From one season to another

Balloons from the balcony in Spring

 

The time has come to say so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!  The two weeks since we returned from Italy have been crazy, sorting things out, trying to sell our furniture, our car, moving out, cleaning the apartment, tying up all the loose ends.

Amelia and Noah had their last day at Kindergarten on Friday.  They had a little leaving party and I became quite emotional saying goodbye to all of her teachers and the other staff.  We are also madly trying to have last minute catch ups with friends.  We have met such lovely people here, all of whom have been so helpful and supportive along the way and some special lifelong friendships have been made.

The decision to return to Perth was not an easy one, and we mulled over it, on again off again, for months.  There are many little reasons that contributed to the decision we made in the end, but the biggest one is family, and the fact that Amelia has struggled so much with communication and making friends which was heartbreaking at times.  Now we are looking forward to going, we still have moments where we look around and think how can we leave a place as beautiful as this, but life is life wherever you live.  A friend of mine who writes fantastic emails like short stories recently told me that she and her family have also been very busy, only in a more mundane kind of way.  What I can say is that it doesn’t matter where you live in the world, the mundane follows!  Noah is still toilet training and weeing on the carpet and pooing in his pants!  Food shopping and meal planning still needs to be done, as does cleaning the toilet and bathroom (ugh..worst job in the world!).  You still worry about money, and stress when your kids are sick.  All of these things still go on, even if you live in Barbados, or on a Greek Island, or in the Austrian Alps!  You just have a different view from your kitchen window while you’re washing the dishes.  And the only important thing is that you wake each day and be grateful for it, be grateful for your health, and for your family and friends.  So no matter how mundane you think your life is, everybody elses, deep down, is just the same.  I’d like to include a famous (??) quote from a great man called Maciek – “The grass might be greener over here, but the amount of shit that needs to be piled onto it really stinks!”  True in every sense!

 

River paddling in Summer

We will miss the lush green meadows, the mountain air and delicious perfect temperature tap water; the clear rivers and babbling brooks and waterfalls; hiking through the woods and all the cool outdoor sports on the doorstep; all the things in the sky we can see from our balcony like the light planes and rescue helicopters, hot air balloons, and paragliders, the clouds whispering past the forest in the distance; the green ‘bubble’ at Steinplatte and one euro icecreams in town.   We will also miss the lack of traffic and graffiti; the cleanliness; the quietness; the wildlife and the changing seasons; the simplicity of just being, watching the cows chew away at the grass below or the eagles hovering above; not having to lock the door or worry about the kids wandering around the supermarket alone; the limited choice in the shops which started out as a negative but now feels like it’s just enough. 

 

 

Kicking up leaves in Autumn

We will definitely NOT miss the overwhelming stench of cow poo at certain times of the year!  Neither will we miss having to translate every document, and every bit of correspondence.  We are looking forward to familiarity, being able to understand everything and everyone, watching telly and watching the kids play happily with their cousins and friends.  And we are looking forward to babysitters, going out to dinner and having some time off! (brace yourselves, there’s almost a year and a half worth to make up for!)

 

This has been a fantastic experience, and even with all the difficult and stressful times, we have no regrets, only gratefulness at having had the opportunity to do it.

 

Christmas in the snow

These mornings are misty and cold, snow has fallen at the tip of Noah’s ‘Hot Chocolate Mountain’, and the trees are already beginning to turn to shades of Autumn, but as the leaves gently fall on the final days of this journey, we return home to the Spring and the beginning of a new one.  A fresh start, new perspectives, and new dreams to be dreamt up….

Forget me nots...

 

Please close the gate - the 'necklace of conkers' Amelia made in Autumn left behind for someone to find..

As we are preparing to fly home soon I just wanted to note down a few things that have been part of our stay here, small insignificant things, but nevertheless things I want to remember…

The Mercedes in the school courtyard appeared just after Christmas and remained until just before Easter.  It was green, with GB plates and by February was the only car buried in snow as it hadn’t moved for weeks.  In this case at home the police would be notified and a big orange sign placed on the car to let the general public know that the car had been reported.  An email from the school office was circulated to all the parents asking if anyone knew who the car belonged to, but that was it.  Some poor British soul could have been missing up on the mountain and no-one even bothered to investigate!  We had a parents evening in April and I was asked if it belonged to my Dad.  I wish! I replied!  We did briefly consider stealing it and actually hatched up a few plans but it wasn’t to be, for as mysteriously as it arrived, it disappeared, and that was the last anyone ever saw of it!

In Perth everyone complains about the amount of junk mail they receive and most people plaster a great big threatening ‘NO JUNK MAIL’ sign onto the front of their post boxes.  If you think you’ve got it bad there, you should see this lot!  This must be the junk mail capital of Europe!  In our tiny little silver letter box, 3 times a week, every week, we find crammed in a huge pile of mini magazines from all the shops in town.  Actually for me it’s been quite good, as I was able to ‘shop’ without being hassled by shop assistants who I couldn’t understand!

