Switzerland

We were a bit bedraggled by the time we left Scotland - too much rain, not enough laundries. We had about a week to spend with K's former host family (from a student exchange to Switzerland) in the small city of Winterthur. By a great stroke of luck, K's host sister, M, had recently also moved back to Winterthur with her husband and two kids, so we were able to spend a lot of fun time with them too.

The day we arrived was still and sunny, a perfect summer day. K's host father met us at the station; he hadn't changed a bit in the ten years since we'd last seen him. It must be the Swiss sun - if he had been in Australia he would have shrivelled up like a sultana years ago, but he was just ageless, which was rather comforting. We spent the night with the host parents, M and her two lovely kids eating good food outside in the warmth.

The next morning the host parents headed off on a little getaway they had planned weeks in advance, leaving us to go about our business of relaxing, sleeping in, and then eventually going out to meet M and the kids at the swimming pool for a lazy picnic near the pool - we weren't swimming, so were just dressed for summer in shorts and jandals.

To get to the quiet shady spot under the trees out the back of the swimming complex, we had to navigate through a labrynthine entry hall arrangement. We paid our entry and were then ignored and left to our own devices, like we should know what to do next. We thought we'd try going through the changing rooms and, hopefully, out the other side. Nope, that wasn't it. We backtracked into reception, looking bewildered and foreign; alas they still assumed we'd know what to do. Maybe it's through the main pool area? We gave it a go - through the glass doors and down the steps near the pool. Well that got them interested in us - the attendant (Bademeister) appeared from nowhere, regarding us with a mixture of incredulity and trepidation, as if wondering if anyone could genuinely be so stupid, or was this some sort of elaborate joke at his expense?

We explained our predicament, that we were trying to find a friend who was outside by a pool, but there were no signs to suggest how we might achieve this. He showed us through with a long-suffering shake of the head.

The picnic was lovely and relaxed under the shade of a tree, away from all those pesky other visitors who were actually using the pools. We then headed back to M's place and played with the kids for an hour or two while she prepared a delicious dinner.

We left M's husband M (M&Ms? delicious) at home with the kids and went into Winterthur for the music festival. We saw King Pepe performing his Pepe Jazz album; modern Swiss-German jazz. He was a really charismatic performer and there was a good atmosphere on the Kirchplatz, and a beautiful evening.

Unfortunately we both took ill the next couple of days, so missed our planned hike in the alps. M&M took me to Zurich on the second day of sickness. I was out of breath just walking beside the gorgeous lake, so would have had no chance in the Alps. After lunch at a little Asian Imbiss, we caught a ferry back to where we'd started.

My last day in Winterthur was spent visiting the Fotomuseum, which was showing three excellent exhibitions including a Lewis Hine (reproduced below without permission) and a hilarious mini exhibition of photos of Swiss chalets that are used to camouflage the entrances to underground army bunkers. We'd heard about this cunning ruse already so it was good to see it was an acknowledged military practice; those 120 guys who walked into the same chalet weren't just going for a giant Twister party.

Our send off from Switzerland was decidedly un-Swiss. M's father had taken us to the train station and we were waiting for the next train to Zurich (where we had to change for the incredible super-fast 350kmh+ French TGV service to Paris). As we waited, a rail employee approached us and told us to take shelter in the railway station equivalent of the military chalet - a waiting room - because a train full of football supporters was approaching and we were liable to get rubbish and abuse thrown at us. We watched from our zoo cage as the drunk supporters dealt with the disappointment of an empty platform, then carried on their way. I followed them on the next train, arriving home 40 hours later.

Scotland - Skye, Rum, Canna

Against our better judgement, we flew Ryan Air from Memmingen to Edinburgh. Yes, Memmingen, the well-known 'Munich West' base of Ryan Air, situated around 100km west of the city, a lengthy train then bus ride away.

The flight and Ryan Air experience were as expected - efficient, on-time, but completely arsey. The angst and aggro of queuing to try and get a seat with your travelling partner is something quite special.

We arrived in Edinburgh to rain. No surprise really. After dropping off our luggage and having a shower, we headed to the pub for a spot of local ale. The ale was the only thing local, as we mixed with Americans, Germans and French people at the bar. There were Scots there when we arrived, but as a tour group rolled in, the locals rolled out. It was still a treat to get a cask ale and a bowl of chips with vinegar.

