17 Sept I drove to the ferry terminal at the toe of Italy to catch the ferry to Sicily. I was following Marys directions when I spotted the ticket kiosk. Outside the kiosk I saw this lad waving me on and I drove up to him. He had a little English and he asked me if I wanted to get the ferry to Sicily, I said yes and he brought me over to the desk. I asked how much, yer man looked at my vehicle and said €45. €45! I said, its only 25 mins. The lad with the English said to your man, only small car, only small car as if he was fighting my side. €45 was the price, so I paid it like I had any choice. Back to the van and there was another lad there washing my windscreen. I hopped in the van and started up and the lad with the English held the door. What about tip? He said. For what? I replied. For help you and my friend for tip for wash your glass. I didn’t ask for your help. He slammed the door and shouted some expelatives at me, Ciao, I replied and off I drove. I didn’t know where to go either and somehow managed to get in the wrong queue. I boarded the ferry and into a section for vehicles no higher than 1.9m and I am 2.05m. Traffic stopped, all jammed. Cars behind and I can’t go forward. Yer man, the ferry traffic lad is shouting at me in Italian, I'm saying no intendo, the captain is looking down from above and blowin this god almighty loud horn telling the lad to sort it out. He shouts up ‘no capiche Italiano!’ anyway he manouvers me into a corner and thank god another Italian arrives and does the same cock-up as me. Were both huddled into the side as they get the cars by and after loading they get us out. Thank god again for that Italian as he took directions to the right ferry and I followed him. Got to Sicily and it started raining heavy. I drove to a recommended spot called Taormina but I’m sure its lovely in the sunshine but not in the rain. I then decided to drive an hour inland up the mountain roads to have a look at Mount Etna. I drove up through little villages and I’m sure it was the first right hand drive cars some of those people ever saw. They stopped and stared. The closer I got to Etna, the scenery changed and the road was cut through the lava. Just a sea of black lumpy rock. Etna was no great shakes, but lovely driving to get there. After that I set course for another popular town called Syracuse intending to arrive tomorrow. It’s difficult to get internet access here or if they have it charge a fortune for it (€5 for 30 mins Wifi I was quoted day before yesterday) so I spotted a McDonalds drive in and parked up and fair play to McDonalds their free wifi is a joy to use. After all emails and blog update completed, I was on my way and pulled into a service station along the way.
18 Sept No showers at this service station this morning so I drove into Syracuse and went to the beach. All the main public beaches have parking and showers so in I went for a swim and a shower after. Fresh as a daisy I went into town for a look around. It’s a lovely old city and has not got the panic usually associated with Italian centres. After the walk around, I went to the Archaeological Park to see an old Coliseum ruin and a Greek theatre carved out of rock. I decide to drive down to the southernmost tip of Sicily and Europe and maybe spend the night there. Like most redneck towns and their colourful inhabitants this place was no exception. The place I was headed for is called Porto Palo and I had to go through a town called Pachino. It’s a 50% farming 50% fishing village and smelled a fish and shit. I made a sandwich and coffee and was on my way after that. I co-incided my arrival with sunset and as it was dark when I left I decided to get to the motorway and pull into the first suitable spot. As it was a rural enough location and the motorway ended where I was at there were no service stations for miles, so I pulled into an SOS bay which are half rest stops, half breakdown places with a phone to Emergency services if required.
19 Sept At 3am this morning I had a knock on the window, it was the Police. They wanted to know what I was doing. I said I was sleeping, and they asked if I was OK. I said I was. They gabbled in Italian to each other and said it was OK and good night. I subsequently read up that it is illegal to camp in undesignated locations but when I got up later that morning I saw broken beer bottles, syringes, condoms and other things strewn about. I suppose they were more concerned about other activities. After a bit of breakfast I was on my way to a place on the north of the island called Cefalu. I had to drive by Syracuse again so I popped down to my usual spot for a swim and shower. On the road again I drove through the centre of Sicily and it’s a barren spot. Mt Etna was towering down on me as I drove by and was have an auld smoke for herself. It was billowing out of 3 places as far as I could see. I got to Cefalu that afternoon and it was a friend of mine Declan Sexton that recommended it to me. It’s a lovely little town on the beach with old city walls and lots of little cobbled streets. There is a festival going on at the moment called the ‘Sherbeth Festival’. It’s a festival of Ice cream makers of ‘Geletaria’. They are all selling little samples of all kinds of ice cream including Tomato, Gherkin and red wine flavours. I parked on the road along the beach for the night nicely positioned to run down the ramp and into the sea.
20 Sept Down the ramp into the sea and under the shower, I was then ready for one of my morning cappuccinos in one of the beach cafes. A while later I was on the road to Palermo. The guide book said don’t drive in Palermo unless you have a death wish, well that was too tempting a challenge to resist so off I went. Now, I was cheating a bit by intentionally leaving it until Sunday but better safe than sorry. It was probably the right thing to do as it was relatively sedate and I drove in, had a look around and I was on my way to a beachside resort called San Vito lo Capo on the North west coast. It’s a nice remote village and there is an olive oil festival with all the growers in the region exhibiting their wares. I promise I won’t get too excited about the festivities. I had a drive around the coastline which was lovely.
21 Sept I moved the van last night into a vacant space in the beach car park so at 8am ran from the van into the sea. Great to wake you up in the morning a swim and even nicer when you have a shower to wash off the salty water. However the showers were not in operation so up the road and into a campsite to use theirs. On the road then toward Trapani to get the ferry to Sardinia. I wasn’t sure what time the ferry would be at or where it was leaving from but eventually sniffed it out. Unfortunately the ferries only go once a week and that was yesterday. The other option was the ferry from Palermo but that turned out to only go on Saturdays (2 days ago) so no good either. I resigned myself to the fact that there was no chance of getting to Sardinia via Sicily and would have to backtrack through mainland Italy towards the port North of Rome. I drove 230 miles from one end of Sicily to the other and another 200 miles towards Salerno. The mozzies are out in force tonight and are particularly vicious biters despite lots of repellent. I’m spraying repellent and applying Anthisan bite cream simultaneously but still hear that terrible sound as they fly past your ear. I finally dug out the unused mosquito net and fell asleep under that.
22 Sep Woke up this morning with more bites. How the hell did that happen and then I spotted the feckers. Mickey & Mo were dead ahead, caught in the net. They must have known at that point that certain death was ahead of them. As the giant hand finally made contact with them, their bellies full of another mans blood squirted onto the nice new white net. The deed was done, revenge was had. Anyway after that early drama I was on the road to Rome, all 500km of it. Q: What does Rossa have in common with visits to Rome? It pours rain and the Sistine Chapel is closed? Correct! In I drove to the centre of Rome on a busy Tuesday, found a parking space 1.5km from the Vatican and walked in the rain to and from the Sistine Chapel but with as much Leonardo De Vinchi under my belt as a result as the dog in the street. I drove about 50km outside of Rome to a service station on the way to Cittivechi, the port town that has the ferry to Sardinia. I went into the restaurant for a bite to eat and they were shooting a scene for an Italian soap opera. The scene involved some lad giving out to a kid at their table, I suppose it was a father and son. It was a huge set up for such a small piece. Anyway they didn’t need me for the Irish tourist bit so I retired to my movie star motor home.