 

 

Noah's favourite bin, the 'green bin'

Everything here must be recycled.  You must separate all of your paper, glass, plastic etc and then take it once a week to the recycling place in the village and put it all into the massive container in which it belongs.   First you have to find out what goes where by learning to read the German signs as things that you think would go in the paper container actually go into the carton container, and coloured glass must be separated from normal glass, and so on.  There is a big container for old clothes and a smaller container for old shoes.  You’re not allowed to put them together and they must be in the correct bags or you can’t put them in.  Plus, it’s only open on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons, not too convenient if you’re working or going away on holiday, as you get a huge build up of it in your house, as we always did.  Food leftovers must be taken to the ‘green bin’ which for us was down the stairs and out the front next to the old man’s garden.  The green bin is a metre and a half tall, and in winter was covered by a metre of snow, and there was so much snow underfoot that the lid was ground level, and you had to bend down to empty your food scraps.  Normal rubbish goes in the black bin, this is a normal wheely bin only teeny tiny, which is kept down the stairs and outside in the ‘shed’, and it was only collected fortnightly.  A problem if you forgot (it happens) or away on holidays.  Not very interesting, but I wanted to add it because it was a ‘right rigmarole!!’

You wouldn’t think it but there are so many weird and creepy bugs here, I’ve never seen so many species of bug!  And flies!  I thought Australia was bad.  But the really crap thing is they don’t have fly screens, so everything with six legs gets in.  That’s why we had three fly swats in the house, and Noah became an expert with it (p.s you can’t buy fly spray).  Also, I’ve lived in Australia for 25 years and never seen a snake except on the news.  Here I’ve seen two.  One big black water snake in a lake on the top of a mountain, and one little brown one on the track while I was hiking with my friend!

 

Park between the lines people!

Drivers here are very courteous.  Someone will always let you in.  There is no confusion on the roundabouts and people stay in the slow lane unless overtaking.  I’ve never seen an incident of ‘road rage’ or of anyone driving up someone else’s backside!  And hardly ever heard anyone beep their horn.  But their parking is atrocious!!  The white lines are there for a reason people!!  They are called parking bays, and you are supposed to park within them!  Not half your car in one and half in the other, not across them sideways, not ‘just a bit much over one line so no-one else can fit in next to you because the car in the space but one has done the same’!  Honestly, it’s ridiculous!  And the worst bit of it is, one afternoon I arrived home and parked my car outside the apartment in the only space available, next to a German holiday maker, at quite an awkward angle, but I had no choice as I was aligned with the cars on either side of the free space.  I came out the next morning to find mine the only car left, everyone else had gone to work, which left my car looking like I’d parked at a ridiculous angle by choice, and an A4 size note on the windscreen, telling me off, telling me to learn to drive, complete with a diagram of ‘how not to park’ and ‘how to park correctly’.  All in German of course.  Are you serious?  Have you not looked around EVERYWHERE and noticed how badly EVERYONE here parks!  And the one time I park ‘out of order’ you leave a condescending note on my windscreen?  And it wasn’t even my fault!  Needless to say I was livid, and by golly if I could have written up a quick note in reply I would have, but I had no paper or pen, and I didn’t know how to write what I wanted to write in German anyway!!  Maciek had a good laugh out of it at least!

 

Keep off the grass in 4 languages!

Keeping off the grass.  When you see photos of Austria all you notice is vast acres of lush green meadows.  Well that’s what we noticed, and we imagined the kids being able to run to their hearts content.  And have you noticed, because we didn’t, that you never do see kids running to their hearts content in those pictures?  That’s because you’re not allowed on it.  It belongs to the farmers.  The growing of grass during summer to be cut and collected into hay bales for the cows to munch on during winter is very important business.  And you could be shot at for trampling on it.  Of course in winter you can wander wherever you like.  But that’s no good because you sink to your shoulders in the snow!

 

 

Our little friend

And finally, to the little deer who first made an appearance on the misty morning of Good Friday, wandering out of the woods below our balcony and meandering across the field, and who has been a regular since, we will miss you!!

Milly and Noah's leaving party at KG and Milly's birthday all in one!

Language and Maths

A quick lesson in German and Austrian dialect here.  And also some little embarrassing mistakes we’ve made along the way!  First of all, there are loads of different greetings.  The official greeting and the most formal is Gruss Gott, which you would definitely say to an elderly person, and I think it actually means ‘greetings from God’ which is to say you’ve been to God’s place and he’s said “oh by the way when you see so and so, give him my greetings would you?”.  A less formal version of this is Gruss Dich, or Gruss Dir, which I think means ‘greetings to you’, but if there’s two of you the person would say something which sounds like ‘Gruss Tyke’, or ‘Gruss Dink’, don’t know how to spell either of those, never seen them written down, that’s just what they sound like. You could also say ‘Servus’ to a person your own age or a friend.  And then when you say goodbye, the main saying here is ‘Pfirti’ (sounds like Pfee-tee) but then if there’s two or more of you they might say ‘Pfir-tyk’, again apologies about all the spelling, I’m just trying to write it how it sounds!  Formally, people say Auf Wiedersehen, or without the ‘Auf’, or often shop assistants say Wiederschauen which means the same thing but in a less formal way.  Or ‘Tchuss’.  Some might also say Ciao.  I like that one.  Nice and easy. 

