Wednesday
16-Oct-2019 (Zernez)
Our
penultimate night in Fiat2… and of our Motorhome Journey (in Europe).
Before
the problem with Fiat, we had planned to spend the last 5 days (i.e. 4 nights)
in one place… so that we could rest from travel (it seems like we are being
ungrateful… but this type of “holiday” can still drain one’s stamina a little!),
make a formal note of some of the things on Fiat that needed to be resolved
under the warranty, and to give it a
good clean (after all we have been living in it for 6 months… (without a vacuum
cleaner…)) both inside and out. But with the events in Belgium, the resulting delays,
and no requirement to thoroughly clean Fiat… 5 days became ½ day, a night, a
day and a second night… in Zernez.
Why
Zernez? Before choosing this site, we needed answers to two questions: 1) is it
close enough to Isny that our next and last camp site will be close enough, that we can be there by about 1pm on our last day, and 2) is it a beautiful
location, which for us means, uncrowded, not a large site (where motorhome spaces are often quite small…
(sardines come to mind)), and the scenery will delight the senses. The latter means:
mountains and/or lakes and/or forests and/or a river and/or a fjord. Well a
fjord is out for Switzerland – but all the others are possible. To guide us, we have found two Apps that have
really been incredibly helpful: CamperContact and ACSI – both have offline modes
(you just download the various databases once), have map based (and location) searchable
interfaces, user contributed photographs of the campsites, and reviews. We have
come to rely on the reviews (or an assessment of them) and photographs to guide
our selections. Zernez had mountains, a
river (the Inn), forests and a high rating.
It lived up to all of our expectations… so although shorter than we had
planned – it was a good place to stop!
Zernez
(the village) seems to be focused on supporting visitors to the National Park (it
has the NP’s visitor centre)… so apart from the usual services (fuel, food, and
restaurants) most of the other buildings in the village seem to be hotels / gasthaus’s
of one kind or another, as well as three churches.
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| The village of Zernez, with the Reformed Church (tall steeple) and on the far right, the gothic chapel of St Sebastian |
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| Interior of the Reformed Church |
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| Sitting and talking... while looking after the grave sites in the cemetery of the Reformed Church. |
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| Frescos in the Chapel of St. Sebastian |
So
tonight is our penultimate night for our long planned, and now executed,
motorhome holiday in Europe. Autumn… and the colours make clear that while we
have been away, the Earth has travelled in its orbit, halfway around the Sun…
and so Spring has become Autumn… the leaves are falling, and in the mornings
there is frost on the big skylight (though it is still nice and warm inside Fiat2).
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| One of the (many) mountains that dominate the horizon around Zernez |
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| The river Inn, on the edge of the camp site. |
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| Frost on the Skylight (it is double glazed - so this is on the "outside" (rather than the inside surface)). |
Thursday
17-Oct-2019 (Zernez – Wertach (Germany))
It
would have been good to stay near Fussen, so that we could visit Neuschwanstein
(the “fairy” castle) – but the reviews were all poor… and the costs high so it
was back to an ACSI site (when camping at an ACSI site, out of the high season –
the cost of the site is discounted, and in nearly all cases, never more than €20/night) – in this case close to Kempton, where
we needed to pick up a rental car for our travel from Isny to Munich.
On
the way, we passed from Switzerland into Austria, and then back into Germany –
going past Zugspitze again, as well as under the world’s longest pedestrian suspension (swing to us) bridge that
connects Fort Claudia (17th
Century) and the Ehrenberg Castle ruins (12th Century)… The weather was very different from when we passed here on the 10th
October.
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| Endagine Valley with the village of Guarda visible on the left (first mentioned in 1160AD as Warda) |
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| Ardez (Lower Engadine Valley)… first mentioned in 840AD as Ardezis. The medieval Chaste fortress is visible in the centre. |
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| Village of Imst (in Austria) |
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| The Schloss Fernsteinsee "Castle Hotel" near Nassereith |
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| The glory of the autumn colours (at Schloss Fernsteinsee) |
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| Zugspitze again... compare with the photograph from our first pass by this mountain on the 10th October... which provided a much more interesting photographic opportunity! |
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| This is the view of the suspension bridge between Fort Claudia and Ehrenberg Castle - but as it was not raining this time... you can actually see it! |
Finding
the campsite was a small adventure though… In almost all cases we have used latitude
and longitude coordinates to specify the camp sites – which means we always
(well almost always, one campsite in Slovenia being the exception) get to the
right location. This assumes all the
legal roads are actually available… so when they are closed (for whatever
reason), it can sometimes be hard to convince the GPS that we really want to
take a quite different route. We encountered this problem on coming into
Wertach. Fortunately, Google Maps knows
about road closures though… so it came to the rescue…
But
before we got to Wertach, we did manage to spend 15 or 20 minutes trying to
find our way out of Haslach - which GPS
thought a good alternative to the original route plan (it wasn’t). So during this interlude, we did get to
experience some aspects of life in one of these small villages. We had arrived at milking time… and the milkshed
was right in the centre of the village – so the cows (all 10 or 20 of them)
walk down the streets to get there. I
expect this is a similar site in many of the villages in southern Germany and
in Austria, where “town and country” are tightly integrated… with many villages
having more than one dairy, or animal barn on, or near the main street. Tractors,
other agricultural machinery and animals’ are common sight. It certainly adds
to the aromas of these towns.
