Before we left for the final leg of our journey on our way home, we stopped again by Wim and Hilda's house to give their lawn a good water (at least, that was the end result!).
It is such a beautiful place to be, and I figured it would provide the perfect backdrop for some updated Running Under the Sprinkler photos.
Huge thanks to Hilda and Wim for letting me use their special location!
So so pretty!
And, after six weeks of traveling around Europe with a cast on his arm, it was time to let that poor arm get some air again. Hilda just happened to have a tool that would do it.
That was reason to celebrate!
Of course, that makes me smile, and so does this!....
My Germany to Belgium route needed to include another small country (just cos I could). Luxembourg could easily have been passed straight through relatively quickly, but I felt a little obligation to myself to at least set foot on this small country's soil.
Bit of a mistake. Midway in a long drive the last thing you feel like doing is queuing up behind a whole lot of deluded tourists thinking that by crossing the border and buying their coffee and booze in bulk and free from duty, it will be cheap.
They are so wrong.
Had they headed south to Italy instead, their reward would have been coffee at half the price that it was in that petrol station, the alcohol too, and the cokes they drank while standing in the lines paying for their overpriced petrol would have paid for their trip over another border.
We only just made it to Dinant before closing time for our giant, bas relief styled, hard biscuits called 'couque'. Another revisit of our previous trip.
The next morning (and day, and the day after that too) we gnawed away on the hard honey and flour shapes....
A few photos from around Granny's house....
If only I could pick it all up and bring it home to use as backdrops for my childrens' portraits!
Near Muizen there is a dairy farmer who sells ice-cream from a shop at the farm gate.
I slept in. The girls got up and joined in one of the Sport Vital Hotel's morning constitutionals up a steep green hill.
We met for breakfast. Me with my glass of orange juice followed by a glass of champagne (oh, come on! It's buffet and I was on holiday!), and the girls just back from their mountain walk. Their stories convinced me to wander the green hills later that day.
But first, we had a lunch date that was a walk for some of the really keen locals with special hiking boots and fancy, graphite-and-magic walking sticks, but a drive uphill for us.
Grieralm is a pretty spot with a nice pub for lunch. Speckknoedel Suppe had become our yardstick measure of fine Austrian dining, and I really loved the one at Tuxer Fernerhaus on the glacier, but the one at Grieralm pub was pretty moreish too! This is not it, in the picture....
There is the prettiest dam next to the pub...
Complete with mega-fauna (I'm not great with large and flighty animals)
That afternoon, before the girls joined in their yoga class and I sat on the balcony with a glass of chocolate liqueur, I walked, with them and my camera, up the mountain across from the hotel. Not too far to be unpleasant. Just to enjoy the scenery.
I wasn't very familiar with the Ice-Bucket Challenge, but it's the role of the teenager to have their finger on the pulse.
Before we left the glacier on Day Two, Evan was determined to take the challenge. As I mentioned in the previous post it was colder up there that day - I had a jumper, parka, gloves and beanie on and there was no way I could have taken them off, but Evan doesn't seem to feel the cold like I do, or most other people do for that matter.
Yes, he's crazy. That water is flowing straight out from under the glacial ice and snow.
A face of a little bit of discomfort, I think...
Those bare feet on those ice-cold rocks!!
Oh why not just run up and stand on the snow... It still makes me shudder!
Love this photo so much...
We were still cold on the way down.
I'm certain the water would be warmer at the lower altitude but Evan didn't feel the need to test it.
Day Three on the mountain.
No snowboards. Just mucking around.
It's an awesome scene more than 3kms up in the sky!
So fun, and yes I did do it too!
There is plenty of non-snow stuff to do in the Hintertux as well.
There's trikes.
But down the road a bit there is the Zillertal Arena, and it's fun activities which include the Coaster...
The Coaster is a luge-like, self-manned, roller-coaster which appears to be awesome fun for all. So awesome does it appear, that we willingly waited an hour for a 'ride'.
India was uncertain about taking the controls in a roller-coaster car so I happily and gallantly offered for her to ride with me.
It was to be, possibly, one of my most embarrassing moments.
Ever.
Being in control as this mini-cart precariously held on to it's tracks around steep cambers of railing with a nervous passenger made me the ultimate careful driver. So ultimate, in fact, I slowed down at least 4 people behind me, even though I was going way too fast for my own comfort!
