone, but still very impressive). It is called the Krimmler Wasserfalle near the town of Krimml. There is a walkway you can walk up alongside it and so off we set having visited the bottom of the falls first. It starts at 1070 metres above sea level and the top of the falls is at 1486 metres – so a stiff walk! Really well worth it though, as I hope the photos show. Unfortunately I am now walking like John Wayne after a particularly hard day in the saddle! Standing is fine and sitting is good, but everything in between is impossible.

A wonderful day out and it was not over yet as we decided to take ourselves out for dinner at a local restaurant for a bit of Austrian fare. I found what looked like a good candidate on Tripadvisor, only 15 minutes away. Unfortunately our usually very reliable lady on our Satnav failed us this time and it proved almost impossible to find. We made it eventually, about an hour late (it had become a point of determined honour to find it by this time – if only to apologise to the restaurant!). Luckily for us they were fine with it and we had a really excellent meal. The centrepiece, literally, was the ‘BBQ Hat’ or Hut Essen. I thought it might be a traditional Austrian dish or method of cooking, but on brief further research it seems it might be a speciality of this particular restaurant. o

11th June, 2016

Well, it was now time for the next leg of our journey round Europe and we said our goodbyes to Austria. It is a great country to visit – VERY neat and tidy with lovely, solid alpine housing, good roads and fantastic scenery at least in the part we were in. They are VERY keen on speed cameras and I was constantly checking how fast we were going as the speed limit changes rather frequently. One minute you are in an 80kmh zone, then 50, then back to 80, then 100, quickly back to 80, then 50 and so on. It is amazing I did not hit something whilst checking my speed! Still, I suspect it works.

I am so late with this blog, I am going to post it now and then start the next one – including our drive out of Austria. Speak soon!

7th June, 2016

Just over an hour’s drive north brought us today to sunny Salzburg and it was certainly sunny. It is an impressive city, the birthplace of Mozart and, of course, the scene of some of The Sound of Music. The buildings are largely old, though somewhat plain and ‘solid’ in that middle-European way and they have managed to build some recent monstricities that seem to combine a concrete brutalism with simply boring facades. That said, there are some impressive churches and cathedral and the fortress dominates the town. There is also an attractive river and its most famous shopping street is nice and narrow with lovely signs (spot the McDonald’s one!). It also contains the house where Mozart was born.

The Collegiate church and Cathedral next – great, if you like German Baroque and Rococco.

A quick view of the river and then it was up the funicular railway to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. Lovely views, thought a little bit underwhelming on the inside (am I becoming blase?)

A nice day out…..

6th June, 2016

Well, we did not see any lonely or not lonely (there does not seem to be an antonym for lonely – suggestions anyone?) goatherds or indeed any goatherds at all, but we were certainly ‘high on a hill’ as we spent the day visiting first Zell am See and then the mountain of Kitzsteinhorn. Zell is an attractive small town on the western side of Lake Zell and a popular tourist destination in both winter and summer. The lake is really beautiful with the mountains in the background. They were higher than they appear on my wide-angled lens….

We eventually found the information centre and decided to make an assault on the highest point in the neighbourhood via the nearby town of Kaprun. This is the site for the cable car and chairlift all the way up to the viewing platform, restaurant, cinema and ski slopes of Kitzsteinhorn at 3029 metres. The weather was a bit changeable and we were a bit worried that we might end up in a cloud, but we were set off in a number of cable cars and a chairlift – as you can see, Val enjoyed the trip in the latter, though I had to prise her fingers off the rail at the end! There was plenty of snow at the higher levels and a few skiers.

The facilites at the top are very impressive. Our first stop was a viewing platform, accessed via a 360m tunnel which was very interesting as it had various exhibits about the geology of the mountain (permafrost, quartz, etc). No, honestly, it WAS very interesting! It was also cold! We arrived eventually at the platform – and were blown away (not literally) by the views.

The walk back up the quite steep incline of the tunnel at some 3000 metres was fun (!), but we made it and went for an over-priced hot chocolate and a quick visit to the cinema. I was tempted to say that I spent hours photographing the following pics – but it is much easier just to do it in the cinema and then crop them accordingly!

It was time then to journey back down followed by a trip to the supermarket and a drive round the lake.

A great day out – tomorrow, Sazburg!

4th – 5th June, 2016

Here we are in Austria after a longish day getting here from Germany. This was my fault as I had planned to visit the Stiftskirche and Bibliotek (abbey and library) in St Gallen, Switzerland. The library is one of the finest Baroque rooms you will ever see and the abbey is also lovely. However, the key to seeing them is to know what they are called in German before driving through the largish city of St Gallen! This includes driving through what appeared to be a busy pedestrian zone as the satnav tried to take me into pastures new. Anyway, we did eventually make it and it was well worth it.

The library does not allow photography, so I will attempt to find something on the internet.

We even had to wear slippers over our shoes and sort of slide along (polishing the floor, as Val pointed out). There is an amazing collections of some 160,000 books, of course, with some 1,650 printed before 1500. Truly stunning and reminded me of the Bodleian at Oxford (although, in total, that has over 12 million books!).

The abbey was also worth the visit…..

And we even saw these guys!

It was then off to Austria. We had been advised by Manfred to avoid the motorways in Switzerland as they charge the same (CHF40) for using them for one hour as they do for a whole year. So we organised the satnav to take us on non-motorway roads only, which proved interesting – and much more scenic than we could have hoped for. It really is like being in a scene from the Sound of Music with mountains and meadows and chalets and immaculate farms. My father always claimed that the Swiss actually comb their manure stacks to make them look smart. I think it is true.

