Quick Hello to everyone at home

Hi Jenny, yes we are both well and have had a great time. We will be back home in 2 weeks and we are not looking forward to that. It won't be the endof the world will it?? Tara has sent me some lovely photos of Winter Soltice party at Kohinur that made me feel a little tinsy bit homesick. Thanks Tara. Also news from Marco starting getting me thinking about home.

Hi Gerhard
I only just found your comment. I am really doing the blog for my Mum as it is way better than postcards. It has taken us a while to get her on email but at last she can do it. I have my computing students that I left at TAFE following me on the blog as well. It is really easy to do although I have lots of problems getting access to internet so much of mine has been done in a hurry. Good luck with your students.

Love to Ken as well.
See you all soon Angie

Amsterdam

I was just thankful that we visited Amsterdam last because if we had come here first we may never have left. The caravan park had as one of its rules maximum stay three week so this is obviously a problem for many people. I played the game “Spot who’s been in Amsterdam too long”, eg badly washed dazed young lads in dirty clothes, aging old hippies with grey ponytails begging also dazed etc. Not a hard game.

Canal scene with house boats

A houseboat

Life on a houseboat in one of the canals looks very tempting. We did the usual Amsterdam things: quick cruise on the canal, Van Gogh Museum, look at the replica 1700 trading boat the Amsterdam, history of the Dutch East India Trading Company, Museum of the Dutch Resistance, and the bad things: sex and drug tour, red light district, sex shops, hydroponics shops, drug paraphernalia shops and coffee shops. We had a ball - far too busy to keep blog going.

The replica of the Amsterdam

The Bulldog supposedly the first Coffee Shop in Amsterdam founded in 1975

Marijuana Absinthe and other toxic drinks

A shop full of wicked things

The European Cup

The quarter final match of the European Cup (soccer that is) where Holland played Russia was on when we were there. The whole town was dressed up in orange gear and the partying started early in the morning. The Dutch are even more sport fanatical than the Australians. Every shop was decked in orange balloons and streamers, even the cake shops made cakes with orange icing and this was only the quarter final. The match was on at 9pm. By then the town was really rocking. We headed for an Irish pub which had numerous TV screens and watched the Russians beat the Dutch- a bit sad really. The Russians have Guus the coach that did so well for Australia in the last World Cup. He is Dutch which made the Dutch defeat even more painful.

Dutch supporters

A streetscape with orange

Yes I watched a whole match and no I haven’t become a soccer fan, but I have kindly endured quite a few matches as we churn through the European Cup. We have watched Germany playing while in Germany, Italy playing while in Italy and would have seen Croatia playing in Croatia if we had made it there. Luckily for me the English team were knocked out and were not in the European Cup otherwise a huge part of our trip would have been spent in Austria, Switzerland who are the hosts. Imagine crowded squares with huge screens as we wouldn’t have been able to get tickets. Someone was on my side. Anyway for those of you vaguely interested the final 4 teams are Germany, Spain, Turkey and Russia, a nice mix - enough of soccer.

More supporters

We also went to Marken an old fishing village about 30 min north of Amsterdam which has only just been opened up with a road. It is a very pious Lutheran society with some people still wearing traditional costume - very different to Amsterdam.

One of the charms of Amsterdam is that there are very few cars and the public transport is so efficient. This is a bicycle parking station. People catch the train in and then go to work by bike.

An ad in Amsterdam sums it all up.

I have been chasing these grey herons all around Europe but didn't expect to see them in the middle of Amsterdam. These 2 are at the fish markets.

We’ve had a saying for each country,

France

It’s nice, or it’s not nice, eg It’s not nice from a French point of view the way the English dress, eat, drink or do anything.

Switzerland,

It’s correct, really needs no explanation.

Italy,

It’s fun or it’s not fun, eg it’s not fun staying a decent distance behind the car in front.

Germany,

It works, everything from road system to the toilets

Amsterdam

It’s “ bad”, or it’s not bad, eg the Moroccan blonde hash is not bad.

Holland

It’s flat, in more ways than one, Holland is very different to Amsterdam being quiet conservative and pious.

Rhine Valley, Germany

Germany for a day was all we could manage on our back via Amsterdam. We had a one day stop in the Rhine Valley. We visited Bacarach a small village where we did a 3 hour walk up into the vineyards, up a side valley finishing at a castle. There are plenty of castles here and the scenery is stunning. This walk had plenty of seating and litter bins every 100 m (quite a bit different to Italian walks) , and a wildlife food dispenser which we couldn’t quite work out as there was little evidence of wildlife. It was a great walk on a beautiful sunny day.

The Rhine River

Castle in Bacarach which is run as Youth Hostel

Bacarach Castle

We’re camping 2 m from the Rhine River and it is a never ending procession of trains, barges and boats. It is good to see the movement of so much cargo off the roads. A train just passed carrying 200 cars worth more than $5million. The barges are carrying coal, gravel, gas, petroleum, bitumen, shipping containers and tourists.

One of the hundreds of Rhine River barges we saw. This one is particularly long.

Castle behind our camping ground

The other thing you should do if you only have 1 day in Germany is buy some Birkenstocks which I duly did. They cost 40 euro or about $70 AUD. Great and I finally got Ron some decent sandals as well. These northern Europeans know how to do comfortable shoes.

A good thing about Germany is you don’t have to pay road tolls but you seem to have to pay for toilets, 50 cents a go. I suggested to Ron that he could drink less beer and we could have a saving at both ends. He wasn’t convinced.