The following morning we headed north on the bus, heading via Inverness to Portree on the Isle of Skye. We arrived into the town square as a highland band played some classic bagpipe and drum number. There was quite a crowd; it was evidently quite an event as the whole town was booked out. We walked the couple of miles to a campsite and quickly erected our tent as the midges arrived.

 

We were prepared for the midges, with two types of deet, some citronella wipes, antihistamine tabs and mosquito face nets. While our preparations were valuable, the omnipresent midge was not quite as bad as we'd imagined. They are tiny, slow little fellas, and not particularly sneaky, but they swarm on you and could give you hundreds of bites in minutes if you were unprotected. They were a constant, er, irritation around the small isles.

We went back into the town to get dinner. With all the restaurants full with the exciting piping event, and with the fish and chip shop's 'open' sign being an ill-conceived permanent fixture (i.e. it was closed), we made do with hummus and oatcakes from the mini-market. The meagre fare was offset by eating it overlooking the beautiful harbour at dusk.

The following morning we started a tramp that forms part of the Skye Trail. The route took us along a quiet road for several kilometres (hardly tramping), then down a steep ridge along an attractive inlet to Sligarchan, a tiny village most notable for its pub/restaurant stocking around 370 Scottish single-malt whiskies. After pitching our tent in the midge paddock, we found time to head to the hotel for a small sampler before bed.

Then it rained. All through the night it rained, then well into the morning. The forecast was also not so promising, so we skipped the next leg and got a bus to Elgol in the south of Skye. The second half of the bus trip was enlivened by a local 'character' named PJ MacKinnon, who the bus picked up from outside a pub. He was a chatty fellow who didn't much like the English. Born and bred in Elgol, he said. He even offered us a bed in his front room if we wanted.

Instead we free-camped in the pouring rain in a beautiful spot overlooking the bay and out to the Misty Isles. The midges were too wet to be any trouble. Our tent was too wet to be much good.

The next morning the forecast was much better, and the rain cleared quite early. With the weather set to turn again the day after, we walked two days of the walk in one day, from Elgol to Broadford, via Torrin. We needed a bit of a short cut to achieve it, but as the weather turned nasty again that night, it was well worth it.

The scenery along the walk was beautiful. I think we were expecting it to be a little more remote than it actually was, but that didn't detract from the views.

After another wet night, we headed to the ferry town at Armadale, where we spent the next night. What an experience that was! We found the campground, conveniently located near the ferry terminal, but it was some weird eco/permaculture site, run by a lovely older woman and her serial-killer son. The camping pitches were located in the bush along the woodland walk, damp, muddy and dark. Best not to pitch near a willow tree though, as these were designated 'willow wees' for gents.

With a wet tent and a fear of decomposing human waste, we were offered a single bed space adjacent to the 'social area'. We took it, but soon found that 'socialising' at such a 'strictly alcohol-free' campsite meant loud drunken guitar playing and yelling at each other exclusively using expletives until around 3am. We didn't sleep much.

The ferry carried us on our escape to Mallaig on the mainland. We secured the last room in town (perhaps another highland pipe-band event?) and finally got clean again.

After dinner we headed to a nice local pub where a Scottish duo were playing some Scottish favourites with their accordion and guitar and Proclaimers accents. The crowd loved it, with several traditional dances getting an airing. It was fun to watch.

The next morning we took the ferry to Rum, where we stayed in a little cabin by the sea. In our short time there, we went on a couple of walks into the hills and to an otter hide (no otters, sadly), visited the community tea-rooms, cooked our mini disposable barbecue, and hired a bike to ride over the island to a small settlement (2 houses and a mausoleum) where there were highland cattle, wild goats and wild Rum ponies. With a population of only 40, it is a pretty small place. It was therefore a bit surprising when the rusty old phone in the red public phone box rang when I was nearby. Of course I answered - I thought maybe someone used it to contact someone from one of the nearby houses. An older lady asked 'Is that you John?' I explained that she had called a public phone box on the Isle of Rum, and I had just answered as I was nearby. She thought she might have the wrong number, she said.

