Tuesday
08-Oct-2019 (Isny – Gran (Tirol, Austria))
Why "There and Back Again"? We started in Germany, went to Austria, Switzerland and Italy in the first month.... and here we are - doing it again at the end...
And
so, we come to the final (“Fiat”) part of our unplanned (at the microscale, but
long planned at the macroscale) journey.
McRent provided us with a Globebus I6 to continue our travels. This was an interesting choice – as I had
thought an A-Class Globebus might have been a good alternative to the Esprit –
I quite liked it’s “small is beautiful” concept. The one we have is 6.95m long, and being a
Globebus is only 2.20m wide (compared to the Esprit’s 7.6m length and 2.33m width)
– but it “feels” much smaller on the road. It also has a large (high) garage
which means the beds (which are two singles with an infill between) are close
to the roof. The I6 (henceforth, “Fiat2”)
is a manual (Fiat was an auto).
The
first task, after picking up Fiat2 was to drive to Lindau to drop off the BMW
(Isny doesn’t have any rental return locations)… so Karilyn got to drive the “Beamer”.
We managed to not lose each other… and, almost “of course” the GPS route to the
Hertz depot didn’t quite work out as initially planned – when we found the road
on which the Depot was located had been shut off by roadworks – but GPS’s are clever
(mostly) and can find a new way home.
We duly arrived, and handed back the car… then it was a case of – lets have
lunch while we decide exactly where we plan to go tonight!
On
the basis of an earlier precedent, set way back in April in Isny – we retired
to the nearest McDonalds to gain sufficient sustenance to plan the day’s
travels. Prior to departing NIWA – I had
asked my colleagues who come from far and wide to suggest locations they
thought particularly interesting – and as far as it has been possible – we have
followed much of that guidance. Back in
April – we had hoped to visit the Dolomites – but with weather delays in Stechelberg,
the Dolomites were scratched from our plans (we had passed through them in 2007).
With 10 days more of travel – the Dolomites came back onto our list – as did Lago
di Garda.
First
stop – east of Lindau, was in Austria (and yes we had pre-purchased a Vignette
for Fiat2 before entering Austria – being only a 3.5tonne vehicle, it doesn’t
need a “Go Box”) – at a place called Gran – with the auspicious name of “Comfort
Camp Gran”. The attraction – a 7.8
rating on CamperContact.. and an indoor pool (the weather was not quite “right”…
i.e. it was fine... but planning to rain).
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| On the road again...on Route 308.. to Gran |
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| Fiat2 in Gran... before the rain set in... |
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| Haldensee - the beauty of Autumn begins to show (and a little rain, again, too). |
Gran
is at 1140m altitude, and so the temperatures are a little cooler than we have
been encountering in our hotel rooms.
Then the Truma heating system displayed the E517H error… Which meant no
heating of any kind (space or water). It
was too late to call Isny, but after reading the manual (and the
troubleshooting guide)… and as the temperature kept falling … time to ask for
help from our most reliable source, Jonas (at Zion Motorhomes, in Auckland). However,
after trying all the things that Jonas was aware of (the heater in an I6 is unfortunately
in a rather difficult location – so what I could do was a bit limited!) – the control
stubbornly continued to report E517H. So we went to bed. It was cold…
Wednesday
09-Oct-2019 (Gran)
Fiat2
was quite cool inside by the morning (maybe 11C). Time to call McRent in Isny. But
lo, while on the phone, what should happen but E517H cleared itself, and the heater
burst into life – all by itself! This reminded
me of the “Tinker Effect”… on a number of occasions, when having problems with
a computer at work, Colin would come to help, and while he observed what I had
previously done (or thought I had done!)… everything started working as it was
meant too.
So
with good WiFi – we worked on the Blog (which was made easier by the “quality”
of the weather outside). The heated pool was very nice though!
But
we were warm and cosy… and very happy to again be on our way, albeit in Fiat2... but being among the mountains is a peaceful experience for us...
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| The indoor swimming pool was a nice treat - possibly our second last swim on this trip (perhaps one more in Singapore?).. and the first since Denmark on the 26th July. |
Thursday
10-Oct-2019 (Gran – Natters)
A slightly
nasty surprise at checkout – a bill for €119…
for 2 nights, including €34 for 42 KW-h of electricity (over and above the
5KW-h we got for free each day)! This
was a first for us… being charged to electricity use… at €0.80 per KW-h. We
challenged this – given that we had had 12h with essentially no electricity use. They halved the power cost – but still, 2
very expensive nights. If this is to be “normal”
we shall use Gas for heating… and turn the thermostat down further!