23 Sep Drove to the port this morning and with not too much difficulty found it. During my search I stopped at this info kiosk at the port and asked yer wan if she spoke English. She said she did and I asked where the Moby ferry company was. She blabbered away in a language that must be an ancient relative to English but I certainly hadn’t a clue what she was saying. I went on in the direction I saw her wave her hand in and found the place soon after. Thanks to my sisters Louise and Dearbhla for their research and derv for booking it all for me, I sailed through (excuse the pun) without any problem even though my booking was for a car with the dimensions of a van (cars are getting so big nowadays, aren’t they?) While I was waiting to board a lad came up to me and asked me if I was from Ireland, I said I was and where was he from. He said Sardinia but lived in Dublin for 3 years. His family have a vineyard and olive groves and he runs a B&B. He invited me to stay a night and I may well do before I leave. I arrived in Sardinia 5 hours later and 270km from Calgiari and hit the road. I drove for about an hour and pulled in 100km from Calgiari for the night
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Austria to Italy via Hungary & Slovenia
Austria to Italy via Hungary & Slovenia
06 Sept After a trip to the bakery and a nice coffee and croissant breakfast I left Johannes and Austria and was on my way to Bratislava in Slovakia. It took me a few hours to get there and spent the afternoon walking around. The old town is lovely with a nice castle and reminded me of a miniature Prague. That evening I started on my way to Budapest in Hungary and pulled in to a service station 20km from the city. I went into the shop to buy something to eat but didn’t have any Hungarian money. I asked the girl behind the counter if she would take euro, no problem she said. How much for that sandwich? I asked. €5 she said, the conversion was equal to €3. I asked if that was the rip off price or is it her profit on the side? She didn’t like that but her silence and her pout answered that question. I’ll pay for it by visa; I said (knowing that visa would charge them a levy). Sly bitch.
07 Sept Was sound asleep in the wee hours of the morning with my earplugs in subconsciously enjoying the silence, until my new neighbours arrived. I was semi awoken by screeching and wailing and decided to ignore it but it continued on and curiosity finally got the better of me. I peered out though me curtains and I saw what I was expecting; pigs… and lots of them. A huge 3 level, 2 trailer truck kindly parked beside me with its cargo of Banshee swine. They were most probably on their way to the slaughter house, and they knew it. If that wasn’t bad enough, my necessary air ventilation was also accommodating their stench. Wafts of pig poo were joining the party in the back of the van. I considered getting up and moving the van but whatever my discomfort, I’m sure it was a million times worse for those poor auld pigs.
I got up at 8.30am and had to get out the gas a whip up some breakfast, tea and muesli bars as I had no money and didn’t want to go back into that shop.
Off into downtown Budapest, timing my entry into the city for 9.15am to avoid rush hour, but rush hour is all day in that place as I found out. It took me 30 mins to go 1km. I parked up and asked in an adjacent restaurant If it was OK to park there. The girl said it was and there were no clamps or tickets on that street. Great! I told her I would be back for lunch in her restaurant. Budapest is divided by the Danube River and one side is called Buda and the other side is called Pest. I was parked on the Buda side and decided to cross the Old Bridge and see Pest first, have lunch in that nice restaurant and see Buda after lunch. Pest is lovely with beautiful old buildings, an amazing Parliament house, a bit like Westminster, and nice pedestrian walkways. I walked along the Danube for a bit, crossed over another bridge and over to my restaurant. They recommended the special, Paprika chicken with home made noodles. Sounded great, and after a few minutes out it came. It was a leg and I reckon you’d get more meat on a flys leg. I ate 4 bits (it was gone by then) and the noodles were Gnocchi, macaroni stuff. The sauce was nice though but still I complained. I said that was a bad bit of chicken with no meat. They said sorry and offer me a bit of bread with a pumpkin seed on top (tiny thing, the size of a Leonidas chocolate) I laughed and I said no thanks. I was going to give them the tourist rip off act but bit my tongue. They had given me valuable advice on the parking and I paid them and left no tip. Ironic they call the place Hungary, as it accurately described my state when I left.
Pushing on with less than 3 weeks to get to Sardinia, I started my 350km drive to Ljubljana in Slovenia. I drove within 100km of it and stopped for the night.
08 Sep Up and out this morning around 9am and after shower and breakfast was on the road enroute to Ljubljana. It didn’t take long to get there but took an age to get parking. It seems that cities that weren’t bombed in the war do not have good public transport systems and the population rely heavily on the car. Anyway finally got a spot and off I went to check the place out. There’s nothing much in its small centre but what they have are lovely pedestrianised streets and walkways along the river, a nice refurbished castle on a hill overlooking the town and has a great vibe to it. I walked up to the castle, around the town and lunch before I set off again. I headed towards Italy but via a mountain range on the border. There was a mountain pass I read about that was worth driving over and after quiet a bit of looking I found it. It was very nice but not as good as the Conor pass in Kerry. It was getting late and was dark when I reached the Italian border. I hate driving after dark as full wits and concentration are needed in the day without adding the darkness to the problem. Driving through the bit of Italy was tough enough with new road systems and I was relieved to get to the first service station on the motorway.
09 Sept Up and out at 9am and after the usual service station shower, croissant and that oh so lovely Italian coffee I was on the road to Venice. Mary was in one of her moods and wasn’t playing ball. She completely turned off on me on 2 occasions, women. Despite the hiccups I was on the bridge to Venice within a couple of hours. Parking in Venice is a joke and a price of €27 was asked for my day in Venice. I told Mary to find me another car park and down the road another option was offered at €18 which I took. Venice is staggering in so many ways. Firstly is so much bigger than I ever imagined, and a complete maze and beautiful at the same time. I had begun not to use maps anymore and follow my nose but Venice is different. Even with the map I got lost countless times. I meandered through the street looking at the shops selling Venetian masks (no blinds though), wood carvings, t-shirts and food. I got a pizza slice in the train station and the oil from the pepperoni dribbled all over my t-shirt and shorts and I was walking around like a right mucker for the day. Anybody that asked me where I was from, I said England. Ha ha. I walked from the train station to St Marks square, the piece de resistance of Venice to see the amazing architecture but was very curious to see if the story of the €7 coffee was true, and it was, Cappuccinos were about €10 bearing in mind Italian coffees are tiny. I walked around Venice for 6 hours and slowly found my way back to the van and hit the road towards Verona. On Italian Motorways you have to pay tolls based on the Kms driven. One must go through a booth at the start to collect a ticket and that ticket is scanned further along and you pay accordingly. On one particular occasion one of the tellers (He was a few bottles short of a six pack), an innocent young lad with thick glasses got the shock of his life when I pulled up at his counter to pay as he looked into the van and saw nobody was driving ( of course, I was on the other side) He turned with a jolt as I leaned across with the ticket, and couldn’t help laughing at him. He probably charged me for a truck.
10 Sept Up and out at 9am and 20 mins drive into Verona. Verona is a nice town and is a mini Rome with a Coliseum and big mafia family mansions of old. One of the most famous things about Verona is a love story that William Shakespeare picked up on and wrote Romeo and Juliet based on it. R & J were based on either side of feuding Mafia families and the balcony where Juliet used to look down on Romeo is preserved and there for all to see. There is also a brass statue of Juliet and legend has it if you rub Juliet’s left breast 3 times with your left hand you will have increased fortune in love. She has a very shiny left breast indeed and I was not going to miss out on that perfectly acceptable ritual. After a couple hours in Verona it was off to Lake Garda which had lots of signs that the Garda Siochana at home would have a laugh at such as Garda Holiday resort, Garda Restaurant and bar & Garda Massage. I didn’t see Garda brown envelope but I didn’t stay too long other than a stroll along the shore promenade and did my laundry in a nearby camping ground. Back on the Autostrada (Motorway) and made way to Bologna and as usual timed it to arrived in its outskirts just as it was about to get dark.
