End of Part 1

Wednesday, 24 July 2019


I

I'm writing this as we wing our way up to Stockholm, where we will enter the 2nd half of our holiday. We have a bit of a change of pace now - from a touristy/driving holiday to more of an orienteering holiday including the Swedish 5 day (O-Ringen), the Swiss O-Week and the World Champs spectator races.  We'll also see Paul and no doubt some other Australians which will be exciting.

It's a good time to reflect upon the last 4 weeks.  All up we drove 4387 kilometers in around 30 days. The driving was fine. Google maps was generally awesome (including this morning when we had to re-route ourselves quite a few times to avoid peak hour accidents in the outskirts of Munich). 

We visited 5 countries (France, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia & Austria) and stayed in 19 different places, including 7 different camp grounds.  We mostly stayed at least 2 nights in the places - the exceptions being Annecy, Trieste, Albertville &  St Genest Malfaux where we only stayed one as they were generally just on our way to other places.  

  

We stayed in apartments in the big tourist locations - Paris, La Spezia (for the Cinque Terre), Venice & Plitvice. This was mostly so we could get an early start in the busy areas, but also so we didn't have to leave all our stuff in tents or car for long days in high risk areas. We ended up having to get 2 nights in an apartment in Bled as we couldn't get into the campground. So far we haven't lost, broken or had anything stolen.  Oh actually, my little camera has stopped including green in the photos - I think Slovenia broke the green receptors if there are such things! 

  

Almost every single day we've eaten our own baguettes for lunch. Without doubt this would have added up to hundreds of euros of savings on cafe/street food. Not counting the TMB We've eaten out for dinner 4 times (and had pizza on 3 of those occasions!). The pizza in Courmeyeur was our favourite but we still reckon that the pizza we make at home is the true best. :)  We've all been enjoying the massive and cheap cheese sections in the supermarkets, and I've been loving all the different sorts of fresh filled pasta you can get as well. Jon has been dabbling in the very cheap wine sections with mixed success.   It was weird that in France we couldn't really get fresh milk - only long-life milk that was stored in the fridge occasionally but most people seemed to buy the milk at room temperature.  It was really hard to find ice in France and Italy - which made it hard when it was so hot and we were camping.  Slovenia finally bucked that trend and had ice available at service stations. In fact Slovenia's supermarkets were much more like our own except for the bread and cheese sections which were still pretty huge.  


Not eating out very often has meant we haven't really immersed ourselves into the food culture of each country but we have at least had Bled Cream Cake in Bled, Pretzels in Salzburg, bucket loads of pizza and pasta in italy, and delicious goats cheese (so cheap!) in France.  We also sat at a parisian cafe and had a drink while enjoying watching the people walk past (and simultaneously choking from all the cigarette smoke around us).

Our favourite smallish city was Venice (with a special mention to Annecy).

Our favourite large city was Paris.  Our least favourte city without a doubt was Florence - sorry Florence, it wasn't all your fault, it was also the weather (sooo hot), and the poorly designed brand new at-capacity campground with ants & tiny pitches so that when you went to bed you it felt like you were lying at the feet of the noisy people in the pitch beside you.

My favourite mountains were the Dolomites, but of course hiking Mont Blanc was absolutely beautiful and an awesome experience. 

I could do without the huge numbers of smokers (so many young people too), and the very lax smoking rules - we almost always ended up sitting next to smokers puffing away as we ate dinner. It seems it's perfectly ok to smoke just about everywhere and I'm sure that no-one would bat an eyelid if a smoker sat in the middle of a circle of picnicing toddlers. In fact we saw so many parents smoking while they ate dinner with their small children. Ugg.

And the dogs! - They are allowed everywhere - on the public transport, in the museums, on the hiking trails, on the gondolas, inside the pizza places, in the supermarkets (!) and in the campgrounds. Having said that, we didn't see a single badly behaved dog amongst them, so whilst I could do without them, they were fine.

Due to the hot hot weather we didn't wear any of our really warm gear until the orienteering high up in the Dolomites - but we did at least get to wear it. Most of it is now on its way home via Austria's postal services.

Zali and I bought some Bohinj T-shirts (before Jon got given his) but generally our only souviners have been our growing collection of fridge magnets (also on their way home).

