Vienna

The bicycle ride from Tulln to Vienna uneventful, at least for us.  

We arrived at the predetermined docking location early. The Arkona had not yet arrived so the 6 of us who were waiting, decided ride along the docking area in search of  a cafe.  We found a nice restaurant and ordered. As we were eating the Arkona sailed past.   This seemed odd to us since we had been told that the boat would dock some distance up river from our location in the restaurant.  After leaving the restaurant we road down steam and discovered that the boat had docked at least a couple of kilometres from the indicated docking location.   Our completely incompetent tour guide had given us the wrong position for the assigned dock and some people were quite upset.  

We got to spend quite a bit of time in Vienna.  Yesterday afternoon we walked to the centre of town with some Israelí friends.  Today Linda and I explored the city on our own.  We passed through the main tourist areas but mainly we searched out the parks and plazas. We made our way through some interesting residential areas.  For lunch we bought a sandwich, a salad and a bottle of cider and ate lunch on a park bench in a beautiful park along side an old canal. Linda, of course, likes to look at the stores, so I spent time in a sidewalk cafe nursing a glass of wine and watching the MotoGP qualifications for tomorrow’s race.  

Here are a few photos of our self guided tour of Vienna. 

              Inside Saint Stevens

              Cute little coffee wagon

     Stadt Park.  Where we had our picnic. 

          Vienna canal

 Shadows.   Taken walking along the Donaukanal promenade late afternoon.  

There was lots of art along the canal walks

 

Sunset from the bow of the Arkona. We had just returned from our second walk into town. We decided to eat supper in a restaurant in town for a change. The food in Cafe Ansari was delicious.  (Not that the food on the boat had been substandard by any means.  It has been good. )

We are ready for bed now.  We keep track of our walking distance each day, with the help of the Apple health app.  Today we walked 25 kilometres. 

Hope we have enough energy for the last day of biking tomorrow!

On the Boat.

After another day of planes, trains and busses we arrived in Passau, Germany.   The interconnection of transportation in Europe is excellent. We took the train to Gatwick, only 10 kilometres from Bacombe  then an EasyJet flight to Munich.  A quick bus ride to the nearby town of Friesing to catch the train to Passau. 

The train ticketing systems are automated and the multilingual machine are easy to use.   We had to make some inquiries at the EasyJet customer service to make sure we understood their system.  EasyJet has no check in counters. One has to arrive at the airport with a boarding pass, on your phone or on paper.  We used the electronic pass and it worked well.  There is a drop off counter for checked in luggage.   If you have carry-on only you just go through security to the boarding lounge. 

Things haven’t gone quite so smoothly with the bike/barge trip.  

Our instructions were to contact the local tour operator in order to find out the location of the boat.  However; neither of the phones numbers provided would work.   We walked around the docks looking for the boat that should have arrived earlier.  I sent an email to the tour company with whom we had booked. Because of the time difference, they were closed and I could not call the. Eventually I phoned another tour company in Holland, who also booked tours on this boat.  They were very nice and they took time to contact the boat for us.  It turned out the the boat was behind schedule due to mechanical issues.  At least now, we knew that the boat was arriving late in the afternoon.

The US booking company called us as soon as they saw our email.  They gave us the correct number for the tour guide and we were able to determine when and where we would board the boat.  We  are our way to the dock a little later than expected and departed only a few minutes a late.  

Due to the limited loading and preparation time the crew was less organized than they might normally have been.  We felt for a while than we were in a “Faulty Towers” episode, especially at dinner time.  The ship’s crew got back on track fairly quickly but the bike tour director has been, and still is, struggling with the task. He seems to new at the job and completely out of his element.  He does not even have a remote knowledge of the scheduled rides.  I could go on and on but despite his incompetence we are having a good time.  

The first 2 days riding were in good weather conditions...sunny but not too hot with broken cloud.  The first ride was very easy along the river trail.  35 k.  The second ride had an optional route away from the river through rolling farmland. 46k. We opted for this route.  There were a couple of good climbs. 

Today however we awoke to steady rain.  At the ride briefing the tour guide showed up and started briefing us as if no one would think of riding in the rain.  He was totally shocked when almost half of the passenger were ready to go.  

Despite the rain, the ride was fun.  50 k. We were all laughing about the conditions. We stopped at a nice cafe for coffe about half distance and then at a restaurant at the end of the route.  We all had a good time.  It was very nice to jump in a hot shower when we got back to the cabin. 

   On the road in Austria off the river route

                    The rental e-bike 

                   The city of Linz 

                        Fun in the rain

         We thought that we were ordering 

                      a cheese plate!

Tomorrow we ride into Vienna. The forecast is for more rain but sunny on Saturday.  

In the UK.