Natters is very close to Innsbruck, but the
route took us past Zugspitze, which at 2,962m is Germany’s highest mountain.
The setting from which we viewed the mountain was “magical”… mountain, cloud,
forest, deep turquoise-blue lake… and a bright
blue Ferrari following along behind us…
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| Zugspritze - in all its beauty (even if slightly cloud covered) |
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| And to east of Zugspritze - name? |
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| Natters Camp Site |
Along the way, we also passed under the world’s longest pedestrian
suspension (swing to us) bridge that connects Fort Claudia (17th Century) and the Ehrenberg
Castle ruins (12th Century)… it is 403m. and 110m above the roadway.
No, we didn’t have time to take the walk… and it was also raining heavily.
As the Natters Camp Site was part of ACSI, which has a
guaranteed maximum amount per night – we did
carefully enquire about any hidden charges… there were none…. Further as somehow my birthday
(tomorrow) got mentioned… we received a small gift… premium internet at no
additional cost (a saving of €2… which though small – was
appreciated!).
As with many of the locations we have chosen to camp on –
this one was on a Lake too… (well, a pond, perhaps), and it was clear that in
Summer it is a hive of water-sports activities (including a water polo court).
Our inspection of the water suggested that it was a bit less translucent than a
standard iron-ore coloured Swedish lake (sorry, Hakan).
This campsite also had a number of other interetesting
features – apart from its architecture, (the showers were on the second level
of the main building, and were reached by a long inclinded ramp), it had a very
(very) large collection of model “campers”, caravans and their tow vehicles –
almost impossible to photograph as they were behind glass, in a hallway, with
lots of reflecting surfaces – but worth including so you get the impression…
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| A library of "Campers", Caravans and their tow vehicles... |
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| In more detail... |
One of the other folks staying at the campsite (or perhaps
one of the owners) also had a very loud toy…
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| The Green (loud) toy car. |
As “this evening” is the 11th October in NZ, where
I was born… it was the right “day” to celebrate my birthday too…. Karilyn made
a wonderful dinner – and we had some candles too… even if you had to imagine
the other six, to make up the new number!
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| Birthday treat... 66 years on... |
Friday
11-Oct-2019 (Natters – Toblacher See (near Dobbiaco, which is near San Candido))
There
were indeed no hidden costs, and overnight – something delightful occurred… our
first completely blue sky for what seemed like quite a while.
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| The view through Fiat2's skylight today... sunshine, blue.... |
GPS, intuiting our desires, kindly minimised our time on the Brenner Pass autobahn (it is a different GPS
from that in Esprit, or our Tom Tom… and likes “shortest” routes on occasions…
which are, in the most part to be ignored) – and soon we were passing through
the beauty of the Tyrolian countryside and towns.
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| Tyrolean countryside (look across the valley above Innsbruck) |
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| The village of Matrei am Brenner... and Fiat2 (small enough to park with the cars!) |
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| An agricultural landscape - and ever green. |
We
have enjoyed many interesting lunch stops along the way too… (which means, time
to pull over, make a cup of tea, and have a bite to eat…). Today’s was at Mühlbach
fortress, a 15th Century…both for defence… and as a Toll station
(somethings in Austria never change!), where the circular walls and towers of
fortress have largely been preserved.
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| Muhlbach Fortress |
San
Candido (in Italian) or Innichen (in German) is in the Puster Valley on the
Drava River – and is sometimes called the “The Pearl of the Dolomites”. While almost
everywhere here is “picture postcard” territory – but the sun was in the wrong
place to show off the real beauty of this place…
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| On the way to San Candido |
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| One of the ski-lifts in the town... and the ever present Dolomites... |
While
the above was all very nice – it seemed like a pale reflection of the setting
for today’s campsite at Toblacher See, which was on our route to Cortina (and tonight's camp site).
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| Toblacher See - at our camp site... |
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| Not quite so impressive in the opposite direction. |
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| The Toblacker See camp site. |
The campsite was at 1,259m, and the sky was clear… so a cool night
threatened. We again enquired about any “additional
charges”… yes there are, €0.82 per KW-h – and no free allocation.
So when turning on the Truma heating – the space and water heating fuel of choice
was set at “Gas”.
Saturday
12-Oct-2019 (Toblacher See – Fei Allo Sciliar)
When
we checked we had used 7KW-h of electricity – so not a large expense, despite experiencing our first ground frost since the Stechelberg (snow) in April.
The
plan for today was to drive through to Lago di Garda… but as you can see from
the title, we didn’t make it. The reason,
5 passes (up to 2214m), more than a few hundred hairpin bends, and a photo
opportunity around almost every corner… and an average speed when underway, of
probably less than 50 kph.
