Venezia

We woke up on the first morning to glorious sunny weather, just perfect for sightseeing. From the campground the boat ride to Venice offers a fantastic view coming in.

Despite all the tourists, and yes there were still hordes of tour groups, Venice is still a magical city. The tiny canals, amazing architecture, gondolas bobbing up and down on the water, interesting little alleyways leading off in all directions and fantastic mask shops - it is a living museum piece.

We had fun exploring the backstreets and alleyways and wandering off the beaten tourist paths, discovering beautiful leafy parks, quaint antique shops tucked away in secluded corners and quiet campos (squares) dominated by huge statues and churches, even little squares in residential areas where washing lines were strung out high up from one side of the courtyard to the other. Getting lost in Venice is all part of the fun! And everywhere you looked there was the winged lion, the symbol of Venice - on top of columns, on big door knockers, wall friezes, banners and boats.

The gondoliers nonchalantly stood on the ends of the their boats and looked like they could steer them in their sleep! The gondolas themselves were just beautiful all lined up along the canals. Black sleek looking boats, with fancy gold or silver lions or sea horses (Roman style), brocaded seats etc.

We caught a trachetto (like a gondola but with 2 gondoliers and the boat fits up to 10 people who often stand up) across from one side of the canal to the other - a short trip of about 30 seconds all up but also cheap.

The shops in Venice are beautifully presented and offer modern styling in centuries-old buildings. There were the usual typical designer label shops and shoe shops with lots of big bling shoes with big bling prices. Then there were masks shops, Italian paper shops filled with beautiful marbled and leather bound books and calligraphy material - quills, individual seals and waxes, fancy letter openers, antique map shops and little curio shops with handcrafted wooden marionettes of Pinocchio and the fox, decorator shops with ornate brocades, silks and lush velvets. Not to mention all the glass shops that were a riot of colour, overflowing with jewellery in vibrant colours and all shapes and sizes, huge chandeliers and statues etc.

Anika and Jood loved the mask shops and some of the window displays were art works in themselves. We wandered in and out of dozens of mask shops admiring the fantastic range of designs from phantom style masks to classic theatre style, animals, masks with scenes of Venice painted on them, ones with feathers and glitter, and others so delicate and fragile. Some of the mask shops also sold or rented fancy dress costumes for Venice's Carnevale. The clothes and masks were really quite magical and could fire anyone's imagination with dreams of mystery and masked balls.

While we were in Venice we also went to the Venice Biennale a modern art expo with artists representing countries around the world. It was typically a hit and miss affair, just as modern art so often is. Some of the pavilions featured some really interesting and innovative art while other pavilions we were able to instantly dismiss, for eg. The German display of pine cabinets straight from an IKEA kitchen catalogue, the French black room with prison bars and industrial fans which smelled of rubber, the Korean room full of blinds. The highlight was the main exhibition hall showcasing Italian artists with some very clever ideas using lights, film projectors, books and old toys (better than it sounds). The Biennale had heaps of student groups there (mainly Dutch and Italian I think) and also a lot of quite arty, bohemian looking people - not your usual sort of Venice tourist.

Dinner in Venice gave us a chance to see the city at night time when a lot of the tour groups had left for the day. We found a small ristorante on a tiny canal that was quite nice. In the early evening we watched the various watercraft passing by as well as locals walking home for dinner.

We limited ourselves to single meals (not the 3-4 course full tourist menu which all the places were trying to push). Dinner was delicious but naturally portions were smaller than at home. Cappuccinos were on the menu for 4.50 euros, (about $10). A visit to the public toilet in Venice cost about $3! You pay for the ambience – not sure about inside the toilets though.

Classical concerts are held in various churches throughout the city, but we didn’t get a chance to catch a performance. Maybe next time. Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons" was on offer in a few of the ornate churches and we watched an ensemble practicing. The San Marco Piazza had competing ensembles playing classical pieces as well as classic hits (ie. "The Entertainer") into the evening which attracted appreciative crowds. Not many people were sitting down at the cafes and restaurants – probably because of the the premium surcharges just to have a seat.

