For some reason, we had to show our passports twice at the border.  I don’t know if it was the same person who wanted to see them twice or if 2 different people each wanted to see them.

I don’t know what I was talking about when I said “We got our gas coupons at the border with quite a bit of trouble since the guy did not speak English.”  I don’t remember anything about gas coupons and hadn’t mentioned getting them anywhere else – so this will be a mystery – unless I explained more about this further on. 

We had to pay a toll to get on the freeway to Venice, but either that way was the only way to get there or most likely the fastest way.  We found a great campground just outside Venice and I said that it was the best we had camped at yet.  It was beautiful and had lots of shade.  Since the tent had been wet when we packed it up a few days earlier, it was obviously still wet when we set it up.  It didn’t take long to dry in the hot Italian day though.

The guy in the campground insisted on taking my passport when we checked in.  I have no idea why, but he wouldn’t let us set up our tent without taking it.

It doesn’t look like I took any pictures today, but I took a few tomorrow, so decided to share a couple of them today.

I have a picture of St. Mark’s Cathedral and one of the narrow canals that we went through on our gondola ride.

St Marks Cathedral or Basilica

Gondola Ride

Today was June 26, 1975 and we traveled 300 km.

He went upstairs with her when she went to have her shower and was just lying on the floor when she finished.  He didn’t go back downstairs with her and was still upstairs when I got home a little later.  He didn’t come down until I called him and he was very slow and cautious coming down, but otherwise seemed fine.

I found a wet spot in the living room and some slobber on my computer desk.

He had a blood test scheduled for today, so we went and did that and will get the results probably next week.

It would be nice if we could get him completely seizure free, but if he can always go this long between seizures, we can live with it.

It is a sunny day today, so we went in the back yard for a couple of pictures.

Chester Jan 27

Chester Jan 27

Since we’re taking a quick holiday from my holiday in Europe, we’d better check out Africam too.  Of course, I still check that out and watch the cams daily anyway, but so far today, we have seen Elephants, Impala, Zebra, Nyala, Wildebeest, Bald Eagles (with 2 eggs), Egyptian Geese with goslings, Waterbuck, woolly-necked Stork and Hadeda Ibis.  Click here to see all of today’s pictures.

One day soon, I will be there in person. 

Chester and I had our usual walk along the Red River this morning.  We saw the usual snow and ice with an occasional crow flying by.  It looks like they have made a rink or a trail along the river – not sure if that is just for the Festival du Voyageur that is coming up in February, or if it is in substitution for the normal skating rink (loop) that usually is built on the Assiniboine River.  I notice there is nothing on the Assiniboine this year from the Forks.  With the mild winter we have had, I’m not sure I would want to venture onto the ice at all.  The Festival usually has snow sculptures, but there simply isn’t enough snow to build even one.  I really don’t mind that I haven’t had to shovel any snow this winter. 

We were headed downtown to try to find the Lipizzaner Stallions in order to watch a training session.  We actually found the place without too much trouble.  There were probably signs. 

We got there 1 & 1/2 hours before it opened, but there were already some people in line ahead of us, so we waited there with them and chatted.  There were a couple of girls from Ontario and a family from Ohio, so the time went by fairly quickly while we waited.

We had our choice of seats and were entertained for a full 2 hours watching the show.  It was amazing!

Then we got some lunch and headed south – out of town.  The rain had stopped while we were having lunch, but it was still cloudy.   We loved the countryside – it was so beautiful – no mountains, but big rolling hills.   To 3 girls from a prairie province who were used to the flat prairies in Canada, this was so nice and relaxing to view this scenery.

I’m not sure why, but we were driving on a skinny, winding road.  I don’t know if the main road didn’t go the direction we wanted to go or if we found this road by mistake – but I always love getting off the beaten track and I’m sure that is why we saw more of the beautiful countryside.

The sun never did come out and we didn’t feel like putting up a wet tent on the wet ground, so we checked into a pension in Niederdorf, a small town in Austria.  We had our dinner in a very fancy restaurant – seemed very fancy for such a small town – but we enjoyed the food.  I had cordon bleu.