We've had more than our fair share of good fortune so far on this trip.  Hopefully it can continue into the 2nd half.
2017List
Euro Day 54 - Not a rest day Friday, 16 August 2019
Euro Day 52 & 53 Thursday, 15 August 2019
Euro Day 51 - Drammen & WOC Tuesday, 13 August 2019
Euro Day 50 - Hello Norway! Monday, 12 August 2019
Euro Day 49 - SOW Day 6 Sunday, 11 August 2019
Euro Day 48 - SOW Day 5 Saturday, 10 August 2019
Guest Blog: Today's tip for aspiring young uncles Friday, 9 August 2019
Euro Day 47 - SOW Day 4 Friday, 9 August 2019
Euro Day 46 - SOW Rest(ish) Day Thursday, 8 August 2019
Guest blog by Paul the favourite uncle Thursday, 8 August 2019
Euro Day 45 - SOW Day 3 Wednesday, 7 August 2019
Euro Day 44 - SOW Day 2 Tuesday, 6 August 2019
Euro Day 43 - SOW Day 1 Monday, 5 August 2019
Euro Day 42 - Switzerland to France to Switzerland to France.. Sunday, 4 August 2019
Euro Day 41 - Sweden to Switzerland Sunday, 4 August 2019
Euro Day 40 - Island Idle - Part 2 Friday, 2 August 2019
Euro Day 39 - Island Idle - Part 1 Thursday, 1 August 2019
Euro Day 38 - If it's easy, it's not worth doing Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Euro Day 37 - What Next? Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Euro Day 36 - Back into the forest Monday, 29 July 2019
Euro Day 35 - O-Ringen - Race Day 3 Sunday, 28 July 2019
Euro Day 34 - O-Ringen, Race Day 2 Saturday, 27 July 2019
Euro Day 33 - O-Ringen - Race Day 1 Friday, 26 July 2019
Euro Day 32 - O-Ringen Thursday, 25 July 2019
Euro Day 31 - Hello Stockholm! Wednesday, 24 July 2019
End of Part 1 Wednesday, 24 July 2019
Euro Day 30 - Salzburg! Tuesday, 23 July 2019
Euro Day 29 - Hello Austria! Tuesday, 23 July 2019
Euro Day 28 - Even more Bohinj Sunday, 21 July 2019
Euro Day 27 - More Bohinj! Saturday, 20 July 2019
Euro Day 26 - Bohinj Friday, 19 July 2019
Euro Day 25 - Bled Thursday, 18 July 2019
Euro Day 24 - Hello Slovenia! Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Euro Day 23 - Plitvice Lakes National Park Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Euro Day 22 - Hello Croatia! Monday, 15 July 2019
Euro Day 21 - Dolomites to Trieste Monday, 15 July 2019
Euro Day 20 - Dolomites 3 Day - Day 2 Saturday, 13 July 2019
Euro Day 19 - Dolomites 3 Day - Day 1 Thursday, 11 July 2019
Euro Day 18 - Venice to Predazza, Sea to Mountains Thursday, 11 July 2019
Euro Day 16 & 17 - Part 2 - Venice Wednesday, 10 July 2019
Euro Day 16 - Part 1 - O-Nerding in Venice Tuesday, 9 July 2019
Euro Day 16 - Thunder and Lightning in Venice Tuesday, 9 July 2019
Euro Day 15 - Thunder and Lightning in Florence Monday, 8 July 2019
Euro Day 14 - Pisa and San Gimignano Sunday, 7 July 2019
Euro Day 13 - Cinque Terre Saturday, 6 July 2019
Euro Day 12 - Transition Day Friday, 5 July 2019
Tour Du Mont Blanc - Day 4 Friday, 5 July 2019
Tour Du Mont Blanc - Day 3 Friday, 5 July 2019
Tour Du Mont Blanc - Day 2 Friday, 5 July 2019
Tour Du Mont Blanc - Day 1 Thursday, 4 July 2019
Euro Day 7 - Annecy to Les Houches Sunday, 30 June 2019
Euro Day 6 - From St Etienne to Annecy Saturday, 29 June 2019
Euro Day 5 - Heading towards Lyon Friday, 28 June 2019
Euro Day 4 - Castles Castles Castles Thursday, 27 June 2019
Euro Day 3 - Goodbye Paris hello Loire Valley Wednesday, 26 June 2019
Euro Day 2 - Sore Feet! Tuesday, 25 June 2019
Euro Day 1 - Paris - so French!! Monday, 24 June 2019