Crushed and ashamed, I got off at the end of the ride and went for an ice-cream with India (who I think wanted the ground to swallow her up too), while Evan and Belle took it on again - without scardey cats.
Oh, Austria and the funny names! More of them from our last visit, here.
Back at Sport Vital, the towel origami experts had been at it again...
... A great hotel, with a name that would not usually have me hitting the 'book now' tab - the words "sport" and "vital" not being synonymous with "Jacqui".
Cupped by the imposing mountain range and resting in the incredibly picturesque (Sound of Music postcard perfect) Tyrolean Zillertal Valley, India's favouritist hotel in the whole world ever since last time we visited (gosh the kids were so cute back then!) doesn't scream amazing comfort and indulgence when you look at it either,
but it is.
Staying at the Sport Vital Hotel Central in Lannersbach is like being cared for in someone's most luxurious, alpine home.
It is friendly, warm and welcoming, and the gentlemanly owner makes a round of the diners every evening to greet them and ask them about their adventures of the day. Of course it helps if you can speak Austrian with him, but the smiles and the sentiment are all there and it's personal touches like that, that make me want to keep coming back.
Half-board, full-board, these are terms that a lot of Australian travellers may not be familiar with, and they are not even that common in Europe, but full-board at the Sport Vital is all snuggly pampering laced with a teeny bit of self congratulation as you are served plate after plate of delicious (and mostly healthy) food, interspersed with saunas, swims in the indoor pool, and jaunts up the impressive mountains to the glacier.
Day one heading up the mountain
Two snowboarders...
Belle had never tried it.
Evan had once, years ago, and now he had his broken arm with him.
not that his face meant he was cranky about anything. That's just pensive-teenager-face.
We were given a ride in a big snow cat to take us to the kiddies slope. In a 'it's not what you know, it's who you know' scene, we were totally spoilt with the service, even if it was a little embarrassing.
I sat inside. The kids were in the tray at the back.
The best part about snowboarding on an Austrian glacier in an Austrian summer?
You can do it in a t-shirt.
I so wanted to join in, but too many back injuries have made me too scared.
It was summer, as I have mentioned, and even though we were perched mid-way up an icy glacier the sun-bathers were well-catered for.
Truly, many people wore bikinis under ski-gear so they could lay about on these loungers and soak up the rays..
Back down the hill,
someone had been busy in our rooms...
So cute!
Day two up the mountain, this time with a snowboard for each kid...
It was colder, and it rained, but the spirits weren't dampened at all!
Love my tilt-shift lens...
So fun!
I'll have to do this post in two parts to cater for any short attention spans. Stay tuned for a next installment....
We farewelled our friendly Casa Preti family and wound northwards through the mountains to our welcoming Austrian family (at least India would like it to be, as we were headed to her favourite hotel in the whole world).
And like last time we passed through these mountains, though in a different place, we stopped for cherries.
The biggest,
fattest cherries,
ever.
I should just own up now - I am great at so many things, but I can't spit for shit - so we had lots of laughs as I failed time and time again to spit the cherry pips in any way that didn't look or sound ridiculous.
We stopped at a freezing cold river to collect a few stones
and then found the restaurant that I think served the best tuna sandwich I have ever had.
Only to find that the chef had changed in the last four years and the sandwich was no longer on the menu.
"Snow my god" was the catch-cry as we climbed higher in search of snow. Not as much around as we had seen last time when we stopped for a photo opportunity that turned into a wardrobe malfunction for me, but still exciting when we saw it - we were there in summer, after all.
With that many photographers in the car, through our whole Euro car trip scenic stops happened regularly.
At this stop we saw a few marmots, too. They are so cute, but they don't hang around long!
These are not pictures of marmots....
India was told she would get an ice-cream if she could move this hay-bale
I wish we had found the park with the flying fox that we had discovered last time we drove these parts but I guess the nature of travel is in the fact that it can't always be the same.
When we arrived in the town of Cagno in the Valle di Non, it's fair to say that Casa Preti were not expecting us. They had only been open a couple of days, were busy preparing for the arrival of their family members for an upcoming wedding, and had not checked their emails in that morning. We are late bookers, after all.