So as you can imagine, going for a walk, you can pass quite a number of people, all of whom will greet you in one of the above ways, and often in a way you’re not quite expecting, so it can throw you off and many times we’ve responded the wrong way or even not at all as we’re too flustered!  If in doubt though, you could always just say ‘Hallo’ which sounds like ‘Halloo’.  The kids know the difference between an English Hello and a German Hallo. Sometimes I’ve said “Gruss Dir” to someone after they’ve said “Pfirti” to me, and then I’ve realized and tried to shout the correct response after them but it’s all too late.  On a mountain climb Maciek passed an old lady walking down the hill, and as he was in the zone and could see the top, wasn’t thinking about formalities and yelled out ‘Servus!’  Gasp!!  He could have been hanged for that!  Confused?  Don’t worry, so are we!  If all else fails, you could just do what my friend Sam did not long after she moved here and didn’t know the language.  Greeted by a friendly lady on a walk along the river, she responded with the first German word that came to her head, which was Scheisse!!  True.

In German ‘I am’ is ‘Ich bin’, but here they only pronounce the first syllables (this is true for many words so you can imagine how difficult it is to pick it up!) so they say ‘I bi’.  In German ‘me too’ is ‘Ich auch’, but here they say ‘Ee ar’.  Like a donkey.  ‘Fast’ in German is ‘schnell’, but here they say something like ‘schnoi’.  They also pronounce ‘A’s’ as ‘O’ in its short vowel sound.  So ‘Tag’ (day) is ‘Tog’, ‘Bad’ (bath/pool) is ‘Bod’, and in German if you want to say ‘a little’ the word is ‘bisschen’, but here they say ‘bisl’.  Still confused?  Just so you know, as it’s been mentioned a fair bit in this blog, ‘see’ is lake, and ‘ride/drive’ is ‘FAHRT’!

Three words I always got mixed up with is Kuche (kitchen) (with the dots over the U, called an umlaut!), Kuchen (cake) and Kuken (chick, they fluffy yellow kind),(with an umlaut over the U).  I know for a fact that a few times in the kindergarten I asked a child to “go to the chick and bring me a glass”, or “Happy Birthday, is this your kitchen?”, or “Can you go to the cake and help Angelika bake the chick?”.   And another thing, when there is an ‘st’ together, or an ‘sp’ together, it’s pronounced ‘sht’ or ‘shp’, for example ‘Stein’ (stone) or ‘Spargel’ (asparagus).  I got so used to speaking with the kids in the kindergarten as much as I could in German, mostly yelling out ‘SHTOP!!’, which is what I had to do when all else failed, that this one time, I was alone with the kids at lunch time, and I wanted a child to sit down.  I’d asked him a few times and he was completely ignoring me, so I raised my voice a bit and said very sternly “WILL YOU SHIT PLEASE!”  I had a bit of a giggle, luckily none of them understood me, and the teacher wasn’t there.  But at least the said child sat down!

You can’t get a sense of what people are like, as you can’t understand them.  The person in the queue behind you chatting to their friend, could be a complete and utter idiot, or really intelligent with interesting opinions!  The old lady who is having something to say to your children as they pass you in the supermarket, could be saying how cute they are, or could be telling them to behave themselves and stop being little brats!  You wouldn’t know.  You just nod and smile.  It’s been quite nice being in our little bubble not having to overhear everyone else conversation in the café, or in the queue in the bank.  It will be interesting to find out how that feels again once we get home.

So, on to Maths…

Australians, complain no longer about the price of petrol.  We pay here on average Euro1.58 per L, and in Italy we paid Eur2.00 per L!!  And consider the difference in wages, here and in Oz.  I think Oz is probably one of the cheapest in the world.  Don’t quote me on it.  But having travelled around here a bit, it’s certainly much more expensive.

It might be a bit boring but I’m interested in comparisons to Perth, so I know what to expect when I get home and don’t faint in the supermarket aisles!  So if anyone cares to let me know how these prices compare (remember to convert!)…..

Huggies nappies are E10.00 for a pack of 58.  Kids face wipes pack of 40, E1.00.  1L of fresh milk, E1.00.  Pack of 10 fresh from the bakery white bread rolls, E1.00.  Loaf of freshly baked white bread, sliced, E1.19.  Bananas, E1.99 kg.  Carton 10 Xlarge free range eggs, E3.49.  Kg of organic potatoes E1.59.  250g punnet mushrooms, E1.00.  550g pack of turkey E4.64, or chicken breast E6.38.  Pack of Cevups, E1.99.  Packet of Gouda cheese slices, E1.98.  Breakfast cereal is expensive, at about E3.50 for a 500g box (and all of them have chocolate bits in, good luck with your diet!)

Speaking of diets, a bottle of Yellow Tail Australian wine (I think this is quite expensive at home) E5.99 for one bottle, but you can buy two for E10.00.  Bottle of Baileys Irish Cream, 700ml, E10.00.  Equivalent of a carton of beer is between E10-15.  Bottle of Jack Daniels, E15.00.  We’ve recently been enjoying a whiskey that tastes just like Canadian Club, for E7.00 a bottle!  And you can bung it all into your trolley with your apples and biscuits, same checkout.  BTW, you don’t get your bags packed at the checkout, and it’s like a race against time, your groceries get pushed along and if your trolley isn’t lined up to catch it it ends up on the floor, your problem!  Hofer is the worst, MPries a bit more relaxed.  The next person doesn’t wait till you’re all finished either, and neither does the checkout chick, she’ll start serving the next person even if all your groceries are still on the counter while you’re madly trying to get it all into your trolley without smashing your eggs!