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| Milking cows,... passing... |
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| Fiat2 at the last camp site (and our last night) in Wertach. |
Friday
18-Oct-2019 (Wertach – Isny – Illertissen)
And
that was our last night in Fiat2…
After
repacking our cases, sorting our items from the fridge and pantry that might be
of use to Wolfgang’s parents (in Illertissen), and cleaning the interior of
Fiat2 it was time to leave for Kempton.
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| Leaving Wertach |
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| With kind regards from the Camp site... |
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| The "engines" of agriculture are everywhere present in the countryside and the towns - so different to the situation in NZ, where the "work" of farming is largely hidden from those who live in towns, even those that are closely tied to servicing the farming sector. |
Then
onto Isny… and a brief re-acquaintance with Fiat (sitting forlornly in the McRent
parking lot)
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| Fiat2 on the way from Kempton to Isny... the last "kilometre"... |
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| Fiat has returned "home"... and seems to be sitting forlornly in the McRent Parking Lot. |
Thence
to Illertissen as Wolfgang’s parents had kindly invited us to stay the night
with them… and to enjoy wonderful food (dinner and breakfast) ... and conversation,
and to share again where we went, and some of what we saw!
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| After breakfast at Wolfgang's parent's home in Illertissen |
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| Ditto |
Saturday
19-Oct-2019 (Illertissen – Munich Airport)
Not
much to say really… (it rained most of the way), except that our Hotel had a
nice view of a field… another nice reminder of the agricultural aspect of much of the
European landscape.
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| The view from our room in the Holiday Inn Express at Munich Airport. |
At
this point we seemed to have more “luggage” than we left NZ with… or more correctly,
more weight. Even after transferring as many heavy items into the “7Kg” carry
on backpack (one of 4)… it wasn’t looking good for our check in.
Sunday/Monday
20/21-Oct-2019 (Munich – London - Singapore)
Yes the heading for today does look curious – but at the time
we booked, Singapore Airlines did have a suitable Munich to Singapore flight
available, and it left at a reasonable time… but it was around NZ$1000 more per ticket, than the price for this route. So we chose to fly west, before flying in
the direction we wanted… and a rather less than desirable flight our of
Munich. A 3.30am alarm being required.
At the airport, the observation about the weight of our
luggage was confirmed… one suitcase was 31Kg, the other 25Kg… and fortunately
they don’t bother to weigh carry-on bags.
We departed check in with €75 less in our bank account! Then there was the matter of border control. After
presenting our passports at the border, the Police called us over…
- “Is there a problem, I asked?”,
- “Yes, when did you enter the European Union”?
- “23rd April”
- “You have been in the European Union for a very long time… we need to consult the law…” (we didn’t have a Visa… so in principle, our stay should have been limited to 90 days).
- After some 15 minutes or so, “consultation” of the law, and a discussion with his colleague, it seems that holders of New
Zealand passports have some dispensation to stay longer… so our Passports received
the required stamp – and we exited Europe.
Nothing much of interest happened after that.., we had a nice
2 hour flight (on BA) to London, an hour in the Singapore Airlines Lounge at Heathrow (which had a proper “English Breakfast” available), then a 12 h flight to
Singapore. We enjoyed some of the inflight entertainment for a change (as
usually, on such flights I am working on some report or other, following
meetings in the UK), including a documentary on Luciano Pavarotti (very good), and two largely dreadful (in our opinion) movies
(the latest Men in Black, and Aftermath (a poor imitation of the book)).
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| The Thames... |
As Singapore would be the last stop on this “adventure”, we had
booked into a “nice” hotel (=€€€) – on Fort Canning Hill (the
eponymous Fort Canning Hotel) which occupies the building that was the British Far
East Command Headquarters during World War II. The “hill” rises to 48m above
sea level and is where Sir Stamford Raffles built his residence. It turned out
to be a very nice hotel, and being relatively small, the staff provided quite
personalised attention.