The midges were very active and numerous on Rum, so it was a bit of a relief to board the ferry to the smallest of the Small Isles, Canna. Canna was beautiful, with bright green farmland, spectacular mountain scenery, and cute old churches and farm buildings.

We had arrived with nowhere to stay, which is a little inadvisable given that there are only four or five B&Bs on the island. The timing of our visit also coincided with the Canna festival, which included a visiting theatre group, so everything was fully booked. The island manager told me there was no accommodation, none at all... unless we wanted to 'rough it' in the old green workers' caravan. It turned out that roughing it meant staying in a fully equipped, comfortable caravan with gas, electricity, two double bedrooms, a large lounge and fully functioning shower and toilet. And it was free to us because a friend spent the first three years of her life on Canna and still has relatives there (among the 20 or so locals). We made a donation to the community trust instead.

The theatre group performed that night in one of the old churches on the adjoining island of Sanday (a short walk across a bridge). The venue was tiny - as you'd expect - with barely enough room to squeeze maybe 25 people onto the makeshift stalls. It made for a great atmosphere to explore the theme of the play - death. The play was brilliantly acted and so unexpected on such a small island. While the playwright was far too earnest for her own good, the actors really enjoyed the novelty of performing in such a location, and took time to explore the island the next day.

We also did a lot of walking, mostly with the hope of seeing puffins. After about a four hour walk exploring every likely looking cove on the headlands, we had to admit defeat. Then, by chance, we found a brochure in the community shop about birds on Canna, which showed us where the puffins lived, and said that dusk was the best time to go. It was nearing dusk, so we rushed off again, in spite of the weather closing in. Half an hour into our return walk, it began to rain steadily, with an accompanying strong cold wind. My poncho tore in half as the wind caught hold of it. Still half an hour from the puffins across boggy land, with the rain coming down, in a completely isolated and uninhabited part of the island, it would have been foolish to push on. So we pushed on.

We reached the cliffs opposite the puffins' rock with the rain literally blowing sideways into our faces. But it was worth it:

So, after the wonderful puffin sightings and the most relaxing and spectacular days on Canna, we headed back to Mallaig and through to Edinburgh where we met my cousin and aunt for dinner at an amazing vegetarian restaurant. It was festival time in Edinburgh, so we were lucky to have a hotel room and to get into a really nice, central restaurant. It was very fortuitous and fun to catch up with family, and a lovely way to end the Scotland leg of the trip. Switzerland next.



Freiburg, Munich and Starnberg

We spent a year in Freiburg in 2002/3 so were really excited to go back and see how the place looked ten years on.  

As we arrived, I realised we hadn't bothered to look up how to get to our camping ground. We'd been there before and had just kind of assumed that we'd be able to find our way there just by jumping on the tram and remembering as we went along. I had a wee chat with the guy in the bookstore who gave us some directions, which were nothing like how I thought you'd get to the camping ground. I realised it was the place where the owner had told us off ten years ago when we had been passing through and had dared to wheel a shopping trolley in with our groceries. He'd told us that it made the place look like we lived under a bridge. Much to our delight, the same guy was still there, prancing about like he owned the place, which, admittedly, he does. The grounds were quite full, so we ended up with a bit of an arse spot, exposed to the hot sun. Mr Prancy tried to tell us that we'd get the morning sun, and 'then the shade will come'. It was in blazing hot sunlight all day as far as we could tell.

After setting up our tent, we walked into the city and straight to Café Atlantik, our regular punk pub from when we lived there. The chips and salad plate was still there and still only 5 euro. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the menu now listed several vegan options on request. We both had a plate of fried lardy chips and a Ganter beer, the local brew. Just as we had remembered, it was nothing special. The service was as grumpy and surly as we'd remembered too - it was all so nostalgic for us.

The next morning we tried to go to the café where people have wine for breakfast, but sadly it was closed on Mondays. We wandered around the small city, through the square and the Muenster, along the pretty little gutters, through the Martinstor gate, and visited some bookshops but K had no luck with the books she was looking for.  We tried to visit the library to check out the extensive board game collection, but it was closed. In the market square we found a tofu sausage hut where we bought curry wurst as if we were German.