But within five minutes of our arrival we wouldn't have known.
The rooms were all alpine neutral in decor, clean, fresh and comfortable. Once we had put our bags down we were called upstairs to the dining area for some refreshments and conversation with Serena and her mother, the owners of the house.
Serena (who was lovely and friendly) acted as translator and told us about the family's apple farming, and their decision after a roof collapse tragedy to rebuild with guest accommodation.
We enjoyed the stories and the view.
She then took us for a wander down the hill to the orchard, with a stop-in at the cellar first, to meet Dad and try some local wines as well as some of the family's own cider.
Leaving San Marino to embark on one of the really beautiful drives of the journey, through the Dolomites and into Austria, I carried with me many fond moments from the last time I travelled through there and I was hoping to replicate them.
I hope I never lose my memory because travel is all about finding great moments to remember, and for the most part these memories cannot be repeated. I had my grumpy-head on because I had wanted to stay in the same village as last time, after all it was only a night and I had wanted to explore more, but instead I was taken to another place.
You can create new memories.
Riva Del Garda, by the books, by tripadvisor, had no real appeal to me.
I'm not sure if it was better in the grey overcast, or if it shone more in the sunlight, but I really loved the place. Straddling that cosy feel you get from alpine towns and Italian lake-frontage, the place was beautiful.
Maybe it was the beautiful hotel, Hotel Sole, maybe it was the lake, it's coloured boats, and it's swans, but I know that a big part of it was the music...
As I readied for bed that night the lonely serenade of a violinist standing by the water, playing La Vie En Rose drifted from across the damp, quiet square beneath my window.
It couldn't have been more perfect, or beautiful.
Wrapped in the comfortable bed and with my violinist having moved on, the square then began to echo the sounds of jazz and laughter, and I imagined dancing there, and the sounds followed me into my dreams.
It was so, so lovely.
In the morning the kids and I toyed with the idea of taking out a paddle-boat in the rain, but instead decided on a tour of the Reptilarium, which despite the slightly acrid odour of reptiles in humidity, was really good!
Deadly snakes and spiders only a couple of millimetres of glass away from our fingertips kept us entertained for a good hour.
I was sold on the romance of Riva Del Garda and the Hotel Sole. The rain hovered in thick grey mists between falling, and I wonder if would have romanticised the place as much in the sunshine, but for the moment my memory is of a someplace very special to visit.
I've mentioned before how we came up with an itinerary as we went, and our next destination was 'sourced' by Belle doing an image search for nice swimming places.
So glad she found it because the area south of Lecce on the Adriatic Sea is one of the most beautiful places to swim that I have seen in the world.
So beautiful, in fact, that I barely took any photos above water (a bit of an oversight, I know) I was just so enamoured with the place I forgot to shoot it!
I did take two days worth of underwater photos though.
We stayed in Santa Cesarea Terme at the Grand Hotel Mediterraneo which had a lovely view, and an open window to the loudest streetside karaoke you could ever imagine hearing until 1am each night.
While we could have swum directly across the road, we ventured a little further and found places like these...
Of course, there is more to the area than just the stunning coastline...
The food was as delicious as the rest of Italy, and there are pretty towns dotted about with not too many tourists (a big bonus!).
But Oh that water!
Like I said, I spent two days taking photos underwater, so here is a little bit of what I saw there...
This spot, where we swam twice, had a cave you could swim through...
Many many moons ago (79AD, in fact) Mt Vesuvius spewed forth it's boiling belly some 33km into the sky, and out over the nearby bustling cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The residents who weathered the initial ash and smoke deluge where smothered by the pyroclastic flow travelling at around 100km/h down the side of the mountain.
Pretty powerful stuff.
And the volcano is still active, most recently explosive in 1944, so it is considered to be one of the worlds most dangerous given it's proximity to the sprawling metropolis of Naples (or rather Naples' proximity to it).
Kids love that sort of thing, so I think mine were a little more enamoured with climbing the active volcano, than they were walking through the cobbled streets of Pompeii.
India really just wanted to dance in the clouds that kept wafting past us.
so she did
Nice to see out of the two shops at the top of the mountain, one was a wine vendor. After considerable exercise walking up there, and it still being mid-morning....
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