And in between all that…..

 

 

It hasn’t been all overseas visitors and trips around Europe…we’ve been able to grab some time in St Johann and surrounds here and there throughout the summer, with the pressure to see as much as we can and soak up the mountain environment before we head back to where the grass is, well, a lot more yellow!

 

The hike to Metzgeralm

A favourite part of the hike, feeding the goats

Hike to Metzgeralm

We did this hike about a month before Peta came to visit, and it’s the site of our well timed lucky family shot which is now my facebook profile pic.  The first time we did it, there wasn’t so much muddy sludge and cow poo stench about (unlucky Pete!), and we didn’t discover the ‘extreme dunny’ on the first round (you can always trust Peta to stumble across stuff like that!).  I remember saying to Maciek as we stomped along the rugged highlands, dodging rocks and tree stumps, and negotiating our way down narrow mud tracks crossed with tree roots, that it felt like we were the only people in the world.  So it was quite funny to finally reach the alm only to bump into Amelia’s friend from kindergarten and her mum, of all the people we could have bumped into.  That was the time we bought our 1L bottle of homemade schnapps from the old lady owner, and joined our friends on the descent, during which we found out about certain leaves and flowers you can actually eat.  Wouldn’t remember them now if my life depended on it (Bear Grylls would not be impressed!), but I do remember some tasted of honey, and others had a nutty taste, which you wouldn’t expect from a plain old leaf!

crossing the water to metzgeralm

 

 

Hexenwasser

trudging through the mud

hexenwasser: amelia and olivia

This is a water playground which follows a walking trail at the top of a mountain in Soll, at 1100m, where we met my friend Emma from the kindergarten with her two girls.  It consists of various pools of ice cold water (refreshing after a hike and on a hot day) some of which allow children to experiment with different things such as pumps and building dams, other areas along the track are ‘sensorial experiences for your feet’ which consist of rectangular lengths of  pebbles/pine cones/ sand/ icy water/ little rocks etc and after experiencing this once before I think they should strike out ‘sensorial’ and replace it with ‘torturial’!  In one area you can walk through a trough of disgusting mud up to your knees, meant to be therapeutic, I’ll take their word for it!  At the end near the playground is a little bee house, where you can go in and watch bees behind the safety of a glass wall, go about their business in their hives.  And then the kids can make their very own candle by rolling up a rectangle of honeycombed beeswax straight from the hive.

 

 

 

Hintersteinersee

swimming on a warm one

hiking on a cool day

This is the place where my current facebook cover photo was taken!  A stunning natural lake surrounded by mountains.  Ahh the serenity!  There’s even a little hut selling beer and coffee (all that’s required!), and icecream for the kids.  We visited on another day when the weather was cooler and hiked around it, thinking it would take 1 hour, but of course, took almost 2 and half!  Kids not so happy for the last half of it!  If I remember rightly Noah fell asleep, again, on Macieks shoulders, and I had to rattle my brains for ideas to inspire Amelia to alleviate the constant complaining!

 

 

Steinplatte



Cliffhanger!

This is a mountain steeped (pardon the pun!) in a bit of history.  Millions of years ago it was under the ocean.  Now it stands 2000m above sea level, and is full of fossils and vegetation completely different to any found at the top of the other mountains we’ve seen, with a small exhibition centre and interactive activities all put together creating ‘Triassic Park’. 


Stepping stones

There are two little pools at the top with wooden rafts the kids can try to push themselves along on like Huckleberry Fin, or pull along on a rope from one side of the pool to the other, stepping stones,  lifesize models of dinosaurs, a kids climbing wall, a huge sandpit where they’ve hidden little gem stones and small gold nuggets that you can dig up and keep, and a large viewing platform overhanging the cliff, with a glass bottom!  Not for the faint hearted!  This gets you a closer view of the actual ‘steinplatte’, the once upon a time coral reef, up which Maciek climbed Via Ferratta style, with our friend Andi!  I almost had a heart attack when Sally, Andi’s wife, with whom I was waiting for the guys to come back, while the kids played, told me they were actually climbing up THAT!!  The Steinplatte has one of the most spectacular views in my opinion, snow caps as far as the eye can see.  BTW, I’ve included a pic of a notice board where a speech bubble is coming out of a Triassic sea snail looking creature saying something we thought was rather funny in a really sadistic heartless kind of way, in reference to the game alongside it, which requires the player to negotiate a metal ring holding a steel ball up a track meant to resemble a mountain climb, by the use of a pulley system.  Along the track are random holes into which the ball can fall.  The ball is meant to resemble a human climber.  Ha ha!

 

Thats funny.  Isn't it?

 

 

 

Fieberbrunn



Fieberbrunn train gondola

Jumping pillow in Fieberbrunn

This is a village about 20 minutes from us and somewhere we considered living when we first came here.  For a start it’s a bit cheaper, and is a fantastic area for snowboarding, but the thought of that drive for the school run twice a day in the winter months was a bit daunting, and with hindsight we chose well to live so close to the town where we are now.  Maciek spent a good bit of time in the winter in Fieberbrunn, but a few weeks ago was our first time visit in the summer. 