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| Fort Canning Hotel |
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| The Lighthouse on Fort Canning Hill - for the purpose of marine navigation... |
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| The view from the lighthouse toward the harbour... Yes, that is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel (as well as a few trees) obscuring the view to sea, of the lighthouse. Needless to say it has not been functioning for some time (since 1958). |
Though we have been to the Supertree Grove at Gardens by the
Bay before – they are sufficiently spectacular to visit again… so a late evening
stroll ensued…
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| The evening lightshow at the Supertree Grove. |
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| The Singapore Flyer (wheel) and the Marrina Bay Sands Hotel |
According to Wikipedia, “… the Supertrees are tree-like
structures that dominate the Gardens' landscape with heights that range between
25 and 50 metres. They are vertical gardens that perform a multitude of
functions, which include planting, shading and working as environmental engines
for the gardens. They are fitted with
environmental technologies that mimic the ecological function of trees:
photovoltaic cells that harness solar energy which can be used for some of the
functions of the Supertrees (such as lighting), similar to how trees
photosynthesize, and collection of rainwater for use in irrigation and fountain
displays, similar to how trees absorb rainwater for growth. The Supertrees also
serve air intake and exhaust functions as part of the conservatories' cooling
systems.” Informed?
Followed by “dinner” in the “street food” style food court in
the Marina Bay Sands … we both had the same meal as we did in April (because we
liked it so much, and to choose an alternative may not have been so enjoyable
(although it might have also been even better – but this outcome was
discounted by one of us as “improbable”!)).
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| The Food Court... so many lovely aromas! |
Tuesday/Wednesday
22/23-Oct-2019 (Singapore - Home)
We
departed Singapore at 6.45pm after spending the morning wandering around the
reserve at Fort Canning, which is where Raffles established Singapore’s first Botanical
Garden and experimented with growing various spices. It also includes the
bunker (the Battle Box) where the decision was made by Lieutenant-General Percival
to surrender Singapore to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 (which Churchill,
called the "worst disaster" in British military history).
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| Fort Canning Hill |
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| One of those interesting Tropical Flowers - sadly its name is unknow to us... |
After that we retired to the pool, before heading to the
airport for a check in at 3.30 pm. The flight time was only a little over 9
hours… So some time to work on the Blog, and to watch a TED talk on “Sleep
is your Superpower” (a slightly disturbing set of assertions for those of
us who have had less sleep than is optimal – do watch it!)… and a very good film
on Tolkien. Karilyn, being unable to
sleep, watched a larger number of films!
Time and flights passed… and then we were home again.
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| Home again... Gentle Southerly... and 8C temperature... |
Which brings to an end, our long planned sojourn in Europe.
The initial idea for this “adventure” dates back to early
2014, when we started enquiring about “campervans”, with options to pickup in
Europe before being delivered to NZ. Interestingly, although we considerd a
range of possible vehicles, we ultimately ended up buying the same model that
we first viewed in a Church parking lot back in 2015 where Jonas Ng, as Acacia
Motorhomes, now Zion Motorhomes was trading from at the time (a Dethleffs
Esprit). Our hope was that spending 6 months
travelling in Europe following Michael’s retirement would provide the necessary
time to do a “reset” following the busyness, pressures, and stresses of the last
few (20+?) years… While still early
days, we think we have achieved this goal – and can now look forward to working
out how best to fill our time in the future.
Some statistics:
- Total time out of New Zealand: 185 days (or 4,440 hours);
- Total time between the pickup of Fiat, and the return of
Fiat2: 177 days (or 4,248 hours);
- Total distance covered in Europe: 20,230 km (greater than the
great circle distance between Wellington and Isny (18,610km)!):
- In Fiat, we travelled 17,064 km;
- In BMW, we travelled 1,829 km;
- In Fiat2, we travelled 1,337 km.
- Covered:
- 32.17˚ of latitude (from Santa Croce
Camerina in Sicily (36.83˚ N) to Nyksund in Norway (69.00˚ N), – i.e. 3,571 km, and
- 24.13˚ of longitude (from Kalix in Sweden (23.14˚E) to Pointe du Hoc in France (0.99˚W)).
- Number of Photographs taken:
- XT3: 12,309
- Karilyn’s: 10,789
- Michael’s: 1,766
- Visited 14 countries: Singapore, Germany, Austria, Switzerland,
Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, The
Netherlands, Belgium and France (some more than once);
- Stayed at 96 camp sites and 10 hotels (7 of which were caused
by the demise of Fiat, in Belgium);
- Ferry crossings: 11;
- Total cost… not yet calculated!
Our original plans included more time in France, as well as
time in Portugal and Spain. We ran out
of time to complete that plan, so will have to go back to complete the “journey”…
perhaps another 6 weeks in a rental campervan next time…
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