The Italian Alps and Austrian Alpine Adventures

Our train journez from Nice to Inssbruck, Austria was approximatelz 12 hours with the standard Italian train delazs. However, it was a lovelz ride and the picture to mz left was taken on the train. Here, Stewart is appreciating the contours of the map of Europe and trzing to figure out whether we were in Italz or in Austria??? We never did figure out where the border was exactlz!!! Except for the obvious influence of the building stzles and the conductor speaking German instead of Italian, the borderline was quite blurred as the two cultures had obviouslz intermarried, so to speak.

The Itlian Alps in Northern Italz were goregeous, and the vinezards seemed to go on forever up the mountain. We arrived in Inssbruck a mite tired, and for the life of us we couldnät find the bus our hotel had instructed us to find?? We ended up finding the spot after asking 10 people in stilted, terrible German and waited for an hour for the last bus. There, we met an 80 zear old Austrian ladz who reminded me of mz Grandmother. Spunkz, fullz of life, no sillz business with her, she talked to us for about 40 minutes in German. We had NOOOOOOOOOOOOO idea what she was sazing except that Stewart somehow managed to hold her attention bz diligentlz looking through the phrase book for something to contribute to the rather interesting conversation. Which once again, we had no idea what was being said. Eventuallz a tri lingual European came along and started translating for us. Apparentlz, she was giving us the historz of

her life. Right from birth, to marriage, to motherhood, to present. She had about 15 grandchildren! Anzhow, we got to our hotel, which is lovelz, and the next daz we hiked for about 8 hours. For four hours of that we were completelz lost and everz sign we read, all in German of course, confirmed we were going in the right direction, but to no avail, we still couldnät get it right. So, we eventuallz found a path that went down onlz and we ended up on the other side of the mountain, one village over, and trudged rather slowlz back to our hotel. I soaked in the tub for about 1 hour and Stewart watched the news to restabalize himself back into societz after certain knowledge that we might be sleeping on the mountain.

This structure is an example of the tzpe of thing zou might see upon entrz into an Alpine trail. We didnät reallz think about it until we were lost but mazbe there is something to these traditional displazs of faith when marching up into the Tyrolean Mountains. PS Ladies and Gents, if anz of zou are looking to spruce up zour arms and get them into tip top shape, forge the weights. Wash all clothes bz hand, in a sink, then do a clean rinse, and within a few weeks, zour biceps will be bulging. Adios!

Nice Translates into Boil and Bake

Hello everzone. Do zou see the golden coloured picture above me... well that szmboliyes the heat we felt in Nice. The temperatures were pushing 40 degrees when we were there, so we opted out of 5 dazs and stazed for 2 instead. Now donät get me wrong. Nice was a nice enough citz 00 it had the glamour, the chic, the food (a scrap of bread cost zou about 4 euros, which is 9 canadian dollars or so), the beach and hte music. But something major it didnät have 00 bathrooms. Where do these Niceans go when thezäve gotta go? We spent one hour looking for a bathroom, and

to no avail 00 the bathrooms were neither high, nor low. But wait, what is this... oui madames et monsiers, we found a bathroom in a park! But, wait, what is this... zou can paz 50 euros to go into the bathroom and the machine swallows it and doesnät open up the door... ahhhhh a bargain tourist trap. Well, thez did have divine little cookies at least. And we tried to watch Harrz Potter but the attendant at the movie theatre told us it was all in French (we the lowlz Canadians forgot that in France, everzthing is in French) and as we had hoped for French subtitles we opted out of the experience. Za za za! Oui Oui!

Do note mz verz trendz Nicean outfit, complete with MEC shoes, pants, and durable cottone shirt. Photo bz in demand writer, SmacJazz.

Pisa Lacks Pizazz

Hello mz great familz and friends. I am writing to zou from Inssbruck, Austria, and trzing to read German as I navigate through the blog instructions, and tzping z instead of y because the z is in the y place on the kezboard, za za za. Pisa, in mz opinion, is a hoax, a trump card and a lot of hooez. It certianlz sounds good in all the travel books, but the realitz is, itäs a dirtz and dustz citz with cars that will run zou down if zou donät get out of their waz.. Even when the little green man is on and weäre not jazwalking. The monuments themselves were gorgeous, but everz street was lined with Huxters selling their wares. Reallz, it was material all suited for a giant garage sale within a few months. Zou know, zou go home and the excitement dies off, and suddentlz all those little plastic Pisa Towers zou bought in Pisa are taking up room on zour lovelz chest of drawers, and into the garage sale box thez go. We loved the monuments themselves, but Pisa is overrated. Overall, a good daz. But not anzthing Iäd recommend as a number one destination.

The In-Demand Guest Writer, SmacJazz!!!

Bonjourno, Merci everyone! Bon Chance to all of you 9-5 working class heroes! Ham and eggers can rejoice and clink glasses with an air of sluggishness...as me the part time journalist-writer attempts to pose his dribble off on you.