Venice is a photographer’s dream with a masterpiece location at every turn. Gondaliers linger nonchalantly near the bridges, mostly happy to chat with each other, only occasionally touting for business. The many bridges and houses have so much character it’s impossible not to be impressed by bricks, iron and paint. We took about 1000 photos between the four of us. Should be a great powerpoint presentation. Book your tickets for the slide night.

Lugano -Garda -Verona

The trip from Switzerland through northern Italy had it’s highlights based around beautiful lakes and old town centres. Unfortunately the bits in between (i.e. the two thousand round-a-bouts and the dull characterless towns that seem to merge into one giant suburban mass) are pretty forgettable. Sounds a bit like some parts of Sydney.

Lugano (still in Switzerland) on a sunny Sunday attracted half of Italy taking a walk along the endless tree-lined pathways along the lake shores. The air was warm, the gelato was everywhere, the dogs came in all sizes and shapes, the prams were rolling, the kids were running and we had a delightful walk absorbing it all. Lugano has become a huge town and it sprawls over the hills and across the lake. Small boats continue to take tourists around the lake much as they probably did over 50 years ago when my parents first met in Lugano. We saw an olive tree that must have been standing there for well over a century and it was full of ripe olives. In fact we saw a local man enjoy helping himself to a small harvest.

Lake Garda has entertained tourists for years and we arrived at the end of the season as camping grounds close and the weather becomes unpredictable. The traffic on a late Sunday afternoon was never-the-less chaotic and slow, as everyone enjoyed the last rays of late summer weather. Our camping spot was right on the lake, with gravel beach and small jetties as far as you could see. The local tourists were all Germans and Anika quickly found a friend with a booming voice. German school holidays were still happening so we encountered families, dogs, socks and sandals. Some even spoke English. “Tag, danke, bitte” are our social limits although Arkady pulls out a few phrases he has learnt at school – unfortunately he practices on us not the Germans.

Verona was busy but once again we enjoyed the old city ambience and walked around the main sights in an afternoon. The main Arena (second place to the Colosseum) was packed. It’s golden glow on the outside highlighted it’s prominent position in town, right in front of the main square. It is still used for various concerts from rock to opera and has seats installed as well as lighting towers, so it loses a bit of it’s original feel. However the crowd crawling all over the place give it a buzz, as if something is about to happen. Nothing happened…. so it’s off to Venice.

Switzerland over the top and out

On a rain-soaked misty morning we decided to use the poor weather to our advantage and travel rather than sit around thinking about what we could have been doing. We had intended to do another cable and rail ride to Kleine Scheidegg (easy for me to say) but conditions were poor. The trip south towards Italy unavoidably crosses huge mountains. We used the Grimsel Pass, the Furka Pass and part of Gothard but couldn't find the long tunnel. We did find spectacular and breath-taking scenery. The highest points are barren, snow-capped, rocky and the narrow switchback (hairpin) bends are harrowing, especially for the person closest to the safety rail. That would be Jood. Often there was little between the passenger door and a long way down. The kids played on my ipod and told stories. We took pix and videos to prove how scary it was and made it over at a gentle and safe speed. The mists continually rolled in and revealed new and impossible views, punctuated by bursts of sunshine and then rain.

We took a walk near the Rhone Glacier and through a series of tunnels dug out inside it. A freezing but interesting experience underneath the thick walls of ice. The rocky environment, mainly hard shales and granite, inspired the many travellers who have come through this part of the world to erect mini rock sculptures all over the place. This added to the surreal landscape at this high altitude.

We are now camped in Bellinzona (southern Switzerland near Lugarno) and the feel is already very Italian. Tomorrow we'll be changing accents and practicing our "grazis", "ciaos" and "more gelatos"...

Black Forest and beyond to Switzerland

We've visited 3 very different waterfalls over the past 3 days. Triberg Falls cascading through the beautiful Black Forest with fairy-tale undergrowth, autumn leaves and hidden squirrels. The Rhine Falls near Schaffhausen are very broad and majestic and lure hoardes of tourists to catch a tiny boat up to the whitewash. The Trummelbach Falls are 10 spiralling thunderous falls inside a rocky cliff fed by glaciers. All very impressive. Trummelbach Falls probably won "most popular" with us for sheer excitement, danger and noise.