11 Sept Arrived into Bologna about 10.30am this morning. I had read a John Grisham novel recently and the character was based in Bologna most of the time so it was interesting to see what he had been describing. There is an endless amount of history here, renaissance architecture and is all very interesting if you are into that sort of thing. I walked around for a few hours and was on my way to Maranello, a small town an hour away to see its most famous resident, Ferrari. Firstly I went to the museum and paid nearly twice the BMW/Mercedes price for half the experience. Don’t get me wrong it was great to see all the exotic sports cars and racing cars from the recent and distant past but it lacked the punch the Germans delivered. One of the biggest trump cards of Ferrari recently was the achievements of Michael Schumacher in Formula 1. The only Mi Schumacher stuff on display was the front left tyre of his formula 1 car that won in Japan 6 years ago and a few posters. Otherwise it was a collection of mediocre proportions. It was still worth seeing though and after that I went to the Ferrari shop where Ferrari were willing to advertise themselves on merchandise that you will be wearing and charge you a ridiculous sum of money to boot. I’d feel like an eejit wearing Ferrari clothes anyway but I did see a really nice leather jacket and although it had the Ferrari prancing stallion on it, I was willing to make an exception. I had a feel of it and was about to try it on and looked at the price, €680.00! Eh, no gratsie, Scusi, Ciao, Arrivaderci… I was outta there quicker than Magnum Pi. There were Japanese lads buying stuff like it was the Brown Thomas closing down sale, Ol’ Enzo Ferrari must be rubbing his oily paws with glee. I had a walk around the factory perimeter and like Mercedes it was 9ft high fences and security everywhere so my plans to sell their new designs to the Chinese were foiled. There was a company selling a 20 minute test drive for €100 in a F430 Ferrari and I was tempted, they were flat out busy and there were Ferraris roaring up and down the street. The cheapest thing with Ferrari printed on it was my ticket to the museum. Plain T-shirts with Ferrari on them were €39 each!
Bizarrely 2 different Italians stopped me and asked for directions (at least that’s what I think they were asking) the tan must be coming along nicely. I have seen Rossa coffee, Rossa Beer and TestaRossa Ferraris today…. Must be my Italian heritage. That evening I started making my way to Pisa, over the mountains to the West coast of Italy, and stopped 50km short of it for the night.
12 Sept I drove into Pisa this morning and as I drove around looking for parking I drove into this place and as it happens 3 other cars followed me. I pulled up to the barrier, pressed the ‘Gimme a ticket button’ and it wouldn’t. I don’t know why but I had to get out of the van and get all the cars behind me to back up out onto a busy road so the Irish tourist can get his van out, how embarrassing but they were all fine about it. I finally got parked and this African lad stood outside my door with all kinds of crap for sale. I slid over to the other side to change footwear and he walked around the other side too and continued to wait for me there. ‘On business’ I said, ‘not buying today’. He went off and so did I into the Piazza when the leaning tower is located. There are a few other buildings in the Piazza but the leaning tower was most of interest. The photos never do justice to its lean and looks like it ready to fall. They did work on it a few years ago to reverse the lean and brought it back from a 5.5m to a 4.1m tilt (measured from the top from where it is, compared to where it should be) Pisa takes an hour or two and by then I was off on my 1 hour journey to Florence. Florence was a lovely renaissancie place too where the statue of David, Neptune etc are in full view and there is a definite homosexual angle there with little Eunuchs putting things in there mouths and naked men rubbing their fingers through another lads hair, I don’t know buts its all very suspect. I wanted to get in to the Uzzi Art gallery but the queues were crazy. I’m sure I’ll see it in a book or something. After a few hours in Florence, another 90 mins down the road got me to Siena. Siena is a really interesting spot too and walked the narrow Gothic streets there for an hour or two. It was getting late so I pointed Mary in the direction of Rome and drove within a 100kms of it. The plan is to drive into the heart of Rome for the craic to see what the crazy driving the city is famed for (albeit on a Sunday morning)
13 Sept With only slight navigational bother I drove into the middle of a rainy wet Rome without any trouble. I parked within a stones throw of The Vatican and I headed there first. I roamed around St. Peters sq looking for a quicker way into the Basilica but no, I had to line up in the rain with the mile long queue. An hour later I was in there with my head leaned back looking at the ceilings and the height of the roof. It’s a beautifully ornate church with so many statues and paintings and in excellent condition; it’s a pity the rest of Rome isn’t in as good condition. I went into see the tombs of the popes and there was a real jam at the tomb of JP2. People were crying and kneeling, I had to get out of there quick. Most disappointingly the Sistine chapel was closed but no doubt I’ll find myself in Rome again sometime. Off then to the Pantheon, a dome thing with stuff in it and then to the Trevi fountain which was a nice bit of sculpturing and then to the Coliseum which was interesting but smaller than I had expected. I wandered around for a bit and after 6 hours traipsing around Rome I had seen what I wanted to see and hit the road south towards Naples.
14 Sept Arrived into Naples around lunch time and what an awakening. The place is like Vietnam for traffic and lunatics. I have never seen chaos like it in the modern world and would go as far as saying Naples is more 3rd world than first in many respects. It was not a nice place and by far the most displeasing of Italy so far. Mary has parking areas programmed in but they were jammed or impossible to get in to. No parking was to be had and after 30 mins driving around my tolerance had gone way past the safety level and I said enough was enough and got out of there. My visit to Naples did not even involve me setting foot in place. Anyway this cuckoo flew over the Naplese nest and continued down to Pompeii. That was an amazing place and reminded me so much of Matchu Pitchu in Peru. I didn’t really know what to expect of the place but I didn’t know it was a full on town with Coliseum, church, a brothel, grand homes and all the usual ancient town facilities including drainage, fresh water and sewage systems. It was so strange just to walk around countless streets and houses with nobody there. Pompeii was covered in Lava by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius and many people perished. The place was engulfed in lava and ash and in its rediscovery and archaeological rebirth the streets and houses are all accessible and its amazing how much survived. The most amazing thing for me were the bodies that were covered in Lava and are now preserved in a hard lava shell, still in the pose that they were in when they were killed. After that I set course for the motorway for the night and will head for Sorrento tomorrow.
15 Sept Arrived in Sorrento this morning and it’s a big improvement on the surrounding residential areas. It’s very built up and is built on a mountainside with high cliffs making the journey from town to the shore one of serious climbing or descending. It’s a fantastic setting and I spent the day wandering around having a look at the place. I intended on going to see the island of Capri but felt it would be best make a day of it so I checked into a campsite and will go tomorrow morning.
16 Sept Had the alarm set for 6.30am this morning to allow plenty of time to get the 7.45am ferry to Capri. I woke to the sound of both the alarm and the rain. I said feck it and slept on intending to get the next one at 9.25am and in the hope that the rain will have let up, but it was still pouring. It started lightening so I trekked down to the port but the rain got worse. I stood there watching all the people with their umbrellas queuing up and waiting. I couldn’t face going to a paradise island in the rain, done enough of that in Brazil. I decided to pack it in and use the day for the long drive south along the Amalfi coast and on towards Sicily. I checked out of the campsite and hit the road. It was pelting and thunder and lightening were a common occurrence. The scenery was beautiful but the traffic was dreadful. The roads along the Amalfi coast (A UNESCO world heritage site) are so narrow and buses slow things down especially when they meet each other going in opposite directions. The Amalfi coast is a 50km stretch of cliffs with windy roads cut into the cliff face on the west coast of Southern Italy. It’s so special as there are houses, hotels, restaurants and fishing villages dotted along the coastline and all cut into the cliffs edge. Tourists on day trips from Sorrento go mad for it. One of the downsides is the car reliant Italians have all the parking taken up and it’s very difficult to find a spot to stop and take in the view. They are all in such a hurry; I wonder what these rural Italians are rushing to or from. I began to notice in the areas where the driving is at its worst also having the worst cars. Every car is a banger or is covered in dents and scrapes. Bad and all as we think we are in Ireland for speed and lunatics, its playschool compared to Southern Italy. I continued on for the whole day working my way south and stopped 100km short of the toe of Italy where I’ll get the ferry to Sciliy.
