photography

We’re in Italy but first the Austrian waiter….

| Mairead

We finally arrived yesterday evening in Venice or to be precise 15 minutes by bus from Venice. We got a great welcome from our Airbnb hosts with instructions on how to get into Venice, including a bus ticket because they cost double when you buy them on the bus. Then we took off our bike gear (peeled if off really) had a quick shower and went looking for the bus. Before we found it, we found a little pizzeria. It was too much temptation to resist, we were melting with the heat, tired and hungry….. so we had great pizza, cold water and good wine and went home to fall asleep. The tourist  Venice will begin today.

21 06e

(Beautiful Austria)

But the tourist Austria began yesterday. We left our backpackers (backpackers don’t get breakfast included in with the bed) guest house early (8.30am) yesterday morning with a promise of breakfast on the way. Now, this can be a bit of a mistake, because Denis doesn’t eat breakfast and I can’t function without it. So I was more hopeful than certain that I would be nourished before lunch. And within minutes of our leaving the town of Fussen my hope dissipated. We hit a traffic jam on a narrow road. As we had never been on the road so early we thought they would be clear but no, the camper vans and trucks were already ahead of us. The road was too narrow for any handy bike manoeuvres so we waited. Thirty five minutes later we were still waiting there, but it was cool and picturesque, so no rush…..

21 06f

(The reason for the traffic jam)

It turned out to be road works. We were now in Austria. Having travelled for so long on the motorways of Germany we were woken up by our route in Austria. It was beautiful. Cool and shady with amazing views around every corner, so much so my little camera ran out of battery long before the border with Italy. And around one corner there was a restaurant – breakfast! It had taken an hour but the setting was perfect so I didn’t complain.

21 06b

(Isn’t it pretty? Yes Denis, I mean the bike!)

Just as we arrived a bus full of elderly German tourists also arrived, we spotted them just in time and we dashed towards the outside seats. We were fast….. and younger (by a little…) but they still made it to the seats before us.  By this stage Denis was interested in breakfast and was a little put out by our delay so he used his secret weapon – me. I smiled and waved at the waiter and when that didn’t work I followed him into the kitchen. I only succeeded in annoying him and we still had to wait until he served the whole bus.

21 06d

(The waiter. I’m not as charming as I once was…. but charming enough to get a photo and a smile for you guys!)

Off to Venice with some suggestions (thank you Susanna and Marie) will let you know how it goes, Mairead.

We’re… still in Germany!

| Mairead

Germany is a very big country! We spent less time on the road yesterday – just eight hours. We did have a new high of 38 degrees (Celsius) which only made us all the more excited when it went down to 33! Also, we had a very happy experience at the hottest point in the day.

20 06c

(ooh some shade…)

There we were motoring along when we come to a complete stop – a traffic jam. Traffic jams don’t usually bother motorbikes so we tootled along between the lanes. All the German and Dutch drivers moved out of the way to let us through, which was very nice. But eventually we came to a foreign (!) camper van and it moved into our way instead. Anyway the truck on the other side moved further away and let us through, but we were still no nearer the front of the jam. Now we were sitting in the middle of a three lane motorway, sun beating down and hot air coming from every vehicle around us. Did I mention under appreciating the air-conditioning in our car?

20 06a

(Traffic stopped as far as the eye can see. That’s the camper van in front to our left)

That’s when we noticed the services area. So, a little more tootling around the front of the trucks (one of which was now leaking water onto the road) and we reached the petrol station. Denis had a little (illegal) plan to continue out of the services area and ride on the shoulder of the road. Fortunately, he didn’t have to, there was a man stopping all traffic leaving the service area and he stopped us.

20 06b

(See those great clouds and those mountains are the alps!)

Btw, I forgot to tell you that I had done a year of German classes when I was 18. If you’re a regular reader here you’ll remember that a year isn’t long enough for me to have any level of fluency but plenty of time to say “hello”. As “hello” in German is “Hello!” (or at least that’s what it sounds like…..) I had learned another phrase “Sprecken zie English?”

20 06d

(Nice German town we found on the back road… doesn’t it look like Clonmel?

So as the man is explaining in perfect German why we cannot go back on the motorway I interrupt with my phrase. And he understands me! And he speaks English! And he tells us that a truck had dropped its load so we will have to take this other route, pointing to a back road out of the service area.

20 06e

(Look! We found Amazon!)

Well, you could have knocked us over with a feather! Never before have we seen a back road out of a service area! In fact we have spent many riding miles wondering how the employees at the service areas get to work. Do they live at the service areas? Is there an underground tunnel to the nearest town? No, there’s a back road!

We’ll be crossing the border to Austria today and then late today we’ll arrive in Venice. We may take a day to acclimatise (sleep) but then…. what should we go see in Venice?

Until Italy, Mairead.

We’re off……

| Mairead

Hello world, I’m back… and we’re off to Italy. As I write we’re sitting at a table on the boat to Holyhead. I got the departure time wrong but not too wrong. As we tied down the bike on deck 5, the loading door rumbled shut. Very close. Later today we have a six hour ride to Harwich in Essex and then another ferry tonight to The Netherlands but first…. breakfast.

17 01

(Happy Denis)

It was raining very heavily as we left Greystones and it continued all the way to Dublin Port, so our rainproof gear is sopping – not a problem for us but the next people to sit on these seats will wonder….

17 02

(Very wet outside)

We will arrive in a place called Hook of Holland tomorrow morning and begin a three day journey to Venice. We will pass through the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. We will stay for five days in Venice and then move on to Florence. We will also visit Siena. (Maybe we need more time?) And we’re taking you along with us, so rest up because soon I’ll be asking for your help in 1.Recommending places to visit and 2.Learning some easy Italian… (you may remember from a previous visit to this beautiful language that I tend to use my hands and arms more than my words…. a form of communication no doubt!)

17 03

(Denis will be rating coffee along the way… this one gets a Blah)

Until next time, Mairead.

Imagine that!

| Mairead

11 03a

(1,213 year old leather buttons on Psalter at the National Museum)

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but Imagination!” – Albert Einstein

Let the daydreaming begin, Mairead.

Take a step… just a baby step.

| Mairead

08 03a

(Field trip to the Museum in Kildare Street Dublin, here’s a close up low light on the Ardagh Chalice)

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Repeated baby steps are better than some of the alternatives, Mairead.

Free trip to the barracks.

| Mairead

04 03b

(Decorative Arts and History Museum, Collins Barracks, Dublin 7)

We went to visit Collins’ Barracks in Dublin yesterday. I had never been. It’s just twenty minutes walk from O’Connell Street and right beside Heuston Train Station. It has free parking and free admission. We were there because I was searching for some button history and I heard the museum had a permanent exhibition of Irish clothes, jewellery and accessories. There wasn’t much on buttons but there was lots of other stuff.

04 03c

(Quote from Eileen Gray)

There was a huge area dedicated to the  life and work of Eileen Gray. She was “an Irish woman who became one of the most influential designers and architects of the 20th century.” (from the brochure.) She was still designing and working on a project when she died at 98. She had a design shop in Paris in 1922, where she sold her furniture.

04 03a

(This little book is about four inches high)

But the exhibit that had the biggest impact on me was in a glass case with no description or explanation. It seemed to be from a mother to her now dead son, Will, telling him how much she loved him and how much she misses him. He died on the 22nd of August 1776, he was almost a year old. It is sometimes difficult to connect with the characters of history, with their odd clothes and unfamiliar lifestyle, but I have no difficulty connecting with Will’s mother.

We’ll be back, Mairead.