Once again, there is a lot to do at the top.  A small roller coaster that winds you a way down the mountain and back up again (needless to say Maciek went twice, once with Amelia and once with Noah, as I’m such a wus!) A kletter park (climbing course) across rope/wooden bridges, flying foxes etc, which tested my core strength to the max and made me realize I actually have none at all!  And a kids ‘find the clue’ circuit in which you make believe you are secretly following poachers through the woods and have to complete a series of tasks to crack the code to complete the activity at the end.  One station takes you through a tunnel under the woods, for which you must solve the morse code combination in order for the tunnel to light up, otherwise it’s pitch black and really scary!

 

Badesee and Kaiserbad



Badesee

Badesee is a manmade lake, with water slides, kids playground, beach volleyball, a kiosk and tons of space to sit in the sun or in the shade.  We’ve spend lots of time here in the warm weather.  It’s inexpensive to get in, and free after 7pm, perfect for those balmy nights when it stays light till 10pm.  Kaiser bad is an outdoor/indoor pool centre.  Massive playground, cool slides, lovely pools.  Unfortunately we’ve only been once and that was on a really hot day in peak holiday season and it was jam packed! 

 

Familienland



Familienland - you missed me!!

Noah calls it ‘AmeliaLand’ and it was for a gift for Noah’s birthday from our friends Petra and Darren (from Melbourne) that we were treated for a day out.  An entry fee gets you in and entitles you to go on all the rides inside as many times as you like.  There’s a water ‘roller coaster’, bounty’s revenge, bumpy slides really steep one which require you sit on a mat, a water play area, a little train that does a circuit of the park, and amongst many other things an indoor centre housing a massive climbing wall, trampolines, bouncy castles and slack lines.  We had a brilliant day, lots of fun, and went there again the day we arrived back from Sardinia for Klara’s birthday party.

 

 

I've said it before, but this a brilliant place for a summer holiday for families, if you don't mind the odd bit of hiking, but even then, there's still the gondolas, the streams and rivers and the water playgrounds and the adventure parks at the top of every mountain.  For anyone living in this part of the world, we would recommend you put it on your list, so long as you like schnitzel and potatoes!

Time flies when you’re having fun!  Noah and Milly are now back at Kindergarten, but far from having a bit of time off to ourselves, we are running around like headless chickens trying to get everything wrapped up before we travel back to Perth in a weeks time….

In Pisa, there’s this tower……

Breakfast at the tower

 On our way home we passed the town of Pisa.  Maciek had visited yonks ago when he was young, free and drunk all the time and his name was mostly Barry.  But not I.  So we stopped off for a look and to get one of those naff photos that everyone gets when they visit Pisa that looks like you’re holding up the tower.  We arrived just before 8am.  Found a parking spot right near the square, paid for a parking ticket and off we went, stopping to buy a couple of cappuccinos and pastries and doughnuts for breakfast.  It was lovely as it was so early and the only tour group were a bunch of Japanese, not doing the silly leaning thing that everyone does but instead the standard Japanese Tourist peace sign and silly grin pic.  The souvineer stalls were only just beginning to start the day, and we sat on the steps of the museum opposite the tower to drink our cinos and eat our pastries while the kids declared their doughnuts to be the best they’ve ever tasted, and ran around squealing and ruining the peace and tranquility for everyone, apart from the Japanese tourists, who are constantly smiling and nodding, and taking pictures of everything from the Leaning Tower of Pisa itself to the Keep off the Grass signs, and the policeman trying to tell them to Keep off the Grass!


Don’t know anything at all about the why’s and the what’s of the Leaning Tower, or if in fact the steps we sat on were the steps of a museum or a church, but I didn’t have time to find out or even go to the toilet as we only had one hour, as per our parking ticket.  It was a bit of a race against time, and we arrived at our car only to find the parking inspector rounding the corner chatting on his mobile phone, and a ticket on our windscreen!  Apparently we’d parked in a 30 minute zone, which was only one space, the space we’d parked in, and even though we’d paid enough for one hour, we still have a fine.  An Italian passerby noticed our confusion and explained that we received the ticket due to the fact that that side of the street gets cleaned on the morning of the first Friday of the month, which was today, and that we weren’t to know, so we shouldn’t pay it.  The topic is still in discussion and a decision on what to do has yet been made!

Playground boat

Maciek didn’t feel like doing the whole drive home in one day, and I don’t blame him, so we decided to stop a night at Lake Garda to break it up.  A few facts about Lake Garda - it’s the largest lake in Italy being 370km2 in area, 50km in length and 20km in width, and its deepest point is 350m.  The northern part belonged to Austria until the end of WW1.  Earliest settlement of the lake dates back to 2000BC.  We picked a random campsite and luckily for us, in the middle of peak season, they could offer us a mobile home within our budget so we grabbed it.  It had three bedrooms including a double and was quite spacious with decking at the front and a table perfect for our planned pizza and wine evening.  The campsite is called Bella Italia, and it’s massive.  Access to the lake beach with paddle boat hire (Noah called these ‘playground boats’ due to the slide, and would you believe, I actually threw myself down that slide and plunged into the merky depths of the lake, amongst all the ‘tentacles’ of creepy plants reaching for the sunlight!!!), about 6 swimming pools with loads of slides for the kids, a number of restaurants and cafes and shops, kids playground, an evening kids disco, an evening bouncy castle world.  No wonder the Italian kids’ siesta every afternoon as they’re up till after 10pm! 