06 Sept After a trip to the bakery and a nice coffee and croissant breakfast I left Johannes and Austria and was on my way to Bratislava in Slovakia. It took me a few hours to get there and spent the afternoon walking around. The old town is lovely with a nice castle and reminded me of a miniature Prague. That evening I started on my way to Budapest in Hungary and pulled in to a service station 20km from the city. I went into the shop to buy something to eat but didn’t have any Hungarian money. I asked the girl behind the counter if she would take euro, no problem she said. How much for that sandwich? I asked. €5 she said, the conversion was equal to €3. I asked if that was the rip off price or is it her profit on the side? She didn’t like that but her silence and her pout answered that question. I’ll pay for it by visa; I said (knowing that visa would charge them a levy). Sly bitch.
07 Sept Was sound asleep in the wee hours of the morning with my earplugs in subconsciously enjoying the silence, until my new neighbours arrived. I was semi awoken by screeching and wailing and decided to ignore it but it continued on and curiosity finally got the better of me. I peered out though me curtains and I saw what I was expecting; pigs… and lots of them. A huge 3 level, 2 trailer truck kindly parked beside me with its cargo of Banshee swine. They were most probably on their way to the slaughter house, and they knew it. If that wasn’t bad enough, my necessary air ventilation was also accommodating their stench. Wafts of pig poo were joining the party in the back of the van. I considered getting up and moving the van but whatever my discomfort, I’m sure it was a million times worse for those poor auld pigs.
I got up at 8.30am and had to get out the gas a whip up some breakfast, tea and muesli bars as I had no money and didn’t want to go back into that shop.
Off into downtown Budapest, timing my entry into the city for 9.15am to avoid rush hour, but rush hour is all day in that place as I found out. It took me 30 mins to go 1km. I parked up and asked in an adjacent restaurant If it was OK to park there. The girl said it was and there were no clamps or tickets on that street. Great! I told her I would be back for lunch in her restaurant. Budapest is divided by the Danube River and one side is called Buda and the other side is called Pest. I was parked on the Buda side and decided to cross the Old Bridge and see Pest first, have lunch in that nice restaurant and see Buda after lunch. Pest is lovely with beautiful old buildings, an amazing Parliament house, a bit like Westminster, and nice pedestrian walkways. I walked along the Danube for a bit, crossed over another bridge and over to my restaurant. They recommended the special, Paprika chicken with home made noodles. Sounded great, and after a few minutes out it came. It was a leg and I reckon you’d get more meat on a flys leg. I ate 4 bits (it was gone by then) and the noodles were Gnocchi, macaroni stuff. The sauce was nice though but still I complained. I said that was a bad bit of chicken with no meat. They said sorry and offer me a bit of bread with a pumpkin seed on top (tiny thing, the size of a Leonidas chocolate) I laughed and I said no thanks. I was going to give them the tourist rip off act but bit my tongue. They had given me valuable advice on the parking and I paid them and left no tip. Ironic they call the place Hungary, as it accurately described my state when I left.
Pushing on with less than 3 weeks to get to Sardinia, I started my 350km drive to Ljubljana in Slovenia. I drove within 100km of it and stopped for the night.
08 Sep Up and out this morning around 9am and after shower and breakfast was on the road enroute to Ljubljana. It didn’t take long to get there but took an age to get parking. It seems that cities that weren’t bombed in the war do not have good public transport systems and the population rely heavily on the car. Anyway finally got a spot and off I went to check the place out. There’s nothing much in its small centre but what they have are lovely pedestrianised streets and walkways along the river, a nice refurbished castle on a hill overlooking the town and has a great vibe to it. I walked up to the castle, around the town and lunch before I set off again. I headed towards Italy but via a mountain range on the border. There was a mountain pass I read about that was worth driving over and after quiet a bit of looking I found it. It was very nice but not as good as the Conor pass in Kerry. It was getting late and was dark when I reached the Italian border. I hate driving after dark as full wits and concentration are needed in the day without adding the darkness to the problem. Driving through the bit of Italy was tough enough with new road systems and I was relieved to get to the first service station on the motorway.
09 Sept Up and out at 9am and after the usual service station shower, croissant and that oh so lovely Italian coffee I was on the road to Venice. Mary was in one of her moods and wasn’t playing ball. She completely turned off on me on 2 occasions, women. Despite the hiccups I was on the bridge to Venice within a couple of hours. Parking in Venice is a joke and a price of €27 was asked for my day in Venice. I told Mary to find me another car park and down the road another option was offered at €18 which I took. Venice is staggering in so many ways. Firstly is so much bigger than I ever imagined, and a complete maze and beautiful at the same time. I had begun not to use maps anymore and follow my nose but Venice is different. Even with the map I got lost countless times. I meandered through the street looking at the shops selling Venetian masks (no blinds though), wood carvings, t-shirts and food. I got a pizza slice in the train station and the oil from the pepperoni dribbled all over my t-shirt and shorts and I was walking around like a right mucker for the day. Anybody that asked me where I was from, I said England. Ha ha. I walked from the train station to St Marks square, the piece de resistance of Venice to see the amazing architecture but was very curious to see if the story of the €7 coffee was true, and it was, Cappuccinos were about €10 bearing in mind Italian coffees are tiny. I walked around Venice for 6 hours and slowly found my way back to the van and hit the road towards Verona. On Italian Motorways you have to pay tolls based on the Kms driven. One must go through a booth at the start to collect a ticket and that ticket is scanned further along and you pay accordingly. On one particular occasion one of the tellers (He was a few bottles short of a six pack), an innocent young lad with thick glasses got the shock of his life when I pulled up at his counter to pay as he looked into the van and saw nobody was driving ( of course, I was on the other side) He turned with a jolt as I leaned across with the ticket, and couldn’t help laughing at him. He probably charged me for a truck.
10 Sept Up and out at 9am and 20 mins drive into Verona. Verona is a nice town and is a mini Rome with a Coliseum and big mafia family mansions of old. One of the most famous things about Verona is a love story that William Shakespeare picked up on and wrote Romeo and Juliet based on it. R & J were based on either side of feuding Mafia families and the balcony where Juliet used to look down on Romeo is preserved and there for all to see. There is also a brass statue of Juliet and legend has it if you rub Juliet’s left breast 3 times with your left hand you will have increased fortune in love. She has a very shiny left breast indeed and I was not going to miss out on that perfectly acceptable ritual. After a couple hours in Verona it was off to Lake Garda which had lots of signs that the Garda Siochana at home would have a laugh at such as Garda Holiday resort, Garda Restaurant and bar & Garda Massage. I didn’t see Garda brown envelope but I didn’t stay too long other than a stroll along the shore promenade and did my laundry in a nearby camping ground. Back on the Autostrada (Motorway) and made way to Bologna and as usual timed it to arrived in its outskirts just as it was about to get dark.