This
is how the day panned out…
On
leaving the campsite at Toblacher See the first stop was to view the Tre Cime
di Lavaredo, three distinctive battlement-like peaks, in the Sexten Dolomites,
and probably one of the best-known mountain groups in the Alps. Individually,
these are Cima Picolla (Little Peak, 2,857m), Cima Grande (Big Peak, 2,999m),
and Cima Ovest (Western Peak 2,973m), which seem to be rather perfunctory names
– given their status!
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| On the left (jagged multiple peaks): Little Peak; to the right of Little Peak is Big Peak, and then, on the right, under the sun, Western Peak... |
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| Lago di Landro and the Cristallo Group. |
Then, 5 minutes further up the road is Lago di Landro offers a
unique view on the Cristallo Group and the Ampezzo Dolomites. When we were there the lake was a “litlle low”
– but that didn’t take from the view!
GPS (taking the shortest route, and again, remarkably, intuiting our desires) then had us turn on to SS48b
at Carbonin Schluderbach, and we were into our first set of hairpin (Tornantes)
as we headed up over the Sant'Angelo Pass(1,757m, and up to 14% gradient) to
Misurina.
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| Near the top of the Sant'Angelo Pass. |
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| Misruina. |
After which we went down for quite a while , before we
started to climb the Paso Tre Croci (1,805m) on SP48, enroute to Cortina.
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| Another Ski Field on the Paso Tre Croci. |
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| Same location, different view direction |
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| The mountains that surround Cortina... and its "crowning glory"? |
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| Cortina |
And onto the next pass (Out of Cortina), Falzarego Pass
(2,117m),… the Tornante’s were quite tight here… with Fiat2’s 6.95m of length
requiring all of the road to get around some of the hair pins.
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Looking back down Falzerego Pass (after the ascent from Cortina)
|
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| A view along the way, on the Falzarego Pass |
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| Making room for a road... |
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| Another view of the beauty of this part of Italy … Karilyn found this view point that brings together water, mountain and the forest (we believe the trees turning to yellow are larches). |
Then…
onto Passo Pordoi (2,239m) (between
Arabba and Canazei) after which we stopped for lunch, at what seems to be our
normal time when travelling – somewhere between 2 and 3 pm… another spot with a
nice view for a cuppa…
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| The lunch stop on Passo Pordoi... |
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| Sometimes you need s tunnel as well as a Tornante... |
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| It is absolutely surprising where you find soccer fields! |
After another long descent to the bottom of the valley… we
had the opportunity to go over the 5th pass for the day, from Canazei to Selva di Val
Gardena on SS242 via Passo Sella (2,244m, the highest, by a smidgen for the
day).
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| The landscape is "amazing" |
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| We are not sufficiently good photographers to take images that give you a sense of how these mountains tower over the road - but they do! |
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| Another view of the landscape... the tree line is much higher here than in NZ. |
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| Building decorations are ever present - and like this one - a work of art. |
By this time, we had travelled about 50% of the disatnce to
Lago di Garda, and it was nearly 5 pm, so a new Camp Site was needed… in this
case at Fe Allo Sciliar,
a village that nestle’s among gentle hills and forests of the plateau below the
foot of the mighty Sciliar massif, and high on the eastern hills above the
Brenner Pass road.
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| How many tunnels can you see... |
Sunday
13-Oct-2019 (Fei Allo Sciliar – Navazzo (Largo
di Garda)
The
scenery around the campsite at Sciliar was beautiful – and there was an
opportunity to take a walk up to a nearby lake, so given that today would be
quite short (with regards to the kms travelled, and no passes to cross) we took
time to enjoy a walk in the woods prior to our departure.
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| The view from the camp site... this is on a plateau far above the valley floor. |
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| Yes, the sheep have bells too. |
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| A delightful walk in the woods... |
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| Where there are people concentrators (scenery, hotels, tourist spots) - there are always services to consume... This one looks very pleasant and gentle. |
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| The Lake at the end of the walk in the woods... |
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| Just another castle / chateau on a hill.... there are so many of them to see... mostly in ruins though. Does give one a sense of antiquity, and kingdoms, and rulers, and invaders and power projection. |
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| The Brenner Pass road... as seen from above - so much of it is on bridge structures |
Again,
the engineering on the Brenner Pass Autostrada (A13/E45) can only really be appreciated
if you are not on the road… do so much of the distance (km after km after km)
it is on a viaduct running down the valley, and as you get closer to Bolzano the
landscape changes back to grapes – but still the mountains dominate the horizon.