Brilliant water park at Bella Italia

Playing on the lake beach

We spent the afternoon swimming, and in the evening after our pizza wandered the campsite visiting all the attractions.  Next day was Saturday, ‘change over day’, which is always very busy so we had to check out at 10am but could stay and enjoy the campsite facilities for the rest of the day, before taking our time travelling home along the eastern coast of the lake, which, when it reaches the mountainous area, is stunning.  We passed village after village, some of which home to cool castle ruins or old walled towns.  Along some length of the coast were restaurants on one side of the road with their outdoor seating on the other, on the bank of the lake, which meant the waiters had to cross the road using zebra crossings outside the door to the restaurant, laden with trays and plates, to serve the customers dining outside!  We had a discussion as to whether they got danger money included in their tips, as it was a very busy road!



View of Lake Garda from the north end

We were very impressed and will be making plans to visit again and stay for a week’s holiday in the future, on one of our European Expeditions!  And what a perfect place for kite surfing, thinks Maciek.  No sharks!



These are our ‘holding up the tower’ pics!  I tried to appear cool and uninterested as if it was a piece of cake for me, but actually I look like I’m trying to hold in a wee!  It’s like those facebook posters that keep cropping up – what you think you look like, and what you actually look like!  I took about 6 shots of Maciek, but couldn’t get the right angle/lighting, so this one of him looking like The Giant of Pisa will have to do!




























Just Popping down to Italy Again….

Paradise beaches

 In search of a relaxing beachy holiday in the sun before we return to sunny Perth living 10 minutes from the beach, and to bid farewell to Aunty Sue, Uncle Frank and Curly, we set off for Sardinia early in the morning of my birthday.  I have to mention my birthday as I’ve mentioned everyone elses and if I didn’t it wouldn’t be fair!  We had a ferry to board that was leaving the Port of Lovorno at 3.30pm that day and were advised to be at the port at 2pm, so allowing time for traffic and toilet stops, we left our house at 6.30am.  We were super organized and actually left on time, when after half an hour of driving Maciek shouted ‘Oh crap, Happy Birthday!  We’d all forgotten including me, even though I’d looked at the date on the dash board clock numerous times, and my special homemade card that Amelia and Noah labored over in ‘secret’ in my bedroom the previous day, as well as my present that I chose myself and ordered off the internet, had been left behind ‘well hidden’ in the top drawer of my chest of drawers!


4 hours waiting

We hit traffic which put us an hour behind, and anxious that we might miss the ferry we drove non-stop, except the once for petrol, and after hours of whinging from Noah, he finally fell asleep half an hour before we arrived at port!  Typical!  Reaching the port we were sent on a wild goose chase following the Passeggeri Imbarcati sign which in true illogical Italian style sent us all over the place before we entered the queue for the ferry.  After an hour of waiting in the queue of cars and caravans we discovered the ferry would be delayed by two hours, and it finally arrived and we boarded at 6pm. 


It was so crowded on board that people were laying down blow up mattresses in corners and settling down for the evening but I couldn’t face a 7 hour journey huddled on the floor with the kids especially when they became tired, so we booked a cabin.  After discovering that the first one we’d been assigned had been double booked we finally settled into another, a deluxe, which had a very useful desk and wardrobe, took the kids for one lap of the ferry, finally sat down for a drink to cheers my birthday, and snuggled down for a few hours of sleep.  We were awoken close to 1am for disembarkment at 1.30am.  We waited by the stairs to the garage and listened to the Italian announcements informing car passengers of Deck 3 to make their way to the car decks.  We waited and waited and listened for passengers of Deck 4 but never actually heard it, and just followed a crowd once we saw them moving down the stairs.  We arrived on our car deck to see every car driving past us and our little Peugeot sat stationary amongst all the revving and swerving!  It was like dodging bullets to get to our car, throwing the kids and bags in to take off as quickly as we could!  We could only imagine the cursing of all the passengers parked behind us waiting for an opportunity to pull out and leave the ferry!  We drove off at 2am, four hours delayed, and met poor Sue and Frank on a side road, they’d been waiting up all night to meet us!


We stayed in their little holiday apartment attached to the main house which is lovely, and Sue had stacked the fridge with goodies and we spent a good part of the morning after a sleep in drinking coffee and doing nothing, watching the kids pick all the little apples off the tree and collect them in a bucket, and then put an ‘apple shop’ together!