11 Sept Arrived into Bologna about 10.30am this morning. I had read a John Grisham novel recently and the character was based in Bologna most of the time so it was interesting to see what he had been describing. There is an endless amount of history here, renaissance architecture and is all very interesting if you are into that sort of thing. I walked around for a few hours and was on my way to Maranello, a small town an hour away to see its most famous resident, Ferrari. Firstly I went to the museum and paid nearly twice the BMW/Mercedes price for half the experience. Don’t get me wrong it was great to see all the exotic sports cars and racing cars from the recent and distant past but it lacked the punch the Germans delivered. One of the biggest trump cards of Ferrari recently was the achievements of Michael Schumacher in Formula 1. The only Mi Schumacher stuff on display was the front left tyre of his formula 1 car that won in Japan 6 years ago and a few posters. Otherwise it was a collection of mediocre proportions. It was still worth seeing though and after that I went to the Ferrari shop where Ferrari were willing to advertise themselves on merchandise that you will be wearing and charge you a ridiculous sum of money to boot. I’d feel like an eejit wearing Ferrari clothes anyway but I did see a really nice leather jacket and although it had the Ferrari prancing stallion on it, I was willing to make an exception. I had a feel of it and was about to try it on and looked at the price, €680.00! Eh, no gratsie, Scusi, Ciao, Arrivaderci… I was outta there quicker than Magnum Pi. There were Japanese lads buying stuff like it was the Brown Thomas closing down sale, Ol’ Enzo Ferrari must be rubbing his oily paws with glee. I had a walk around the factory perimeter and like Mercedes it was 9ft high fences and security everywhere so my plans to sell their new designs to the Chinese were foiled. There was a company selling a 20 minute test drive for €100 in a F430 Ferrari and I was tempted, they were flat out busy and there were Ferraris roaring up and down the street. The cheapest thing with Ferrari printed on it was my ticket to the museum. Plain T-shirts with Ferrari on them were €39 each!
Bizarrely 2 different Italians stopped me and asked for directions (at least that’s what I think they were asking) the tan must be coming along nicely. I have seen Rossa coffee, Rossa Beer and TestaRossa Ferraris today…. Must be my Italian heritage. That evening I started making my way to Pisa, over the mountains to the West coast of Italy, and stopped 50km short of it for the night.
12 Sept I drove into Pisa this morning and as I drove around looking for parking I drove into this place and as it happens 3 other cars followed me. I pulled up to the barrier, pressed the ‘Gimme a ticket button’ and it wouldn’t. I don’t know why but I had to get out of the van and get all the cars behind me to back up out onto a busy road so the Irish tourist can get his van out, how embarrassing but they were all fine about it. I finally got parked and this African lad stood outside my door with all kinds of crap for sale. I slid over to the other side to change footwear and he walked around the other side too and continued to wait for me there. ‘On business’ I said, ‘not buying today’. He went off and so did I into the Piazza when the leaning tower is located. There are a few other buildings in the Piazza but the leaning tower was most of interest. The photos never do justice to its lean and looks like it ready to fall. They did work on it a few years ago to reverse the lean and brought it back from a 5.5m to a 4.1m tilt (measured from the top from where it is, compared to where it should be) Pisa takes an hour or two and by then I was off on my 1 hour journey to Florence. Florence was a lovely renaissancie place too where the statue of David, Neptune etc are in full view and there is a definite homosexual angle there with little Eunuchs putting things in there mouths and naked men rubbing their fingers through another lads hair, I don’t know buts its all very suspect. I wanted to get in to the Uzzi Art gallery but the queues were crazy. I’m sure I’ll see it in a book or something. After a few hours in Florence, another 90 mins down the road got me to Siena. Siena is a really interesting spot too and walked the narrow Gothic streets there for an hour or two. It was getting late so I pointed Mary in the direction of Rome and drove within a 100kms of it. The plan is to drive into the heart of Rome for the craic to see what the crazy driving the city is famed for (albeit on a Sunday morning)
13 Sept With only slight navigational bother I drove into the middle of a rainy wet Rome without any trouble. I parked within a stones throw of The Vatican and I headed there first. I roamed around St. Peters sq looking for a quicker way into the Basilica but no, I had to line up in the rain with the mile long queue. An hour later I was in there with my head leaned back looking at the ceilings and the height of the roof. It’s a beautifully ornate church with so many statues and paintings and in excellent condition; it’s a pity the rest of Rome isn’t in as good condition. I went into see the tombs of the popes and there was a real jam at the tomb of JP2. People were crying and kneeling, I had to get out of there quick. Most disappointingly the Sistine chapel was closed but no doubt I’ll find myself in Rome again sometime. Off then to the Pantheon, a dome thing with stuff in it and then to the Trevi fountain which was a nice bit of sculpturing and then to the Coliseum which was interesting but smaller than I had expected. I wandered around for a bit and after 6 hours traipsing around Rome I had seen what I wanted to see and hit the road south towards Naples.
14 Sept Arrived into Naples around lunch time and what an awakening. The place is like Vietnam for traffic and lunatics. I have never seen chaos like it in the modern world and would go as far as saying Naples is more 3rd world than first in many respects. It was not a nice place and by far the most displeasing of Italy so far. Mary has parking areas programmed in but they were jammed or impossible to get in to. No parking was to be had and after 30 mins driving around my tolerance had gone way past the safety level and I said enough was enough and got out of there. My visit to Naples did not even involve me setting foot in place. Anyway this cuckoo flew over the Naplese nest and continued down to Pompeii. That was an amazing place and reminded me so much of Matchu Pitchu in Peru. I didn’t really know what to expect of the place but I didn’t know it was a full on town with Coliseum, church, a brothel, grand homes and all the usual ancient town facilities including drainage, fresh water and sewage systems. It was so strange just to walk around countless streets and houses with nobody there. Pompeii was covered in Lava by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius and many people perished. The place was engulfed in lava and ash and in its rediscovery and archaeological rebirth the streets and houses are all accessible and its amazing how much survived. The most amazing thing for me were the bodies that were covered in Lava and are now preserved in a hard lava shell, still in the pose that they were in when they were killed. After that I set course for the motorway for the night and will head for Sorrento tomorrow.
15 Sept Arrived in Sorrento this morning and it’s a big improvement on the surrounding residential areas. It’s very built up and is built on a mountainside with high cliffs making the journey from town to the shore one of serious climbing or descending. It’s a fantastic setting and I spent the day wandering around having a look at the place. I intended on going to see the island of Capri but felt it would be best make a day of it so I checked into a campsite and will go tomorrow morning.