Today we took trains and cable cars to get to the top of Schilthorn, near Lauterbrunnen. The day was warm and sunny and we took in magnificent views of the Jungfrau, Eiger and Monch mountains along the way. At the top the lookout is named Piz Gloria after it was used in a James Bond movie "At Her Majesty's Secret Service". Yes, apparently the worst of all Bond films. Yes we saw some shorts and a scenic touristy video about the mountainous Oberland. Yes there was a total whiteout meaning "zero" visibility. Photos were interesting.

Off to Italy in the next few days. Camper is coping well. The driving is spectacular. The driver is coping well too.

Emails Shmemails!!!

Sorry everyone. We've been able to receive emails but had a lot of trouble sending them. I think it's a bigpond thing. Also there doesn't seem to have been many wifi hotspots in the Black Forest so we've tried grabbing internet time in Tourist Info Centres. The internet cafes have been unhelpful when we've been able to track them down. So we'll try to keep the blog up to date as often as possible, and find another solution for the email problems.

Germany

We arrived in Germany late friday night and took the first campsite we could find, right on the banks of the Mosel River. A delightful part of the world... and most of Germany agrees. Of course saturday was National Germany Day and every German with a camper was headed for the Mosel Valley. Across the river a huge marquee was set up with long tables and lots of beer, sausage and oompah! I snuck in and thought the atmosphere was great, unfortunately not necessarily a great family night out, so we enjoyed the sounds of the live band doing standards all night. Traditional accordian and bass tunes with massive sing-a-longs and hand-clapping. The crowd loved it. We listened until 2.00am. Among the great standards were ACDC's "jailbreak" and "highway to hell" done in cheesy- knees-up crowd pleasing fashion. You have to imagine "oi...oi...oi" done with a German accent and 300 drunk Germans singing along. I think Neil Young, Led Zeppelin and Bon Jovi all got that special treatment along with a host of true Euro tunes that translate into every cultural sing-a-long. Oh what a night... (actually that was another one they did).

The Mosel River is a beautiful winding river with steep vineyards and traditional villages on both sides. The road hugs the river and takes in all the scenery as barges glide along and tour boats loaded with German tourists, cameras clicking wildly, zig-zag between bridges and churches. The National German Day to celebrate unification of old East and West Germany meant there were lots of little festivals and celebrations. We enjoyed some "gemukkelijkheid" which is my Dutch interpretation of "enjoyable atmosphere" at a town market square with a beer and bratwurst on bread rolls. There was a live one man band - once again doing interpretive covers in that great traditional German style. It's quite fun playing "Guess that tune". And the crowd enjoyed the sunny afternoon drinking and eating.

We climbed up to a nearby castle ruin to get a bit of a physical fix and were rewarded with stunning views up and down the Mosel River. The walk up was also interesting as we crossed vineyards through tiny ancient walkways and stairs. The ruin- there wasn't much castle left had been invaded, conquered and renovated over 13 times by various lands including Dutch, Swedes and the French who finally blew most of it up. We loved it.

The Rhine river section around St Goar and the Lorelei rock was busily touristed but quite uninteresting compared with the Mosel so we didn't stay long.

The Black Forest took a few hours to reach but we've been rewarded with lovely campgrounds with outstanding shower facilities and panoramic scenery. We've walked a few trails and snapped a few thousand pics of waterfalls, typical houses with steep roof gables, alpine streams, cuckoo clocks, iron shop signs, floral window boxes, cuckoo clocks, forest fauna, cuckoo clocks, autumn leaves ... and cuckoo clocks. The forest floor is really springy as it is made up of fir tree needle leaves covered in a type of velvety moss. It is very magical and makes for great stories. No wonder the Brothers Grimm did so well.

Tomorrow we head to Switzerland.

One week in Holland

Windmills, clogs and bikes...it must be Holland.

We've had a fairly busy few days doing the tourist thing.