The first thing we noticed about Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean, behind Sicily with a population of about 1.6 million, was that it looked a lot like parts of Western  Australia!  Except for its mountainous interior; the dry grass, sandy verges, red earth, and similar vegetation right down to Eucalyptus trees, made us feel like we were driving up to Lancelin!  The white sandy beaches and turquoise water also exactly the same, only a bit more crowded, as it was prime time for Euro’s on holidays!  (In fact, we noticed back in June whilst driving from Venice that the style of the houses with balconys and striped awnings could have been taken straight out of some of the ‘Italian’ suburbs of Perth and plonked there in the Italian countryside!  Or vice versa, so it would seem.  I always thought that style was of the era they were built, but now I realise they were more than likely built by Italian builders for Italians in proper Italian style!  So I think now I will look at them in a different light when I get home.)  Great weather also for flying a kite, and Maciek enquired about kite surfing lessons with a man who had spent 6 months in Perth and said that being a kite surfer in Perth is like being a 10 year old in Disneyland!  Perfect conditions!





Yachts moored at Costa Smerelda

Artsy Fartsy

 A few days were hot, and a couple of days it absolutely chucked it down!  Bit of a problem as I’d only packed beach wear after Sue constantly complaining about the heat and that it NEVER rains!  On hot days we relaxed on the beach, on the very rainy day we went to the town of Olbia to the shopping centre, where we didn’t last long as it seemed EVERYONE on the island had the same idea, and on the day where it started out sunny and ended rainy we drove to Costa Smerelda, passed the private airport home to planes owned by the likes of George Clooney and Sting, the holiday place of the very rich.  Lined up at the marina, moored at a cost of around Eur3000 per night, were luxury yachts two or maybe three times the size of your average house.  A lovely, richly rustic little town, bursting with art and galleries and unaffordable fashion, and rich Americans.  The kids were not really enjoying themselves after an hour which meant neither were we, so we left, stopping at a pizzeria on the way to the beach.  

Oh deary deary me..Are we having Rogan Josh for dinner?  How lovely!

For my ‘official’ birthday on the 2nd of September (this year only!), Frank and Sue cooked a lovely meal and forced a good few shots of Schnapps and Grappa down our throats!  Another evening we went out for a set meal of various antipasto and cheese filled ravioli and red wine, and on an another cooked again a delicious meal which we enjoyed with friends of theirs Fritz and Evie.  During this meal in a surprising turn of discussion Frank told us the story of the time they visited the Indian markets in Birmingham, in search of a Sari.  His logic was as the heat in India matched the hot Summers of Sardinia, it would make perfect sense to wear in Sardinia the same as the Indians wear in India.  I can only imagine what those Indian stall holders must have been thinking when they were approached by this white German man (very upstanding, distinguished looking gentleman that he is!) searching for a sari in the middle of Birmingham!  Anyway he did get his Sari and was very happy to model it for us and explained that he had even worn it out for dinner on particuarly warm evenings!  (Maciek had almost fallen off his chair in hysterics at this stage!)  Why not, I say, it’s cool and comfortable, and if you stick a red giftwrap star to your forehead like Aunty Sue did, it finishes the outfit off a treat!


We also took our coffee machine over for them and whilst there discovered how to make delicious cappuccinos using the Espresso capsule and frothing up the milk till it looked like melted marshmallows.  Yum!  Pity I never discovered that 6 months ago when we first bought the machine!  Missed out man!





The house that Sue & Frank built

Sue and Frank built the house themselves from scratch.  It’s a lovely place with a huge amount of garden housing willow trees and fruit trees, vegetable patches, a pond and a little paddock of goats!  It must of have taken a ton of blood, sweat and tears and they’ve done a wonderful job.  By the way, it’s for sale.  Leave a comment if you’re interested!


We said our goodbyes on the Thursday evening and queued up for our overnight ferry.  No delay this time and we had a cabin pre-booked, enjoyed a lovely nights’ sleep, and in the morning were the very first people on the car deck and seat belted into our car ready to drive off when the signal was given, only to find the people parked in front of us were amongst the last to dodge the bullets and scramble into theirs!  Oh bugger!








Picking...

Collecting....

Our shop is ready!!

Ania's Wedding and Amelia's Birthday

The happy couple

Another long drive to Poland saw us lose half of the underside of our bumper along the Autobahn in Germany!  Following a mysterious loud flapping noise for a few minutes we pulled into a restplatz to inspect for damage.  We’d heard a similar sound to this months ago on our way to Kufstein for a day out and it turned out to be a flat tyre which left us parked for hours before we could get it fixed, by which time it was too late to explore the town and the castle, and we arrived home in time for dinner!  We worried this would be a similar story, but could find no problem at all so we carried on, unfortunately so did the flapping noise, when suddenly something black and bulky bounced off across the lanes behind us.  Panicking that it was something vital to our safety and having visions of our car blowing up (me, that is, always imagining the worst and most dramatic!) we pulled into another restplatz and were greeted by the stench of burning plastic (and stale urine as I crouched with my face close to the tarmac to inspect under the car – gross!) and found the front driver side wheel guard burnt away by the tyre, and half of the underside bumper cracked off and gone!  No idea how that happened, but not much we could do about it there and then, and deciding it posed no threat we carried on, with no flapping sound, so we relaxed and tried to enjoy the rest of the journey listening to The Wiggles and playing Eye Spy!