16 Sept Had the alarm set for 6.30am this morning to allow plenty of time to get the 7.45am ferry to Capri. I woke to the sound of both the alarm and the rain. I said feck it and slept on intending to get the next one at 9.25am and in the hope that the rain will have let up, but it was still pouring. It started lightening so I trekked down to the port but the rain got worse. I stood there watching all the people with their umbrellas queuing up and waiting. I couldn’t face going to a paradise island in the rain, done enough of that in Brazil. I decided to pack it in and use the day for the long drive south along the Amalfi coast and on towards Sicily. I checked out of the campsite and hit the road. It was pelting and thunder and lightening were a common occurrence. The scenery was beautiful but the traffic was dreadful. The roads along the Amalfi coast (A UNESCO world heritage site) are so narrow and buses slow things down especially when they meet each other going in opposite directions. The Amalfi coast is a 50km stretch of cliffs with windy roads cut into the cliff face on the west coast of Southern Italy. It’s so special as there are houses, hotels, restaurants and fishing villages dotted along the coastline and all cut into the cliffs edge. Tourists on day trips from Sorrento go mad for it. One of the downsides is the car reliant Italians have all the parking taken up and it’s very difficult to find a spot to stop and take in the view. They are all in such a hurry; I wonder what these rural Italians are rushing to or from. I began to notice in the areas where the driving is at its worst also having the worst cars. Every car is a banger or is covered in dents and scrapes. Bad and all as we think we are in Ireland for speed and lunatics, its playschool compared to Southern Italy. I continued on for the whole day working my way south and stopped 100km short of the toe of Italy where I’ll get the ferry to Sciliy.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Czech Republic to Austria (twice)
27 Aug Up and out at 7am and en route to Prague. It was a long drive of 5 hours / 350km approx but the whole way was motorway which was very welcome. The traffic in the CR is fast but not as bad as Poland. I SET Mary bound for Prague and to a hostel called ‘Sophie’s place’. When I got there they wanted €41 for a dorm bed incl parking for 1 night. It was early enough so I drove off and found a free car park, and set off on foot to see Prague that day and head off that night. I trekked around Prague from Midday to 7pm incl doing a walking tour and a wander around myself. I think I saw most of the highlights and it is a superb city steeped in amazing architecture and history. I was fascinated by the place and will definitely go and see it again. It started getting dark after 7pm so I decided to head back to the van and hit the road. I set Mary to take me to Cesky Krumlov an historic Czech town near the Austrian border and the setting for the recent movie, Hostel. I didn’t intend to get there today so on the way I stopped off at a 24 hour Tesco supermarket (that was a surprise) and picked up some necessary supplies. It was a grand spot so I stopped there for the night.
28 Aug Up and out at 8am, into Tesco for the breakfast and off I went. I got to Cesky about 10am and it’s a lovely quaint little place set on a bend in the river. It’s got little narrow cobbled streets amongst its old buildings. I had a walk around the town and its castle and at 11.15 I was in the van on my way to Austria. I went via a little town called Cesky Budejovice where the original Budweiser beers comes from and only interrupted by a snooze was in Austria an hour later. As I entered Austria, the difference in wealth was striking with better houses, smoother roads, better kept generally. It was great to be back in the Euro zone as I have had 8 currency changes since leaving Germany to go into Austria. I arrived in Linz, Austria second city, to meet Johannes a lad me and frog met in Antarctica. He brought me for a tour around the city and in this particular place we walked past a wax dummy robot. I could have sworn it was real and I was asked to sit down and talk to him. We chatted away in English and the robot told me he was from Japan. He had moving eyes, hands, facial twitches etc. I could go on but I won’t. We went to city hall after that and Johannes showed me the floor which was an aerial view of the city. The authorities had the whole city photographed and then had it made in a lino and used it as floor covering. It was amazing. It was a lovely evening, so we sat out in the sum and drank a couple of beers before heading up to a Church on the hilltop to look out over the city at night. There was lightening in the distance and we watched the lightening forks but without the rain which we both agreed was great additional entertainment.
29 Aug It was raining today so we decided to go to the cinema to see the new Quentin Tarrantino movie, Glorious Bastards. It was about a team of US mercenaries in WW2 France and Germany there just to kill Nazis. It was a good film but I lost a lot in the translation. That evening we went to a nearby Spa and enjoyed a swim in an indoor and outdoor pool, steam room, Jacuzzi and sauna. It was a lovely relaxing evening and even enjoyed a beer in our nice surroundings.
30 Aug Up and out at 10am and me and Johannes went for a traditional breakfast in a nearby café. It was a lovely sunny morning and we were joined by a friend of his. After that we headed for the hills to his parents place in the mountains. At his village the weekend fair was in full swing and we had Bratwurst while watching the entertainment. After that we headed for a walk up to this high point that looks over a like. The lake forms part of the border between Austria and the Czech Rep and Johannes showed me where the Iron curtain once was. It was a lovely spot. After that I set course for Dachu, a town outside Munich to call to Galway friend of mine, Paul Hanlon, who has an Irish pub there called the ‘Muddy Boot’. My visit was to be a surprise and as I was driving around looking for the place the only man on the street to ask where it was, was Paul. I drove up to him (he was on the phone) and shouted ‘Oi, where’s the Muddy Boot!’ He was talking to his brother on the phone and he couldn’t believe it, he was shouting at his brother ‘You’ll never believe whose just pulled up in a van!’. It was a great laugh. I had a beer and a bite to eat in the pub before he locked up and we headed to his apartment in Munich to stay the night and meet his better half Nadia.
31 Aug That morning I met Paul’s daughter Cara. She is a lovely girl around 3 and spoke German. Nadia speaks to her in German, Paul speaks to her in English and she always replies to Paul in German although she has been spoken to and understands in English. So she understood me but I hadn’t a clue what she was saying.
We all went for a traditional German breakfast this morning of boiled white sausage with mustard. It came in a big bowl of boiling water and we scooped out what we wanted. As I was about to take my first bite I was stopped and told I had to peel the skin off first. As I was doing so, Paul told me the story of the Korean lads he brought here and after a phone call Paul had to go back to the flat for a minute as breakfast had arrived. By the time he got back, the Korean lads had eaten the sausage, the skin and all the hot water. They said they liked the soup but had cramps all day after the sausage. But on this occasion they were very good and no soup.
After breakfast, we went into Munich on the underground. It was a lovely city but very different to what I expected. We walked around the sights and the pedestrianised streets and went into the famous Hofbrauhaus which is a huge refectory style pub with big long bog standard timber benches and tables. We had a typical German dinner of Pork knuckle and potatoes washed down with a litre glass of Bavarian beer. After that we walked around the area that the annual Munich beer festival ‘Oktoberfest’ is being held and it was huge. It must be 10 times the size of the Galway races hospitality area. They weren’t building tents either; they were full on barn sized timber structures. After too much of the amber elixir we headed home to Paul’s for the night.
01 Sep This morning we went to the Olympic park, the setting for the 1972 Olympic Games. It was a fabulous complex with lovely modern buildings, walkways, man made lakes and hills. (The hills were made by the WW2 rubble created in the city and were brought by hand by the residents of Munich as a mark of respect for their dead.) We hung around there for a while and Paul went home early while I stayed on to go across the road to the BMW world at BMW HQ. BMW world is a fabulous set up with all kinds of exhibits including all the new cars, old cars, futuristic cars, racing cars, motorbikes, cars used in movies including the 2 BMWs that Pierce Brosnan used in 2 of his James Bond movies. We got an Indian take away that night, not something I’ve eaten since I was at home. Lovely.
02 Sep After a coffee and croissant breakfast I left Paul, Nadia and Cara and off I went to Stuttgart. A few hours later I arrived and had Mary set for the Mercedes museum. I ended up at one end of Mercedesstrasse (Mercedes street) and needed to get to the other end to the museum, but apparently only staff and deliveries can go that way, everybody else have to detour. To find that out was only half the story. As I had arrived in the van the non English speaking security guard wanted to see my delivery documents and couldn’t understand why this van driver had no documents. I said ‘Museum’ he said ‘what for Museum?’, then I said ‘Tourist’ and opened the van for him to see. Anyway, after the hullabaloo he gave me sign language directions and off I went. Parking a couple of minutes walk from the museum, I walked along the Mercedes plant perimeter and it was like a secret government agency as I couldn’t see in with all the carefully placed landscaping and couldn’t climb in if I wanted to for all the high metal railings. Apparently these companies have huge problems with rival companies spying on them. As I walked past the staff exit they were coming through huge turnstiles with screening and security guards etc. Outside the museum is the other end of Mercedestrasse and has a big roundabout. I thought I was in a Mercedes ad with all sorts of Mercs from every entrance pouring in and out. It was comical to watch and suddenly they became boring to look at. At home I think a lot of people would subconsciously look twice at somebody driving a Mercedes but when it’s all Merc, that changes.
