May 18, 2008

We had another wet, miserable day. We're not enjoying the trip anymore! (lol). On top of it all, we were driving along the road in Innsbruck, Austria, trying to find an Information bureau that was actually open for the tourists, when out of the clear blue, our Blonde GPS froze! This was a MAJOR hindrance to our plans, as the one in the car only appears to work in Germany.

After trying to coax it back to life, without any success, I decided to call my mom, in Budapest and ask if we could come a few days early if we couldn't get the GPS to work. I couldn't get my cell phone to work. I finally found a phone booth and tried my calling card. Yep, you guessed it, it wouldn't work either. Both were purchased in France, and I suspect need a different code than I've been using. I'll try and find a dealer for my sim card and see if he can tell me the trick to make the phone work.

We had a second straight day of heavy, steady rain, and we're both getting tired of it. After six weeks of traveling around, all the castles and churches seem to blend into each other. It's not much fun standing in line to go into an attraction, usually after walking some distance from the parking lot, in the pouring rain. It's certainly not as accommodating over here as it was in England. There, in most cases our "Handicapped" sticker got us a special spot close to the facility, and often even a ride to or through the attraction. There were at least two castles where Jan got a ride to the top of the hill, and after walking around in the castle, a ride back down. Here we haven't found it so accommodating. And it takes away a lot from the attraction.





We're getting to the point where we want a rest from all the travel, and a chance to sort out what we've seen. We have actually talked about returning the car a few days early and taking the train to Budapest to visit my mom for a few days longer than planned. If I can sort out my phone problems tomorrow, we'll call mom and see if that works for her. Jan's getting tired and sore from all the walking, and as most hotels we've stayed at do not have a bathtub, only a shower, she hasn't been able to soak her sore hip, each night, and it just gets worse the next day.

The next blog might come from Budapest rather than somewhere in Germany. That's it for now.

May 17, 2008

What an ugly day we had today. When we woke up, we could hardly see across the valley, even less than last night, and it was drizzling. We stopped at a grocery store for some fruit and luncheon material. We were hoping to stop and have a picnic somewhere along the way. This next leg was supposed to be a very picturesque one. Instead of slowing down, the rain got progressively worse all day.

We started along the road out of Cortina, which I assumed was towards the north, and after a bit, I asked Jan what our destination was to be. When we first entered the address, the route seemed to be back towards Cortina, then it changed and I was asked to turn left at this road coming up. I did, and we started going along this pot hole covered, but paved road up into the mountains. I thought, if I see snow anytime soon, we're turning around!. Soon we reached a corner where the road seemed to get better... I thought it must be an important corner as there was even a streetlight in the middle of the forest!





Later we crossed under a chairlift, and I'm thinking, where the heck are we? Then we started heading downhill, and I was sure we were going back toward Cortina. We reached another corner, where I had to turn right, uphill again. Jan and I had a small disagreement as to following the GPS route of going by the map, although the places we were going through were so small that they weren't on the map, and the road signs showing villages coming up, didn't match the ones on the map either. We finally came to a restaurant/hotel, and Jan went in to get directions, but couldn't locate anyone. We were told yesterday that places were shut down for the spring. We stopped a guy walking along the sidewalk, and tried to ask if we were on the right road. After looking at our map for a while, he thought we should go back the way we had come, but then he changed his mind and we got the impression that we might actually be heading in the right direction.

We continued on for a bit, and finally saw a sign for a certain mountain pass that was on the map as well, so we carried on. The road was climbing up the mountain, and into the clouds. It was hard to take pictures as we couldn't see much through the mist. We kept seeing cars and bikes coming down, so I felt fairly sure that if they could make it so could I. We finally reached the top, and started down, with numerous switchbacks and a very narrow road. At times blondie tried "recalculating" 'cause I was doubling back on myself so tightly on the road that she thought, I had turned around.

Every so often, we would pop out of the clouds and get a picture or two, then back in again. We drove through numerous little ski villages, which were mostly all closed up. Finally we reached another little village and started climbing up the valley. Within a matter of 2 kms, I must have turned around 20 times, a hairpin turn one way, drive 50 feet, and turn back the other way. I tried to take some pictures looking back down the valley, and in the rain and mist you can see the road curving back and forth too many times to count. I think before I hit the summit, I counted 43 switchbacks going up, and about 27 going down the other side!





We finally figured out that we were going along a different road to our destination than we had wanted to. We stopped and had lunch at this little restaurant, still in Italy, where they mostly spoke German! Then we started up again, over another high pass, The snow on the sides of the road was higher than the car. I braved tha rain to take some shots looking back the way we'd come. It was an unreal road!



We finally arrived at a place where we could get on the freeway. So following the GPS, I entered the toll gates, and took the turnoff for Austria. We went around the corner and were stuck in a monumental traffic jam trying to get on the same freeway! When we got to the toll booth, I had to pay 1.60 Euro for driving 200 feet! The gate I first entered was 30 feet away to my right. Well, no big deal, I thought, at least we're on our way. About 50 km down the road, another toll booth, and now 8.00 Euro! Then I got off the freeway about 6 km past this point as we reached Insbruck, Austria.

The hotel we were hoping to stay at, was full (it's Saturday afternoon) so we tried driving around looking for another hotel, but they don't identify their hotels over here, like we do ours in North America, with BIG GAUDY signs. After driving around for a while, unsuccessfully, we had the GPS locate a place for us. It's a little pricy, but at least it has wireless in the lobby, so I'll be able to post the last two days' blogs and check our emails.