The
visibility when we reached Lago di Garda was less than perfect – but it was “atmospheric”…
but the source of the haze was unclear, natural aerosols,…. or pollution from
the Po Valley industries??
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| Castle Toblino on Lago Toblino - near Lago di Garda |
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| A picture of Italy?... 16th Century. |
Then
it was just a (slightly) nail biting drive along the lake to the Garagano,
before an “interesting” drive up the hill to our campsite at Camping Giglio…
which was in an orchard. Why “nail
biting”? Well quite long sections of the road are built into tunnels on the
edge of the lake. Some of these tunnels are very nice – they have white centre
lines in them… But when the tunnel narrows, the white line disappears (the road
is too narrow for one), the “walls” on either side of the road are quite unforgiving
(and curve inward), and there is little lighting that allows yo use exactly
where you are on the road, with respect to the wall on the right hand side –
which you have to be very close too… if the left hand side mirrors are to clear
the oncoming traffic – that is difficult to size up as it approaches! However – we got through unscathed, and at
around 3.45pm we finally found somewhere to pull off the road for lunch… we
were both feeling a little hungry by then, as it had been a long time since
breakfast, and we had expended quite a bit of energy on our walk! As you might imagine… parked as we were, adjacent
to a road full of Italian drivers, memories of Belgium did pass through my
mind!
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| Lunch stop on Lago Di Garda - just enough room to get off the road... Rubbish beginning to show again... |
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| Looking down on Garagano, on our way up to Navazzo (there is a closer view of the "Dom" below). |
But
we made it to the camp site just in time (he closed up a few minute after we
arrived)… but the Italians are a very friendly and welcoming people, and we had
soon been introduced to the family! We had thought to stay here a couple of
nights… but while nice, it was not ideal… so another one-night stay.
Monday
14-Oct-2019 (Navazzo – Trafoi (Stelvio Pass Road)
We
picked out a nice campsite at Zernez (Switzerland) for a 2 day rest stop – to catch
up on the blog and diary etc…. but that turned out to be a pass-to-far. The route from Navazzo turned out to be much
slower than anticipated, or maybe the distance was much greater than we could
expect to cover…
But
starting at the beginning… the village of Sasso was very close to Navazzo, and
it promised a good view of the Lake – so a good side-trip, before starting on
the main journey of the day. On our
arrival the whole town seemed to have
been decorated for an event the previous day (we thought a wedding)… and it
seemed like everyone was involved. It
seemed like what one would expect to see in Italy.
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| Just one other Camper at Camping Giglio - the air is a little clearer this morning |
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| A view of Sasso from the Navazzo Road |
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| Sasso… no room for cars... and notice the vine growing out of the building on the left... |
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| The Church of Saint Antonio Abate in Sasso (17th Century) |
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| And this is what it looks like inside! Sasso - Richly decorated. And this is for a really small village... Every town seems to have at least one church... and it looks like they are still a key part of the life of the village(s). |
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| The Last Supper (in S. Antonio Abate) |
Driving
back down the hill to Garagano, we did stop to take some photos of the
landscape…
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| Photo taking in Italy - what could possibly go wrong... |
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| The photo... |
We left Sasso around 11.30am – and again chose the “green”
(scenic) high lighted routes (or, rather, encouraged GPS to do so).
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| A house along the Navazzo - Garagano Road |
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| The Dom in Garagana (see from above, above) |
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| Driving along the shores of Lago di Garda (which has beautifully clear water)… At one other stopping point (there was more room, it being Monday)… the view was again a delight... but the olfactory senses were overwhelmed by the smell of a urinal... a bit of a problem with these 65 millions of Italians, as discussed in Matera. |
Today’s
lunch stop was at Molina di Ledro (on Lago di Ledro)
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| These kinds of choke points are becoming nothing to even think twice about now... |
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| Another lunch stop... and a picnic, on the side of Lago di Ledro… the temperatures in this part of Europe are certainly more like out kind of summer... than what we had begun to experience "up north". |
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| Storo.. |
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| Monument to Garibaldi (in Storo). He took this town on 12th July 1866. |
We
continued up SP237 to Tione di Trento, then up to 1522m at Madonna di Campiglio,
a Ski Area… and to put that into a NZ perspective, this “ski area” has 57 lifts
and 150 km of ski runs, with a capacity of more than 31,000 people per hour,
rises to 2,600 m (8,530 ft), has 50,000 m2 of snow park, 40 km for
Nordic skiing and links to the pistes in Pinzolo, Folgarida, and Marilleva! No
small “ski area”. At this point the beauty of the autumn colours really began
to shine… with the larches in their golden splendour.
