New blog post: Troyes http://www.globeriding.com/troyes/ 1 week ago
The Beast…
The car that has so far accrued the aforementioned stats. It’s now rolling with a top box too, so looks even bigger and fits in even fewer city height restricted car parks. Takes about 100 euro to fill it up, averages around 24 mpg and has gone through one battery to the tune of 280 euro. Help.
Stats One
In the absence of something interesting coming to mind to tell everyone, here are some stats to date from our in car GPS…
Total Moving Driving Time: 57:05
Max Speed: 86.6 mph (we *are* in a 12 year old diesel range rover)
Moving Average Speed: 42.7 mph
Total Distance: 2437.2 miles
Countries passed through: 5 (Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, in that order).
Places visited: Bruges, Arras, Chalet, Campitello, Neuchatel, Freiburg…
Not bad going so far.
European Travels - Part 1
Here’s a quick update of our adventures to date…
By mid December we packed up all our belongings and they were shipped off to Australia. At this time they are in a container somewhere - they are due to arrive in late Feb so the ship is probably somewhere around the Suez Canal by now. Who knows!
We then started a week long road trip down to our Chalet nr Morzine. We stayed a night in Bruges (nice canals and surprisingly close to the UK), two in Arras (some interesting war sites) and then arrived in time to pick up my little sis from Geneva airport. The week with her was nice, although she was mega stressed about exams post christmas, which sucked for her. Christmas and New Year passed uneventfully with some nice relaxed skiing and some not so nice family illnesses.
On the 4th January we moved on to Campitello di Fassa in the Dolomites… the 8 hour drive via the Mont Blanc tunnel and some loooong straight autostrada near Milan was interesting for some parts, boring as hell for others. So far Campitello has been fairly kind to us - Ski guiding work this week was minimal, allowing us some time to get our bearings again, and I’m pretty booked up next week which will be interesting - first time being let loose on my own. xAmanda’s sister and nephew will be arriving on thursday which should be fun. We’ll then leave Campitello next Monday and head back to France for some more skiing, then a road trip to Frankfurt via the Rhine valley for them to fly back to Sydney.
Some pics should follow soon. If anyone is interested in visiting us in France for a bit of a ski, the first and last weeks of Feb and late March is currently free, so get in touch.
Notes on Lisbon
We just returned from Lisbon after a really nice, relaxing 5 day break. Couldn’t have asked for a nicer time I think. Photo’s (and a video of an otter licking it’s bum, don’t ask) will be online in due course, but here’s a quick round up of my thoughts on the place…
- It’s quite a compact place, but after a couple of days you have to venture out of the centre. There’s some amazing views to be had from many of the hillier spots.
- The city and people seem very sure of themselves, and everyone speaks english. It’s as if the place is very happy with it’s own identity and is fairly modern, but happy with it’s history and isn’t trying to be anything else.
- We were plagued by poor service in restaurants. Some was just plain bad, some unfortunate.
- One place we had amazing food was the Paladar restaurant on Calcada do Duque. I can’t find it anywhere online, but it was in the Wallpaper guide to Lisbon, and the link back there will take you through to it on Google Maps. Seriously amazing food at rock bottom prices. Sit inside for the cool interior, or outside if there’s good evening weather.
- Everything (food, shops, travel) is great value. Research before the trip said as much, but it’s the cheapest place in Europe I think I have ever been to.
Here’s a spruced up Google Map of what we thought was cool and where we ended up staying…
And that otter…
Gorge Skiing
From the week’s skiing in Italy.
No Snow
No Snow
Originally uploaded by newformula.
Just got back from skiing in the Alps, where, as you can see, the snow was rather crap. Here’s hoping for our italy trip next week.
Camping on Finnham
Camping on Finnham
Originally uploaded by newformula.
More from the summer holiday in Sweden. We set up camp a few metres above the camp ground on the hillside. Other than not having any food, and nowhere to buy any on the island, we were pretty set. Best view from a tent I have ever experienced.
48 Hour Italy Trip
48 Hour Italy Trip
Originally uploaded by newformula.
just testing…