Eventually, I got into the museum and saw the world’s first car. It was 115 years old! Mercedes has a huge motoring history and even had the Pope mobile on display. I spent over 3 hours there but enjoyed the BMW museum a bit more. It was a close call though.
I continued down the autobahn to a town called Baden Baden on the edge of the Black Forest (Schwartzfeld) before pulling into a service station for the night for a meal and a DVD.
03 Sep Up and out around 9am and into Baden Baden. Ironically my father was telling me yesterday how bad the weather was in Ireland and I telling him that the weather was great in Germany only for the heavens to open up today. Baden Baden was a nice town but didn’t offer much other than being the gateway to the Schwartzfeld. The first town I stopped in was called Schiltach, it is a stereo typical German village with cobbled streets and that Swiss/Tudor style look houses but is especially popular as 2 rivers meet there. After that it was onto Triberg, called so as 3 mountains meet there and it’s situated in the valley between them. It’s a famous Cuckoo clock location and shops there had thousands of clocks. The 2 world’s biggest cuckoo clocks are located there, each claiming to be the biggest. The clocks are the size of a house and the cuckoo the size of a swan. After that onto a lakeside town called Titisee, all towns pleasant but nowt too exciting. On then toward Lake Constance on the Swiss/German border stopping 50km shy of it for the night. The place I pulled into was disappointing as it had crap food, no showers or green areas and I had to settle for a giant hotdog with a bread roll with a blob of mustard and ketchup. I ate that and topped up with biscuits and came to the conclusion that I could find a better spot to stop for the night. As I was driving out, around the corner the complex extended to a great spot with buffet restaurant etc. I was full though and full of junk. Feck. I stopped there though for the night.
04 Sept Up and out at 9.30am and had my nights accommodation, shower, breakfast and internet for €6, bargain. I headed off into Constance and it’s a lovely city and the lake being exceptionally so. It wasn’t a particularly good day so after a couple of hours I pushed on to Zurich. A short time later I reached the Swiss border and for the first time I was stopped for a passport check. He went off with the passport and came back a couple of minutes later and told me to pull the van over as they were going to check it. I did that and he told me to wait by the van for his return. He came back with this gun toting lad that had a puss on him like some character I had seen in Shawshank Redemption. He had me open the doors and was surprised to see a camper in the back rather than goods for commercial purposes. He hopped in and started looking at a couple of things and after two closets he abandoned the search and sent me on my way. I arrived in Zurich an hour later and although it was a fine city, I expected it to be nicer. I walked around for a couple of hours (it was cold and wet) and hopped in the van and headed to Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein is the 6th smallest country in the world measuring 12km X 35km and Vaduz is the capital. It’s more like a town the size of Loughrea but very well presented. I walked around for a bit before heading back into Austria towards Innsbruck. I crossed over the Austrian border, stopped by the very pleasant border control momentarily and pulled in a few miles up the road for the night.
05 Sept Up and out early at 8am en route to Innsbruck, Austria. It’s a nice small city nestled amongst the Alps, a place I had flown in to a few times skiing but never getting the chance to look around. On then to a small town called Berchesgaden, just inside the German border. It was the location of Hitler’s Bunker and nearby summer residence, ‘The Eagles nest’ or ‘Kehlsteinhaus’. The bunker was a barren old concrete thing but was very high tech and had dozens of rooms. It had clean air systems for gas attack, fresh water and huge reserves of food, wine, tobacco and chocolate. In its hey day was very luxurious and akin to a luxury hotel foyer, they say. It was looted after the war and huge local pressure convinced the occupying yanks not to blow it up. They also wanted to blow up the Eagles nest, Hitler’s summer home nearby. It is accessed by a 6.4km road uphill onto the mountain top (1650 metres above sea level), just below the summer snow line. It’s so high up your can see Salzburg from it. It was an amazing feat of engineering to build it and was a gift to Hitler from the Nazi party for his 50th Birthday in 1938. He entertained local and foreign dignitaries there and I’m sure they were very impressed by it and how the hell they built it so high up. All part of the ‘superior ability of the Germans’ image they wanted to convey to the world.
Off then to Linz to stay a night with Johannes. Fair play to him, he got more than he bargained for with me but still brought me out that night to see a festival and fireworks display that was going on. He also downloaded the full series of ‘Only fools and horses’ for me which was 5 DVDs. That will keep me entertained until I get home for sure.
28 Aug Up and out at 8am, into Tesco for the breakfast and off I went. I got to Cesky about 10am and it’s a lovely quaint little place set on a bend in the river. It’s got little narrow cobbled streets amongst its old buildings. I had a walk around the town and its castle and at 11.15 I was in the van on my way to Austria. I went via a little town called Cesky Budejovice where the original Budweiser beers comes from and only interrupted by a snooze was in Austria an hour later. As I entered Austria, the difference in wealth was striking with better houses, smoother roads, better kept generally. It was great to be back in the Euro zone as I have had 8 currency changes since leaving Germany to go into Austria. I arrived in Linz, Austria second city, to meet Johannes a lad me and frog met in Antarctica. He brought me for a tour around the city and in this particular place we walked past a wax dummy robot. I could have sworn it was real and I was asked to sit down and talk to him. We chatted away in English and the robot told me he was from Japan. He had moving eyes, hands, facial twitches etc. I could go on but I won’t. We went to city hall after that and Johannes showed me the floor which was an aerial view of the city. The authorities had the whole city photographed and then had it made in a lino and used it as floor covering. It was amazing. It was a lovely evening, so we sat out in the sum and drank a couple of beers before heading up to a Church on the hilltop to look out over the city at night. There was lightening in the distance and we watched the lightening forks but without the rain which we both agreed was great additional entertainment.
29 Aug It was raining today so we decided to go to the cinema to see the new Quentin Tarrantino movie, Glorious Bastards. It was about a team of US mercenaries in WW2 France and Germany there just to kill Nazis. It was a good film but I lost a lot in the translation. That evening we went to a nearby Spa and enjoyed a swim in an indoor and outdoor pool, steam room, Jacuzzi and sauna. It was a lovely relaxing evening and even enjoyed a beer in our nice surroundings.
30 Aug Up and out at 10am and me and Johannes went for a traditional breakfast in a nearby café. It was a lovely sunny morning and we were joined by a friend of his. After that we headed for the hills to his parents place in the mountains. At his village the weekend fair was in full swing and we had Bratwurst while watching the entertainment. After that we headed for a walk up to this high point that looks over a like. The lake forms part of the border between Austria and the Czech Rep and Johannes showed me where the Iron curtain once was. It was a lovely spot. After that I set course for Dachu, a town outside Munich to call to Galway friend of mine, Paul Hanlon, who has an Irish pub there called the ‘Muddy Boot’. My visit was to be a surprise and as I was driving around looking for the place the only man on the street to ask where it was, was Paul. I drove up to him (he was on the phone) and shouted ‘Oi, where’s the Muddy Boot!’ He was talking to his brother on the phone and he couldn’t believe it, he was shouting at his brother ‘You’ll never believe whose just pulled up in a van!’. It was a great laugh. I had a beer and a bite to eat in the pub before he locked up and we headed to his apartment in Munich to stay the night and meet his better half Nadia.
31 Aug That morning I met Paul’s daughter Cara. She is a lovely girl around 3 and spoke German. Nadia speaks to her in German, Paul speaks to her in English and she always replies to Paul in German although she has been spoken to and understands in English. So she understood me but I hadn’t a clue what she was saying.