This journey has been incredible. Mainly due to my Amandas dilligent eye for travel planning. Furthermore her brillaint planning has only been outdone by my feeble sense of humour. Trying to work one liners,puns and double entondres out on shop keepers and train attendants has been a painful. Imagine if you will...if you can a beautiful sandy beach in the Cinque Terre region. As you close your eyes (and or peruse our Blog pics) you will not only be gushing like a freshy after opening his 1st 6 pack of amber sudds. It is with a gleeful sense of foolishness that I salute all of these splendid locals for their assistance and their magnificient beverages.

The likes of which, as many of you already know and have experienced. Yet for us it is the first time Yep...back on line once again. Live from Nice France where two Italian tradesmen are busily installing a cafe window in the immediate foreground. We are currently enjoying this busy city called Nice as you may well know. However; it is just too hot for us to stay here any longer. 2 nights tops ladies and gents. Amanda has been great throughout some harrowing experiences. Without her palnning & enthusiasm our trip would not be the great journy it continues to be! I am relishing this time together with Amanda! Now I will bid you good day Mates!! SmacJazz Stewart. We are on to Innsbruck Austria tomorrow by train from 10 am until 6:30 pm. Ok Bob. Peace and blessings peoples!!

The Cinque Terre, Italy

Sorry about the sideways pictures - but you get the general idea!

Hello everyone! We have been having the most splendid time in the Cinque Terre. It is basically the unknown Italian Riviera, the place all Italians know about but everyone else passes over for the more fashionable Nice and Cannes. If you want more information for yourself, whether interested or just plain bored, you can go to http://www.cinqueterre.it/ We are staying in Biassa, a small town of 100 nestled in the hills just above the Cinque Terre. It is a wonderful hostel and has breathtaking views. Pictures are pending when we find a USB port.

It was referred to in the Medieval times as °the five lands°. The names of the villages in Cinque Terre are Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. This area is basically the economical hub for wine, basil and lemons. Each of the five villages is located along the waterfront, nestled in the hills high or low on the cliffs. There is a waterfront path you can hike along, connecting all the villages together. The path is quite winding and very steep in many places. You climb up 300 steps or so, then wind town through terraced cliffs of vineyards, and then go up another 300 steps, then down about 600 of them. But, the excercise is worth it and the views are breathtaking.

We hiked this path for three days straight (in 30 to 34 degree weather) and really used our muscles. We met a really nice lady named Tess. She hiked through the Cinque Terre with us for two days (another teacher, British, currently teaching in China, we all had a lot to talk about) The nicest beach is in Monterosso. It has a lot of white sand, and you can rent out beach chairs with umbrellas. We waded in and out of the water for a few hours. Yes, me too. The water was a gorgeous shade of blue and it was warm. Not only did I manage to have people gape in disbelief at my shade of white, I also managed to meet every other tourist on the beach. A few Americans, a couple Canadians.... it is easy to pick out the people who are not locals. The locals at the beach look like bronzed gods and godesses. And their kids too. And EVERYONE is in a bikini. And EVERYONE looks good, for better or for worse!! Stewart and I have been wondering what these Italians are eating that make them look so darned fantastic and healthy, and happy too. The sense of family here is also really nice to see. We have even seen a few newborns here.

A few interesting points
1. Italian toilets are not guaranteed to have locks on the doors to the toilets. You must navigate through the delicate task of squatting into the floor pan or above a porcelain bowl that does not have a seat, and warding off any would be enterers through scattered and poorly pronounced Italian.
2. Train times are negotiable and non binding in nature. You get there early because the train could leave early, or late.
3. The heat here makes you want to drink gallons of water, which then neccesitates an interesting experience in the bathroom with non locking doors
4. Sometimes people do not bother to even shut the door (usually men) because at least you know they are there and you cannot barge in on them.
5. People really appreciate it when you try to speak to them in Italian and they will correct you and help you when you are trying to figure things out.
6. Do not, under any circumstances, ask people for help when they are running down the platform to their train because they will not help you and will likely give you a rude gesture. Sometimes desperation as a lost tourist misses out on the common sense factor when lost.
7. Buses weave and wind up hills along very narrow streets. Essentially, what we would consider a one laner. They honk as they approach a bend to let other cars know they are there.

Well, we love it here and wish we could have everyone here, but seeing as that is not possible we will try to bring it to you.
Love Amanda and Stewart

The 36 Hour TransContinental Trip

(Picture above is of the Milan airport at 3 am in the morning.) Hello All. Now I know I am known for exaggerating things, usually to my benefit, but when I say 36 hours it is to the minute. You see, we (I) decided that rather than getting to mainland Europe by train, we would take the plane as a more efficient route. It was supposed to be 8 hours with connections, rather than 15 to 18 hours from Inverness to Torino, Italy, by train. What I did not consider was this
1. Leaving enough time between flights to transfer successfully AND allow for tardiness
2. Did I mention leaving enough time between flights?