Toilets

We have seen plenty, not found them when we needed them, and they have been of varying standards. Italians still persist with the squatters which often have very ugly stains. However this video shows the best ever toilet I found in a Service Station in Germany. It has a seat cleaning mechanism. Ron thinks the males, with their dangly bits, wouldn’t have a bar of it. (I have a video but is has failed to load. Maybe blogger is not happy with toilets in their space. I will try again)

Dolomites again

As it is now on our new route to Amsterdam we decided to spend a few more days in the Dolomites. The Alps have been dusted with snow in the week since we were here and it is only a few days to mid summer! A cold front has come through. We are still really enjoying the cool weather, the heat we found in Venice was a bit scary.

Dusted with snow

We have done a lovely walk today, up 250 m then around a perched lake, beer at a flash hotel and then home again - a 5 hour walk in total. This was our last walk in Italy and we really didn’t want it to end. Tomorrow we head off to Amsterdam a 1200km drive. It is really sad to be leaving Italy.

Photos from our last Italian walk

Ron fixing his shoes with some stone age tools

Ron and my trekkers lunch, love those Rio Mare tuna salads



Walking European style, there is always a bar handy

The walking map

We will miss

*cheap wine and beer

*Rio Mare tuna salads in a tin

*peccorino cheese

*ready made ravioli like walnut and gorgonzola, artichoke, pumpkin as well as usual ones

*cheap asparagus, strawberries, great stone fruit especially cherries

*bread without salt

*the people

*the wildflowers

Ron would like to come back here and set up shop in a deserted monastery.

This is the monastery he has chosen. It has been vacant for 200 years.

For travellers he would be offering

* reliable wifi internet

*a Laundromat

*beer on tap served in large glasses

*seating for any customer without extra charge

*pay as you get it beer etc

*defensive driving courses to deal with Italian drivers

*picnic tables

Some examples of Tyrolean Archecture

Cow shed

Flower boxes are big

Alpine hotel

The bottom part is the wood pile

Everything is very cute

A bridge

Well Done Sonia

A koala stamp for you Sonia for working out the Swiss ad. Translated it says “Wear your crash helmet or pray”, and the picture is of two bicycle helmets forming the shape of hands in prayer. Nice. I thought it was an ad for caramel or chocolate, Ron thought it was an orange squeezer.

For any Venice romantics out there, here is a 33 sec video of motoring under the Rialto Bridge.

Press arrow key to start

Abbiamo una incidente ( We had an incident)

A minor disaster struck out little expedition a few days ago. We were packed up, on the road to Croatia, stopped at a supermarket to pick up essential Italian supplies as we headed into the unknown (in particular cheap beer), headed back to our car to find it surrounded by numerous Nigerian lads (probably 8) and 1 security officer. The boys had seen our car being broken into and had halted the robbery. We actually lost nothing but Frank Sonata (our Hyundai) suffered a broken lock and smashed back window.

Frank did very well in fact. He reminds me of that ad in Aus for insurance (it may be NRMA not sure). The one that goes “Can your car protect itself and shows the car door opening and knocking over a thief”. When these thieves picked our lock Frank did not yield. When they smashed the back window they still couldn’t open the door. (Good onya Frank) They were after the suitcase on the back seat which really had nothing in it. This was too big to drag through the smashed window. Probably at this point the thieves were interrupted by the Nigerian boys. The thieves hopped into their Fiat and then couldn’t find their way out of the carpark, however they eventually escaped. Well so the story goes.

We think the Nigerian boys hang around the car parks picking up trolleys to retrieve the 1 Euro deposited in them. It was chaos when we idly strolled into the scene with our bags of shopping. Throughout this episode all I could think was that I needed my camera to take some pictures for the blog. This is how journalists/ reporters must always react. I didn’t get any photos. It was all too quick. I was warned that the blog could take over my life. Blog your days are numbered.

Luckily my Italian has improved a bit as we searched for some way to repair the broken window. Ron assures me that there is no way of replacing the window quickly as Frank is old by European standards. Finding a hardware store was as difficult as anything we have done here. Anyway Ron did a wonderful job and Frank is now patched with perspex sheet and looking not too bad and not leaking. We have lost our central locking though.

Frank with repaired window held in with clothes pegs

So! We lost 2 days for repairs and have decided not to go to Croatia at all and have returned to our really nice campsite near Venice and will head back to England in the next few days. Another day in Venice will not be hard to take.

Venice

What to say about Venice?? My first impressions were that Venice was being loved to death. This is not the busiest time of year and already the town is full of tourists. After some hours of wandering I came to appreciate Venice. We found some quieter areas and really enjoyed the efficiency of the transport system ( vaporetti) and a town with no cars. Fantastic and beautiful, “no theme park creator could up with this result of 1400 years of extraordinary history” from Lonely Planet.

A street in Venice

Cars are killing Europe. The air pollution is poor to very bad on most days especially in Northern Italy. The traffic is not so bad in Italy but a huge problem in UK. When and if cars become a thing of the past then Venice is a good place to look for solutions. Of course not every town can have a canal system but a public transport system that replicates theirs would be a first step in the right direction.

We came to a dead end

San Marco Piazza

From above

Looking at the Duomo from the middle of San Marco Piazza

This clock tell you the time, the moon phase, and the zodiac

A Canavale mask


Sweet shop

The Garbage team loading bags of garbage onto a boat. The Italians like a uniform even the garbos have one.

Gondolier (this one is for you Pam)

Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal

We really enjoyed Peggy Guggenheim Collection of Modern Art (well not so modern 1900 to 1960s) where we saw some Picasso, Dali, Pollack, Ernst, Moore and many others.

Lastly, pigeons in San Marco Piazza, it's a hard life