We all went for a traditional German breakfast this morning of boiled white sausage with mustard. It came in a big bowl of boiling water and we scooped out what we wanted. As I was about to take my first bite I was stopped and told I had to peel the skin off first. As I was doing so, Paul told me the story of the Korean lads he brought here and after a phone call Paul had to go back to the flat for a minute as breakfast had arrived. By the time he got back, the Korean lads had eaten the sausage, the skin and all the hot water. They said they liked the soup but had cramps all day after the sausage. But on this occasion they were very good and no soup.
After breakfast, we went into Munich on the underground. It was a lovely city but very different to what I expected. We walked around the sights and the pedestrianised streets and went into the famous Hofbrauhaus which is a huge refectory style pub with big long bog standard timber benches and tables. We had a typical German dinner of Pork knuckle and potatoes washed down with a litre glass of Bavarian beer. After that we walked around the area that the annual Munich beer festival ‘Oktoberfest’ is being held and it was huge. It must be 10 times the size of the Galway races hospitality area. They weren’t building tents either; they were full on barn sized timber structures. After too much of the amber elixir we headed home to Paul’s for the night.
01 Sep This morning we went to the Olympic park, the setting for the 1972 Olympic Games. It was a fabulous complex with lovely modern buildings, walkways, man made lakes and hills. (The hills were made by the WW2 rubble created in the city and were brought by hand by the residents of Munich as a mark of respect for their dead.) We hung around there for a while and Paul went home early while I stayed on to go across the road to the BMW world at BMW HQ. BMW world is a fabulous set up with all kinds of exhibits including all the new cars, old cars, futuristic cars, racing cars, motorbikes, cars used in movies including the 2 BMWs that Pierce Brosnan used in 2 of his James Bond movies. We got an Indian take away that night, not something I’ve eaten since I was at home. Lovely.
02 Sep After a coffee and croissant breakfast I left Paul, Nadia and Cara and off I went to Stuttgart. A few hours later I arrived and had Mary set for the Mercedes museum. I ended up at one end of Mercedesstrasse (Mercedes street) and needed to get to the other end to the museum, but apparently only staff and deliveries can go that way, everybody else have to detour. To find that out was only half the story. As I had arrived in the van the non English speaking security guard wanted to see my delivery documents and couldn’t understand why this van driver had no documents. I said ‘Museum’ he said ‘what for Museum?’, then I said ‘Tourist’ and opened the van for him to see. Anyway, after the hullabaloo he gave me sign language directions and off I went. Parking a couple of minutes walk from the museum, I walked along the Mercedes plant perimeter and it was like a secret government agency as I couldn’t see in with all the carefully placed landscaping and couldn’t climb in if I wanted to for all the high metal railings. Apparently these companies have huge problems with rival companies spying on them. As I walked past the staff exit they were coming through huge turnstiles with screening and security guards etc. Outside the museum is the other end of Mercedestrasse and has a big roundabout. I thought I was in a Mercedes ad with all sorts of Mercs from every entrance pouring in and out. It was comical to watch and suddenly they became boring to look at. At home I think a lot of people would subconsciously look twice at somebody driving a Mercedes but when it’s all Merc, that changes.
Eventually, I got into the museum and saw the world’s first car. It was 115 years old! Mercedes has a huge motoring history and even had the Pope mobile on display. I spent over 3 hours there but enjoyed the BMW museum a bit more. It was a close call though.
I continued down the autobahn to a town called Baden Baden on the edge of the Black Forest (Schwartzfeld) before pulling into a service station for the night for a meal and a DVD.
03 Sep Up and out around 9am and into Baden Baden. Ironically my father was telling me yesterday how bad the weather was in Ireland and I telling him that the weather was great in Germany only for the heavens to open up today. Baden Baden was a nice town but didn’t offer much other than being the gateway to the Schwartzfeld. The first town I stopped in was called Schiltach, it is a stereo typical German village with cobbled streets and that Swiss/Tudor style look houses but is especially popular as 2 rivers meet there. After that it was onto Triberg, called so as 3 mountains meet there and it’s situated in the valley between them. It’s a famous Cuckoo clock location and shops there had thousands of clocks. The 2 world’s biggest cuckoo clocks are located there, each claiming to be the biggest. The clocks are the size of a house and the cuckoo the size of a swan. After that onto a lakeside town called Titisee, all towns pleasant but nowt too exciting. On then toward Lake Constance on the Swiss/German border stopping 50km shy of it for the night. The place I pulled into was disappointing as it had crap food, no showers or green areas and I had to settle for a giant hotdog with a bread roll with a blob of mustard and ketchup. I ate that and topped up with biscuits and came to the conclusion that I could find a better spot to stop for the night. As I was driving out, around the corner the complex extended to a great spot with buffet restaurant etc. I was full though and full of junk. Feck. I stopped there though for the night.
04 Sept Up and out at 9.30am and had my nights accommodation, shower, breakfast and internet for €6, bargain. I headed off into Constance and it’s a lovely city and the lake being exceptionally so. It wasn’t a particularly good day so after a couple of hours I pushed on to Zurich. A short time later I reached the Swiss border and for the first time I was stopped for a passport check. He went off with the passport and came back a couple of minutes later and told me to pull the van over as they were going to check it. I did that and he told me to wait by the van for his return. He came back with this gun toting lad that had a puss on him like some character I had seen in Shawshank Redemption. He had me open the doors and was surprised to see a camper in the back rather than goods for commercial purposes. He hopped in and started looking at a couple of things and after two closets he abandoned the search and sent me on my way. I arrived in Zurich an hour later and although it was a fine city, I expected it to be nicer. I walked around for a couple of hours (it was cold and wet) and hopped in the van and headed to Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein is the 6th smallest country in the world measuring 12km X 35km and Vaduz is the capital. It’s more like a town the size of Loughrea but very well presented. I walked around for a bit before heading back into Austria towards Innsbruck. I crossed over the Austrian border, stopped by the very pleasant border control momentarily and pulled in a few miles up the road for the night.
05 Sept Up and out early at 8am en route to Innsbruck, Austria. It’s a nice small city nestled amongst the Alps, a place I had flown in to a few times skiing but never getting the chance to look around. On then to a small town called Berchesgaden, just inside the German border. It was the location of Hitler’s Bunker and nearby summer residence, ‘The Eagles nest’ or ‘Kehlsteinhaus’. The bunker was a barren old concrete thing but was very high tech and had dozens of rooms. It had clean air systems for gas attack, fresh water and huge reserves of food, wine, tobacco and chocolate. In its hey day was very luxurious and akin to a luxury hotel foyer, they say. It was looted after the war and huge local pressure convinced the occupying yanks not to blow it up. They also wanted to blow up the Eagles nest, Hitler’s summer home nearby. It is accessed by a 6.4km road uphill onto the mountain top (1650 metres above sea level), just below the summer snow line. It’s so high up your can see Salzburg from it. It was an amazing feat of engineering to build it and was a gift to Hitler from the Nazi party for his 50th Birthday in 1938. He entertained local and foreign dignitaries there and I’m sure they were very impressed by it and how the hell they built it so high up. All part of the ‘superior ability of the Germans’ image they wanted to convey to the world.
Off then to Linz to stay a night with Johannes. Fair play to him, he got more than he bargained for with me but still brought me out that night to see a festival and fireworks display that was going on. He also downloaded the full series of ‘Only fools and horses’ for me which was 5 DVDs. That will keep me entertained until I get home for sure.
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