We eventually arrived at the Club la Costa Alpine Resort Centre at a place called Harham, just over an hour south of Salzburg and about 10 minutes north of Zell am See. All very nice – two bedroom apartment with kitchen and living room, swimming pool, sauna, gym and table tennis. So we have great plans for the week.

We spent Sunday recovering from our journey, though we did make it to the table tennis table! The view from our apartment is pretty stunning – especially if you do some judicious cropping!

More soon!

3rd June, 2016

Staying with Malinee and Manfred is always a joy – great food, wonderful company, a few glasses of something nice and good chat. Starting with a late brunch we pottered about until it was time to head off for a little walk by the lake.

This was the precursor to one of the more unusual primary school co-curricular, end-of-term activities I have ever witnessed – a whole year group had access to a circus for a week! They learned about tightrope walking, lassoing, juggling, tumbling, plate spinning, horse riding, dove arranging and all sorts of other fun activities. Now, I thought it would be a few kids performing on a stage, but no, they actually had a circus tent in the grounds. We were there courtesy of Manfred and Malinee’s twin grandsons, who were performing. Really impressive!

It was then coffee and cake at Christian (their son) and Christina’s before heading home for a fabulous cheese fondue. Apparently you HAVE to drink white wine to help with the digestion of the cheese! I am not sure where the pear schnapps comes into it, but all most enjoyable – and many, many thanks to our lovely hosts!

Next stop Austria (via Switzerland)!!

2nd June, 2016

The sunny day we had in Dijon proved to be just that – the sunny day we had in Dijon, as the next morning the weather had turned again and we set off under grey skies and rain for our next destination. The aim was to end the day at the home of our great friends, Malinee and Manfred in Gottmadingen in Germany near Lake Constance and the Swiss border. However, I had noticed that with a slight detour we could visit somewhere I had wanted to see since I had seen a picture of it when a young boy and been fascinated by it. This was the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp in eastern France by Le Corbusier (1887 – 1965), built in 1954. It was well worth the detour – perched high on a hill, the roof seems to float on top of the walls like two boats. The inside has one wall with a few small windows facing south (which must be great when the sun is out!) and just one main chapel with two side ones. It was difficult to photograph the inside as it was quite dark, but it was wonderfully atmospheric. I will let the photos speak for themselves (I could not resist two pics of Val in one of the side chapels!).

From Ronchamp it was a short drive to our next stop, the charming town of Colmar near the German border. It is a lovely town with lots of old Alsatian timber-framed buildings and even a canal area that is known as Little Venice. A bit chocolate box at times, but still with an irresistible charm.

A long drive from there through Freiburg and on to Gottmadingen, but nothing that Malinee’s nasi lemak and a glass or two of beer could not solve!

1st June, 2016

Well, the Tour de France continued today, setting out at about 9.15 after an excellent breakfast at our AirBnB courtesy of Catherine and after I nipped in to buy our small supply of Champers. The advantage of having a car!

First stop was Verdun and we very nearly ended up in the wrong one as the satnav set off on the direction of one in a completely different part of France. I had my suspicions when I saw that we were due to arrive at 5.27pm after driving nearly 600 miles! Luckily Val, my trusty personal satnav was on the tried and tested map-reading and we altered course and headed for the right one.

For those who were not paying attention in my History lessons, Verdun was the scene of one of the costliest battles in WWI in terms of casualties, let alone the sanity of those involved. The Germans attacked, the French defended and then it became a point of honour not to give up. Marshal Petain made his famous order of “Ils ne passeront pas” although it seems that it was actually his successor, Nivelle who gave it! End result – approximately 750,000 casualties.

We drove past one of the forts that was one of the targets for the German attack that started in February, 1916 with a bombardment on the first day of 2 million shells and the battle lasted 300 days. Our destination though was the Ossuary at Douamont. This impressive building was started in 1919 and completed in 1932. There is a cemetery on the slope below the building for those French soldiers whose bodies were found, but the building itself contains the bones (hence ossuary) of some 130,000 French and German soldiers whose identity is unknown.It was very moving, as you can imagine and much enhanced by a 20 minute video that was superbly written and narrated.

The pictures below will give you a sense, I hope, of the size of the site and the buildings, though possibly not the surprise I got when I ascended the tower at 1200 to find the BIG bell at the top was due for a good ringing!! Just to mention – they have little windows along the side of the building almost at ground level where you can view the piles of bones. A bit tricky to photograph, but I think you will get the picture. The orange interior is very atmospheric and I have included photos of the 232 stair tower and the separate gravestones of Christian and Muslim soldiers.

From Verdun we then made our way to Dijon. A quick word about the French roads – yes, peage (toll) is a bit pricey, but boy are they good. Not too much traffic, a road surface that is like silk (Val slept very well) and you can safely go 80mph. And barely any roadworks – OK, they were cutting the verge at one point, so we had to slow down to 90kph…..

In Dijon we were again Airbnbing and this time staying with the wonderful Florence and Olivier in their lovely 18th Century apartment near the centre. We set off for some sightseeing and then a fabulous 4 course meal at an excellent restaurant recommended by Florence – cocktails and local white Burgundy included. Dijon is well worth a visit and is a lovely city with plenty of old buildings, pedestrian areas and a sense of space. It was the capital of the independent dukedom of Burgundy which by the second half of the 15th century controlled much of eastern France and the Low Countries. We could easily have spent a weekend there to see all the sights, but we were at least blessed with some sunshine for our sightseeing. The ducal palace is huge and very impressive. Oh yes and amongst the photos below there is a nice photo of me enjoying my cocktail and I know some of you have been longing to know what our accommodation has been like, so I have included photos of our first two nights!

Well, I am already a day behind, so I will post this and start on day 3 – on to Germany!!