After a little rest (it was stiflingly hot), we walked up the hill to the biergarten where we snuck in our own food – herb flavoured vegan cheese – and bretzeln. Traditional Bavarian biergartens let you bring your own food, so we didn't feel too bad although, admittedly we weren't in Bavaria. The view from up on the hill was really beautiful. I was nice to be reminded of how pretty Freiburg is.

We headed back to Café Atlantik the next evening – last chance for the potato for maybe another ten years.

The next morning we headed back to the station, via the newly discovered 'biosk' - yes, an organic kiosk. It really epitomised our view of Freiburg as a rich little idyllic green oasis. Somewhat shockingly, we also talked vaguely about moving back there some time, before slapping ourselves.

We had booked a bus to Munich. It was  described as ‘luxury’, including a bistro. I guess that is kind of luxury, but it just seems a bit budget taking an intercity bus in a country with one of the most extensive, reliable and modern rail networks in the world. Anyhoo, the bus trip was really pretty, travelling via Titisee, Bodensee, Friedrichshafen and on to Munich.

We took a taxi from the bus station to a camping ground that was really close to the city, but set in a beautiful forested area beside a river. Our taxi driver was incredibly nice and we had a great chat about New Zealand, travelling, why we spoke German, and his favourite topic - the drunken Australian and NZ dickheads who ruin Oktoberfest. Perhaps that's a bit harsh - he didn't quite say that, but probably only because he was so nice.

After pitching our tent in the rock hard ground, we wandered about by the river waiting for our friends R and J to turn up. They'd come all the way from Africa via Paris that day, so it was a pretty wonderful effort to come out for dinner with us. We had lovely catch-ups in a traditional (grumpy) biergarten serving all the great Bavarian cuisine: racks of lamb, lumps of pig, sauerkraut with bacon. We found a salad and chips; nothing like the luxury salad and chips of Atlantik.

We spent the next couple of days in Munich with R and J, doing a bit of café hopping and sightseeing. We passed through the viktualienmarkt, then  Marienplatz and up the Rathaus tower. We were down in the square early enough to watch the funny Rathaus clock do its thing with characters spinning around in a neatly choreographed show. Next we went to Frauenkirche, then to the Pinakothek gallery for a spot of van Gogh et al. 

Once it had stopped raining we headed for Max Pett restaurant on recommendation from a girl working in a vegan clothes shop that we stumbled upon. The four of us squished onto a table for two and had a delicious meal of vegan spaetzli and the most incredible vegan desserts, including panacotta and chocolate mousse.

After such a good vegan restuarant experience, we went to a creepy vegan café for breakfast the next morning. Well, not really a café, but a tea shop. The whole thing was a bit pure. The girl working there was a gaunt, pale and kooky lady who looked and acted like a ghost. We made it out with our bodies physically intact, but our minds well and truly messed with. Why we decided to go and look at a cemetery after that experience is quite inexplicable. Nevertheless, we had a good wander around, pausing for samples at the Italian market (which was outside the cemetery - it would just be weird if it was inside), before saying goodbye to R and J and training on down to Starnberg for the main event - Horse's wedding.

We had a great time at the wedding, and it was so much fun catching up with Horse again after many years of little contact. His wife was wonderful, friendly and kind and made it all fantastic. The wedding was right on the shore of the beautiful Starnberg Lake, with the bride arriving by a small row boat, rowed in by her father. The ceremony was nice and intimate, although perhaps the celebrant talked a little too long considering the extreme heat - poor Horse almost fainted, but it didn't detract from a really beautiful event and good times. 

The next day at the wedding venue there was a Bavarian festival with many lederhosen and an oompah-loompah band. The friendly Bavarians even found some traditional vegan Bavarian food, offering us a huge plate of blaukraut, knoedel and salad. We caught up with the wedding crew, bride, groom and family again, before they left for a little Austrian holiday.

We stuck around for an extra day to take a bit of a breather. We were lucky to be there at the time of the local film festival and found ourselves at a German film about a group of women who set up an occupation of the Stasi headquarters at the end of the East German state to prevent the destruction of records. It was an interesting film, but the discussion with the Director afterwards was a bit full on. The audience was very earnest, considering such things as how to avoid the emergence of Stasi type organisations in the future. This was all in the context of the Edward Snowden leaks having made it to the press.