Today’s pictures are from the Lipizzaner Stallions show.  We could not use flash, so they are pretty dark, but I’ve fixed them up a bit after scanning.

Lipizzaner Stallions

Lipizzaner Stallions

We booked a tour of the city of Vienna and the bus came right to the campground to pick us up.   We had a great tour with a very knowledgeable tour guide, who knew everything about Vienna.  One of our stops was for a tour of Schonbrunn Castle, where we stayed for about an hour.  The grounds were gorgeous and the rooms were absolutely amazing.  It seems we also stopped at Belvedere Palace, but I have written nothing other than we walked around there.  I did take a picture that is labeled Belvedere Palace – not sure why I have nothing from Schonbrunn Castle though.

The tour bus took us back to the campground again and we watched for awhile as the campers began piling in for the night.   Then I walked over the the office to get information on seeing the Lipizzaner Stallions.  Instead of answering me, the guy started chasing me around his office.    He was acting pretty strange and scared me a bit, so I got out the door as soon as I could.  His parting words were that he would be over to our tent later on.

It started raining soon after that and luckily, he didn’t come over.   The campground had filled up even more while I was gone and I’m sure the tents were even closer together tonight than they were last night.  We talked a bit to some of the people in the nearby tents, and I’m sure they would have come over to help if this guy had come out to bother us.

Belvedere Palace

I don’t know who the man is and what he is doing in my picture 

Today was June 24, 1975.

We left the mountains behind, but the countryside was beautiful.  We didn’t have far to go, but it doesn’t look like we stopped to take any pictures.

Just outside Vienna, we stopped at a tourist information stand and met some people from Shilo (which isn’t far from Winnipeg).  A camping spot was nearby, so we checked in, put the tent up and then headed for town.

I have no idea what we did in town or how long we were there, but when we returned to the camp (in the pouring rain), the place was completely full – and cars kept driving in and around looking for a spot.  It was very crowded with tents put almost on top of each other. We were surprised they kept letting more come in when it was so crowded already, but they kept coming.

Way back to when we first started planning this trip, I had thought about buying a VW camper bus instead of renting the car and tent.  I remember thinking that if I had done that, we would have lost our spot when we went to town that day.  It was the price of shipping the camper back home again that made me look at rental instead of buying.  Travel by train was convenient and inexpensive – but we liked the option of doing our own thing without schedules and none of us wanted to do our traveling while wearing backpacks.  Of course, we probably wouldn’t have been lost quite as much as we were if we hadn’t been driving. 

Since I have no pictures from today, here is a postcard from Vienna

Vienna

Today is June 23, 1975 and we traveled 94 km

Due to a miscalculation (I think that means we made a wrong turn) we ended up on the wrong road.  We decided to follow this road anyway until we came to a different road that was marked as being scenic.  It turns out that this road went through the highest mountain range and we had to pay a toll to go through a dark tunnel.

On the way back (since we had gone the wrong direction) we had to pay another toll to go back over the mountain!  Reading this, I suspect that the pictures from yesterday were on the top of this mountain.    The snow was as thick as 20 feet at the top.  W were almost going straight up in places and just crawling along – but at least Libby kept going.  It took a lot longer than going through the tunnel – but the scenery was spectacular.

We finally got back on the road to Vienna and kept driving until it was dark and there were no camping spots around.  We checked into a little pension for the night.

Austria

Austria

Today is June 22, 1975 and we traveled 350 km.

I’m sure we saw mountains in  Switzerland, but I don’t mention where we did finally see them.   We drove over a mountain.  I remember wondering Libby would be able to make it all the way up because it was very steep and took us quite awhile to climb to the top.  I always thought this mountain was in Switzerland, but my diary makes it sound like Austria.  My pictures are also marked Austria.

The cattle roamed free up on the mountains, so we were listening for bells each time we rounded a turn, so we would know if any were on the road.

I took a couple of pictures at the top of the mountain, just before we went into the tunnel and started back down again.

Austria - top of the mountain

Austria - top of the mountain

There is just a little bit of snow way up there, but the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.