We had a great day visiting Kinderdyke, (near where Peet's dad was born) a UNESCO world heritage site with 19 windmills dotted across the landscape. We were driving along close to the river through a little town and all of a sudden looked out the window and there were all the windmills lined up along the canals. It's really quite impressive seeing so many windmills so close together (and hard to believe how many photos of windmills we could take!)

We were lucky that it wasn't a weekend as the place wasn't at all crowded (except for one school group which was just leaving when we got there). We took the bikes out of the van so the kids could ride along the pathway next to the windmills although I think Anika actually enjoys being dinked on the back of Arkady's bike more than actually riding herself! There was even one windmill you could go into and have a look around which was pretty interesting. The sails were working and when the breeze picked up the sails started turning so fast it was actually quite scary standing close by.

The next day we had a full on day in The Hague and packed the sightseeing in. We caught a tram out to Scheveningen, a popular beach side spot which looked quite uninviting in grey, blustery weather, but it was mainly to show the kids the area and the English Channel/North Sea. Then it was back on the tram to Madurodam a fantastic miniature model park of all of the Netherlands featuring highlights of all 11 provinces.

We spent a good few hours there with Arkady trying to break the record of taking the most photos in one day (something like 300 photos!). There were toy barges that went up and down lochs, trains that whizzed around the park, planes that taxied around Schipol airport, cars driving around the streets, even a garbage boat that went around the canals of the Amsterdam section.

The attention to detail in the street scenes was amazing with little processions outside churches, a person waterskiing on a lake, people sitting outside cafes in the squares, farmers in the fields. The model of the Rijksmuseum was huge and if you looked down into one of the windows you could even see a miniature copy of the 'Nightwatch' painting. There was even a model fun park with a working carousel, dodgems, ferris wheel and roller coaster. It was pretty funny watching it. We had a lot of fun there.

After that we went to see the Escher museum which was housed in an old palace. There were some amazing Escher's on display and at times it was headache inducing trying to follow some of the designs as they defied logic or the images got smaller and smaller and it was like looking into a spiral. It was all fascinating though. The other interesting thing about the museum was that each room featured a huge chandelier. Each one was a different shape - a violin, a spider, skull and cross bones, paint palette etc but there were all spectacular to look at.

To get to the top floor of the Escher museum (where it explained how Escher played with illusion) you had to go up a number of little wooden staircases and it felt like you were actually in one of Escher's artworks where you couldn't tell whether the staircases were going up or down.

Since then we've also been to Volendam, a little fishing village up north of Amsterdam which is probably most famous for being overcrowded with tourists during high season and also a popular spot where people dress up in traditional costume and have their photo taken, which we did as all Peet's family have had their photo taken there at some time so we had to too (to make Oma happy).

Anika was so excited about dressing up we could hardly shut her up. Of course Arkady was not keen to get his photo taken at all but eventually succumbed to family pressure (and I couldn't resist teasing him that by the time he got back to Fort St the photo would be all over school!) It was a very slick process with the photo - here are the clothes, sit here, hold this, smile for the camera and it was all over and done with in about 10 mins at most.

While we were up that way we also had a look around the village of Edam (as in the cheese) which was a beautiful quaint village with lovely trees lining the canals and old bridges (like the ones Vincent Van Gogh painted). We discovered a cheese shop with a fantastic display of cheeses and wine out the front so had to go in and admire the big wheels of cheese plus do a little bit of taste testing.

I must say I've been really taken with a lot of the window displays in people's houses. The Dutch like having the inside of their house on display with many places having no curtains or only little lace ones so you can look straight through into their living rooms and kitchens. Many of the houses have impressive displays of flowers in their windows or little collections of nature - pine cones, straw, wreaths, lots of pumpkins of all sizes, birds, chooks etc. Anika, being such a nature lover/collector loves them and has stopped to take lots of photos.

We've been in the van almost a week now and have settled into a routine - find a camping spot, set up the electricity, check out the bathroom facilities (good if it's a hot free shower, grumble if you have to pay for a quick 3 minute shower) then make coffee and relax. The first thing Anika does is go off and explore the campground which is great if it's on a farm, in the forest or beside a little stream.

That's about it for now.

Jood