The ceremony

We arrived in Wroclaw that evening at Maciek’s cousins’ apartment, Kamil and Ania and their little girl Viktoria, to a beer and wine and a couple of Vodkas (what else?).  It didn’t take long for Amelia and Noah to scatter Viki’s toys all over her room!  The next morning Kamil and Ania had to go to work so we relaxed for a couple of hours before greeting Babcia and Dziadek at the door and venturing into the Rynek (old town square) with them for some traditional Beef Goulash (I know what you’re thinking Peta!) and Platzki (potato cakes).  We traipsed those cobble stones for miles until we finally found a place with that dish on the menu (we both had it in our heads that that’s what we wanted for lunch and wouldn’t except anything else!), we didn’t realize how hard it would be to find!  After that it was off to ‘old old old old Babcia’s’ for visiting Ciocia Lila, Agnieska and Kasia and young Frankie (or Franklin as Noah called him!) for coffee and cake.  In the evening Babcia and Dziadek babysat so we could enjoy a drink in the Rynek with Kamil and Ania, and since we could all speak a little German we attempted to continue the conversation in that language to try and include me a bit, but the sound of crickets soon descended amongst the shy and embarrassed giggles, so I reverted to people watching in my isolation!


Family photo outside church

Saturday was the day of the wedding of Ania and Mariusz.  We made it to the church on time and unlike the weddings we are used to in Australia the bride and groom were standing outside the church greeting all of their guests, and waiting for the previous wedding to finish and guests to disperse before theirs commenced.  I greeted Ania with a ‘kiss 3 times’ and commented on how beautiful she looked, to which she replied ‘look at you, what a dress!’  Ania, you’re the one in the stunning white gown!!  Time to enter the church, and we assembled into our pews before the organist began to play Here Comes the Bride.  I couldn’t understand what was being said or sung but I tried my best to keep up with the kneeling down, standing up and sitting again routines (it could have been a game of Simon Says for all I knew!) and really wanted to know what was going on when everybody giggled at things the Priest said!  It didn’t take long before the kids were bored but luckily Babcia came to the rescue with sweets, but that didn’t stop them from crawling under the pews and pulling faces at the men behind us proudly singing their hymns!  It was a lovely ceremony and Ania and Mariusz couldn’t stop smiling!

Family from Oz

 

We made our way to the reception venue, but first had to find our motel, which was not making an appearance on the sat nav.  The reception venue was a stunning thatched, log built restaurant on the highway, and once we spotted it we knew we couldn’t be far from the motel, and eventually found it, but this made us late for the reception and we had missed the grand entrance of the bride and groom and crept sheepishly to our seats while everyone else was stuck into their soup entrees!  That’s the second time being late at a Polish wedding, the last one was eight years ago and due to a broken down car!  It was one long table with the Ania and Mariusz and their two witnesses seated on the ‘T’ at the top.  It’s not easy supping at chicken soup with a three year old squirming on your lap trying to eat his noodles!  But we managed, and after a few shots of vodka and the commencement of dance music, things became easier.  Ania and Mariusz had obviously practiced their first dance for months, it was amazing, they looked like professionals!



Feeling okay Barry???

About 9.30pm and after a few visits to the white chocolate fondue table, Amelia and Noah had had enough and fell asleep with their teddies on the makeshift bed in the corner of the hall.  And then things really became merry when Dziadek supplied me with never ending Jack Daniels, and I heard Maciek enjoying himself by cornering random unsuspecting guests and demanding to know ‘the first thing that comes to your head when I say ‘Russia/Australia/England/Scotland/America’ etc!  It’s actually quite interesting listening to the different responses, and presents interesting points of discussion, or arguments, depending on how many vodkas have been consumed!
I was back at the motel by 2am, tucked up in bed with the kids, but Maciek decided to go back for more.  Much to his regret the next day.  He finally made it to bed at 5am, and the kids woke at 6.30am (they never sleep in no matter how late they went to bed the night before!).  He tried to keep sleeping, but to no avail, as it was Amelia’s 6th Birthday!  And she was dead excited! Only the poor thing had to wait as we’d left her presents in Babcia and Dziadeks room, and we didn’t want to disturb them! 


Wow what a candle!!

Birthday girl in her birthday dress

She finally opened her long awaited Lala Loopsy Coral Sea Shells doll, and some other bits and pieces, and we ventured for a birthday breakfast at the restaurant.  Babcia had organized a cake for her and she was busy playing with her new toys at the table, although I’d forgotten to bring a few things to keep Noah occupied!  She celebrated the rest of her birthday at the same restaurant as it’s Polish tradition after a wedding for the families to get together again for ‘Poprawiny’ the day after to finish the leftovers.  I think Maciek spoke two words the whole afternoon and at one point was circling the venue for a place to be sick!  Other than that it was a pleasant afternoon talking to Ania’s brother Michal and his girlfriend Ola, and laughing at Ciocia Ella trying to get photo’s of the kids ‘with no monkey faces!’


Cheeky boy - give ME some attention!

Town hall, Rynek




Next morning on the way back to Kamil and Ania’s we stopped at an outlet shopping centre but came out empty handed with a headache (who enjoys taking their kids shopping?) and returned to Babcia’s for some more coffee and cake, and more presents for Milly. 

It was an early start the next morning back to Austria.  This time we had a clean run and arrived home with the car intact!


Congratulations Ania and Mariusz!  Thankyou for having us at your wedding!  And thank you Kamil and Ania for putting us up again.  And Congratulations to our little Milly turning 6!!! XXXX



Just walking my geese!