We found a campsite at Innesbrook that had a beautiful view.  I showed a picture of part of the view in yesterday’s blog with houses right up to the top and looking the other way was a huge snow covered peak.  There is a hotel right outside the campground and we walked over there for supper tonight.  There was apparently a dance there tonight and some guy asked me to to there with him.  If there had been three of him, we probably would have gone, but this seems to be the only time we didn’t meet enough guys.  We hoped it wouldn’t be too noisy for us to sleep.

Today was June 21, 1975 and we traveled 240 km.

We headed for Lucerne first.  There was a watch store there that Frommer’s Europe on $10.00 per day had recommended and Alvena was looking for a watch.  She found one she liked and bought it and I bought myself a miniature clock.  Since we mentioned the book, we got 5% off our purchase price.

After lunch we headed for Zurich, where we wandered around some stores.  We weren’t looking for anything in particular and as far as I can tell, we didn’t even buy anything, except for a huge bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers to have for dinner.  The sun came out while we were in Zurich, so we decided to find a camp site for the night.

One thing that was different today is that everyone was smiling at us.  Every time anyone looked at us driving by, they would break out into a huge grin.  Our car had Denmark license plates, so they wouldn’t have known we were from Canada – so maybe they like people from Denmark. Maybe they are just very friendly people and they smile at everyone! 

We found a beautiful spot to set up our tent in the middle of nowhere, which is probably why I don’t even remember the name of Frauenfeld.  I assume that was the nearest town to where we ended up for the night, but other than having it in my diary as to that being where we were, I didn’t mention it at all.  The camping spot hardly cost anything – so that was a plus.

I think the picture I put in yesterday was probably taken today, so today I have a picture that must have been taken tomorrow.    From what I said in the diary, I presume this was our view from our campsite in Austria.

Austria - at the Campground

Today is June 20, 1975 and we traveled 124 km.

When we crossed the border into Switzerland, we had to show our passports for the first time in ages.  We decided that made us feel so wanted. 

It was still raining, but driving in Switzerland was beautiful – even in the rain. We hadn’t reached any mountains yet, but the rolling hills with fields filled with cattle and sheep and with houses scattered along the way was very picturesque.

We drove through a lot of tunnels today.  It seemed as if every 2nd hill had a tunnel through it.  I can’t remember if we drove over or around the hills in between the tunnels and did not mention that.

At one point during the day, I ate my first Swiss Chocolate bar.    You may know this already, but I have a chocolate addiction (along with an  Africam addiction and a popcorn addiction).  Back in 1975, we didn’t see real Swiss chocolate in our stores here – or any European chocolate at all for that matter.

Due to the rain, we again checked into a hotel once we reached Bern.

I don’t imagine this picture was taken on this day, since the sky is pretty much cloudless – but it was taken somewhere in Switzerland, so I’m hoping that means we did see some sun.

Switzerland Hills

Today was June 19th and we traveled 260 km.

The train station was close enough for us to walk to, so that is what we did.  Only problem was that the rain started to pour down on us before we got there.  We were soaked by the time we got there, but we got money changed over and walked back to our room.  We stopped at a konditori to get some lunch on the way back to the room.

After eating, we went shopping.  The only thing we bought was some tape to fix one of the air mattresses.  It had a slow leak and was usually flat by morning.  The plan is to tape it up when we set up camp the next time.  Hopefully the rain will stop once we get out of Germany.

Karen stayed at a nearby laundromat to get the laundry done, while Alvena and I walked back to the garage to pick up the car.  Unfortunately, the car wasn’t ready yet and we had to stand around for about an hour before we could leave with it.  We were not happy about waiting, especially when it started raining again.  There was no one around who spoke English (or admitted that they spoke  English) to let us know what was going on.  Finally we got the car and headed back to meet up with Karen.

Since I started posting the Heidleberg pictures 2 days before we got here, I have no more to show you – but I do have a postcard.  The postcard did not fade the way my pictures did.  Luckily my Paint Shop Pro does a pretty good job of fixing the pictures, but the postcard looks the same as it did when I bought it.

Heidleberg Postcard

It would have been nice to see that much blue sky while in Heidleberg.  It is a beautiful city, but seeing it in pouring rain for most of the time made us very happy to be moving on.

Tomorrow we head for Switzerland.