Jeepers, we were only in Germany for about a week, yet it seems like I have filled a month's worth of blog space. Nev' mind. Off to Scotland next.

Paris, Nimes and Uzes

Awesome – travelling again. An old school friend of mine, who I’ve known since before I can remember, is getting married in Germany. We’ve taken the opportunity to add a few weeks’ holiday on either side of the wedding; it seemed a long way to come to not spend some weeks having a mooch around. It’s been an incredible week and a half. It’s hard to believe it has been such a short time; it feels like we have done so much.

We landed in Paris at 7am on a Thursday and after a couple of hours trying to locate our lost luggage, we eventually made our way into the city. We left our recently found luggage at the Gare du Nord station and wandered indirectly towards a vegan restaurant we had researched earlier. The food was nice, but not overwhelming; we both had cannelloni and a dessert. Outside by the river, some locals were playing petanque, presumably not ironically.

That evening my parents arrived from the UK and came around to our little apartment for dinner and scheming. We mapped out our next three days in Paris together.

The first day we went to the catacombs, a massive network of underground tunnels filled with neatly stacked human bones from several former 18th and 19th century cemeteries. We were pleased with ourselves for getting there 15 minutes before opening time, but our smugness had waned a little after two hours of queuing in the hot sun. The wait was definitely worth it though; it is a unique and fascinating tour, if a little gruesome. The bones had initially just been dumped in the catacombs, but someone with a bit of foresight and respect had them erected as a sort of monument to the dead.

In the afternoon we headed to the Champs Elysees and had a bit of a wander and some lunch, before ending up around the Louvre (but no time to go in). The scale of the palatial buildings was impressive; it’s surely no wonder the peasants revolted.

The next day we started out at Notre Dame, where the views from the tower are fantastic. We then revisited the Louvre, but this time we had a look around. It is incredible, but I must say I felt the Mona Lisa was a bit of a let-down. I must be missing something. From there we headed to the Centre Pompidou for some more modern art in a brilliant building. A really packed day.

Our last day in Paris was devoted to a day trip to Versailles. The Palace and grounds are absolutely crass in their scale. You could spend days in the grounds and not see everything. A great place for hide and seek, if you play the long game. We were all pretty exhausted after all the walking, but still summonsed up the energy for one last charge to Marie Antoinette’s residence at the far end of the estate. It is built like a fairytale English hamlet, complete with beautiful vegetable gardens and flower plantations.

We had a great time with my parents, and think they were suitably worn out by the time we left them and headed south to Nimes. Our friend F was there to meet us in Nimes with her lovely baby R. We piled in the back of the van and headed to a camping ground in the small town of Sommieres, a cute little place with an ancient, still-inhabited bridge. We spent three nights there under our tarpaulins, eating delicious food, drinking the odd beer, and generally relaxing. We also managed a day trip back into Nimes where we wandered through the old town, past the Roman amphitheatre, the imaginatively named Maison Carre (square house), and up to a lookout point from an old tower on the hill overlooking the gardens.

We moved campsites after three nights, heading for the beautiful town of Uzes, via the vast Roman aqueduct, Pont du Gard (photo below). Although we couldn’t find the campsite, we found a site a few kilometres away near St Quentin La Poterie. We downsized from two tarps to one owing to the superior shade from the plentiful trees.

Back in Uzes we followed a walk around the old town, into the market square, past the old church, past the castle and through the town hall, all following narrow winding Mediterranean laneways. We stopped in at a little local vegetarian restaurant co-op for a beautiful lunch too, so it was all round a lovely day in the town. On our way back into Nimes for another night of camping (no tarps this time), we spent a few hours wandering around St Quentin La Poterie, which was another even tinier picturesque town. As the name of the town would suggest, the town is well-known for its pottery. The streets are full of pottery shops, with local artists all producing and selling their work on site. There was a lot of beautiful work, but our already oversized backpacks prevented us from purchasing more than a couple of espresso cups.

The Nimes camping ground was most notable for its hydroslide, built in a quasi-castle style. Love hydroslides. Awesome. Sadly we had to say goodbye to F and R the following morning, after a wonderful and fun-filled week. We jumped on a train for Freiburg, Germany.

France and Scotland in 15 photos

More Galapagos