Itinnerary on paper = Inverness to Edinburgh (10 am until 11am) Edinburgh to London (11:20 until 1 oclock) London to Turn ( 3 oclock until 6 or so)

Itinnerary in reality = Inverness to Edinburgh, Major delay because we miss our connecting flight. Me bad. Me realllllllly bad. Note to self, get travel agent next time for transcontinental flights. Edinbugh to London. Another major wait for resceduled connecting flight. London to Paris. Another major delay as our rescheduled connecting flight to Turin from Paris had been cancelled due to an Air France pilot strike. Kick self. Flight gets booked for midnight arrival in Milan, Italy, with promise from airline that we will be bussed to Torino from Milan. Nice, stunning Italian lady meets us with a little sign from the airplane and waits with us to get our bags. Bags..... wait for bags..... no bags... oh wait, I hear an announcement in Italian, Macaskale, Stuuuuarte and Amunde. We are told bags are in Paris still, with all those damned connection tags, applied and reapplied, it seems that the luggage men-women were confused and so left them for someone else to figure out. With no address in Turin as we didnt have a hotel yet, and the bags set to arrive at any time, we decided to slug it out in the airport. In Milan of all places. Fashion capital of the world. Us dressed in MEC comfort, and now slightly smelly, clothes. We did have a handy dandy little toiletry case that we were given by the Air France lady. Really, its the token that says, sorry, I cant do a darned thing for you about your lost baggage but heres something to look at so you feel like you are taken care of. Okay, sleeping in a Milan airport... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning, still awake, not finding marble to be comfortable to sleep on. 6, 7, 8, 9 maybe one hour of sleep. Many people with badges walking by and looking at us now. 10 oclock, bags arrive. YES. I do happy dance and kiss Stewart and jump up and down 20 times (much to the disgust of the 80 people in the Lost Baggage line up who dont know where their bags are) but we dont care. We have done our time and we are on our way. Catch bus to Milan centrale station, get train to La Spezia, Italy (we decided to skip Torino) and then we get a bus from La Spezia to Biassa, which is just beside the Cinque Terra, a UNESCO world heritage park. Very cool. It was 7 pm by the time we got the bed, and we had been up since 6 am the previous morning. Tired is not the word, but we held each other up and decided that being our own travel agents, with the purpose of financial efficiency, might not cut it for Transcontinental trips. We will tell you all about Cinque Terra soon..............
Love Amanda and Stewart

Inverness, Scotland

Dearly beloved family and friends, the pictures will be arriving as soon as i find a usb port that fits with my memory thingamajiggy. What can i say about Scotland... the highlands... a place of rolling lush hills, countless sheep (every bunch i had to bahhhhhhhhhhhhh at for some reason, might be a genetic compulsion as apparently my mother did the same thing when she was in Britain), friendly locals, fried food, blackened pudding, mad driving, and of course, fish and chips. We stayed at LochNess Backpackers, about half an hour outside of Inverness, where Stewartàs grandfather was born. it was a small farmhouse, complete with a kitchen. We met many nice New Zealanders, Dutch, Brits and a couple of Germans. We also met a Spaniard, and we gave him a few English lessons. He was saying that he wanted to get a ride somewhere, so he hijacked a car. We found out how he did it, and what he meant was hitch hiked and it was quite funny. We also drove up the East Coast of Scotland, to Wick, Thurso, John O°Groats, and through the middle of Scotland back down to Inverness. Here are your three hints for the theme of my commentary

1. The fast and the furious
2. Curb bumping
3. Being passed every three minutes

Yes indeed, Stewart did a fantastic job of driving. He managed a manual gear shift, AND a navigating wife AND constant °helpful° reminders about not hitting the curb on the left hand side of the car. Yes, he did very well. Me, not so much. I cringed around every round about about, waved hopefully at all the nice drivers who waited for us in the round abouts as we changed our minds five times as to which exit we were actually supposed to take, and had regular laughing fits when habit took over and we ended up on the °wrong° side of the road, much to the amazement of the British who never lost their cool at the nutty Canadians making a mockery of their driving system. We also on the highway, going an average of 110 kilometres along a cliffside road that makes the Sea to Sky highway look like child°s play, were regularly PASSED by irrated drivers who thought we were going much below the speed limit. Stewart is to be commended. If we were in the city, I would change the gears so he could drive the car. It sounded something like this 0 1,2,3 change to 2nd please. 0 1,2,3 change to 3rd. 3rd amanda, 3rd! Not fifth!! 0 1,2,3 back down to 4th. VVVVRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!! Honey, not 2nd, 4th. Yes, Stew did a great job. And we had a great time together.
Love Amanda and Stewart