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| Magical view out the window near Passo Campo (1,682m) (near Madonna di Campiglio) |
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| And with a bit more colour... |
As
we descended towards Merano – the landscape was filled with apple orchards,
with harvesting in full swing (and much of it looked to be done by hand (ladders
and some gantries).
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| Apple orchards as we descended toward Merano (via Lana!) |
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| Ruins... and Horticulture - everywhere. All the land that can be cultivated... seems to be being cultivated. |
We
had again misjudged the time it would take to traverse these roads, and had to
make an alternative plan for camping that night. The best choice looked like on at the bottom
(in this case, at Turn 4) on the Stelvio Pass at a place called Trafoi. Even though it was going to be 7pm in the
evening before we would arrive – most camp sites in this part of Europe seem to
stay open till around 8 pm, so we decided it would be safe to press on… even
though we had been driving since 11.00am – with few stops. So as darkness set in we arrived at Camping
Trafoi – to find it unexpectedly “closed for the season”… a bit of a problem,
as there were no other options nearby. Also there was the small problem of “turning
around”…. as the road was very much one-way with regard to width. A short reconnoitre
on foot suggested a turning place a little further down the hill. So that would
do, or so we hoped. It was very dark
now. So using all the room available I
attempted a multi point turn. However, there was one point that I had not
completely taken into account, the inclination of the turning area. So when I was about to start the last part of
the manoeuvre I was aware that the back of Fiat2 was much lower than the front…
and the traction is all at the front. So with some trepidation, I turned on the
traction control, and supplied more fuel to the engine. There was quite a lot of wheel spin, and
later Karilyn told me that we clearly exhausted all the articulation built into
the front suspension (right hand side)… given the evidence of fresh air between
the tyre and roadway. But…. after a bit more wheel spin we were around – and all
was well! I have had some waking moments
since, thinking about the alternative outcomes that might have resulted!
So
the next problem was finding a place to stop.
As it turned out, above the camp site there was quite a large parking
area… with a no camping sign evident.
But this was an emergency, and we needed to stop, and hoping that
Italians would be true to form (in regard to treating such signs as only “guidance
to be considered”) – we backed as far into the parking place as possible (and
as far from the sign as possible!), pulled all the blinds before turning on
lights… and hoped that nobidy in the houses below would care. I slept well, but Karilyn was a little more
wakeful. Our plan… to be gone by 8.00AM, so we set the alarm for 7.00AM!
Tuesday
15-Oct-2019 (Trafoi – Zernez)
We awoke
to the sound of gentle rain falling on Fiat2.
Not a good sign, given we were about to climb up the Stelvio Pass to 2,760m.
It seemed only reasonable that the weather be clear after such effort!
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| No Camping... in Trafoi! |
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| A view from our No Camping camp site |
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| Typical of the simple sections of the Stelvio Pass Road... |
But
regardless, we had come this far, and as Karilyn (being always positive)
commented, perhaps we will get above the cloud (I felt less confident (being
me!)).
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| The views and the colour from the road... |
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| Just below the top (and after completing all 48 tornantes), and we are above the cloud as Karilyn "predicted". Apparently the glacier in the background is simply called "Stelvio Pass Glacier". |
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| Looking back down the hill... |
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| Now a view of the mountains and the road |
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| Just the mountains... the cloud makes it much more interesting! |
And so it turned out that Karilyn’s optimism
was rewarded!
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| Snow again |
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| I can do that too... |
We enjoyed a “second breakfast” at a Café at the top of the
pass (it was quite cold, and the fire in the café looked inviting) – a shared “Panini
Vienese” (i.e. a Panini with mayanaise and a piece of weinerschnizel) – very nice!
Our descent took us down the Umbrail Pass, into Switzerland
(indeed it is near herer that Austria, Italy and Switzerland share a border)
and down to Santa Maria.
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| Looking back to the Stelvio Pass from the top of the Umbrail Pass |
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| Nice forest? |
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| Ascending and descending the Umbrail Pass |
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| Another of those "choke points" in Santa Maria. |
The last part of the journey to Zernez
was through Switzerland’s only National Park (in the Western Rhaetian Alps, in
the Engadin valley).
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| Switzerland's National Park |
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| The winding road through a forest of pines and larches, in the National Park |
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| Fiat2 under a Rainbow at Zernez… Interestingly - the rainbow stayed in the same place for about an hour - some local meteorologi |
So, for a change – we arrived at a campsite before 12
noon! It is here that we will sepnd a
couple of days catching up…. It is in a beautiful location beside the River Inn
(which is a lot smaller than the same river we have seen at various other
points of our journey, including the confluence of the Danube, Inn and the Ilz at
Passau in Lower Bavaria.