We arrived in the UK yesterday morning after taking two Westjet flights.  Cranbrook to Calgary and then on to Gatwick.  This was our first time on Westjet’s international flights.  It was OK, nothing special.  There are no free services, movies or meals. Very basic.

After deplaning in the North Terminal we had a good long walk to the immigration area.  Immigration was straight forward and friendly. Customs was very simple. We followed the ‘nothing to declare’ signs straight out into the terminal.     In order to take the train from the airport we had to take the shuttle train to the South Terminal.   It was easy to purchase train tickets from the row of ticket machines.  We used a credit card rather than deal with unfamiliar cash.

The signage at the train station was a bit lacking.   It was not easy to find the correct platform for the train to Balcombe. Eventually, after asking a few people, we found our way to platform 7 and got on the correct train, making sure to get in a coach near the middle of the train.  Balcombe has a short platform and the train overhangs either end when stopped.

Balcombe is a small village 10k south of Gatwick. We found an Airbnb suite in an old, now closed, pub across the road from the station.   The suite is very nice. It is an easy walk from the bnb to the centre of the village where there are a couple of stores and a pub. We are staying here for a couple nights to acclimatize to the time change.

Our rented apartment on London Rd,  Balcombe 

The pub

The pub is interesting.  It is a community owned pub.  Apparently it was going to close when someone came up with the idea of a community pub.  There are 300 shareholders. The owner of the bnb is the wine supplier.  Last night we ate at the pub.  The food and wine was very nice.



Yesterday, we took the train the Hayward’s Heath, a market town 6 kilometres toward the coast.  There we set up our phones on a 30 day plan.   For 20 pounds, less than. $30 C.  We have virtually unlimited local calls, texts and 8gb of data.  The plan is valid for all of the EU and Croatia.


Today we took the train to Brighton. Being a sunny Saturday, the train was full of people going to the beach for the day.   Brighton is pretty interesting.  It is  touristy and it is pretty tacky but everyone seems to be having fun and that makes for an enjoyable experience. We found a friendly bar / restaurant on the beach with good beer and cider as well as a big fat greasy bacon, cheese burger. Great people watching!

Mid afternoon we took the train back to Balcombe and went on a walk through field and glen to a small lake. The countryside here is interlaced with a network of public walkways.  We passed through farmers fields, woodlands and even around the boundary of a cricket field, while play continued.  On the way back we stopped at the village grocery store for some cheese, fruit and a bottle of Pino Gris for supper.

Tomorrow we have a flight to Munich and then a train to Passau.  We will overnight in Passau and board the barge (river cruise boat) in the afternoon for our week long bike and barge trip to Vienna and back.

,l

After Guatemala.... and The Next Adventure

After leaving Antiqua we took a flight to Guadalajara. Our friend Alex picked us up at the airport. We spent a couple of days in Guadalajara before heading for the Nayarit coast. On the coast we spent 6 weeks in Lo de Marcos, a small town north of Sayulita, our normal destination.

Over the years Sayulita has become increasingly popular and over this time period it has become decreasingly attractive.  It is over crowded and expensive. On top this, the sewage system has been strained beyond it's capabilities to process the waste.  There is a movement to rectify this serious situation but progress is slow.

Sayulita has a reputation as a surf town. Unfortunately there are way too many people in the water fighting for the limited waves. With a good number of beginners out there, it can be dangerous.

So we, and others, have migrated 20K north to a still sleepy coastal village. We enjoyed our stay and are planning to go back next winter.

You can probably see from the date of this posting that I have been slacking off on my blogging duties.  At this moment we are in Kaslo, BC, Canada where we have a vacation rental property... Kaslo House.  While in Canada we pass most of our time in Kaslo. It is beautiful village located on the shore of Kootenay Lake.

We are about to start another travel adventure, unlike any we have done before!

For years now Linda has been wanting to organize a "family" trip but we had a hard time finding a situation where we thought everyone could find something of interest.  This year happens to be out 50th. wedding anniversary. (Where did the time go?)  At new years I approached our kids and proposed an idea for a trip family trip.  Over the next couple of months we pulled a plan together, without Linda's knowledge.   We kept the secret until the middle of April. When we were all together for a family birthday and decide to "let the cat out of the bag".   Linda was quite surprised. I'd venture to say shocked!

It's a 3 part trip. 

Linda and I depart tomorrow morning.  We are flying first to London and spending a couple of days acclimatizing to the time change. Then off to Munich and then to Passau, a small city on the German / Austrian border. We are doing a week long bicycle / barge trip along the Danube to Vienna and back.

A week after we leave, Jen and Dave, along with Marley and Brodie will fly to London, then to Paris by train. They will be followed shortly by Jamie and Karla, along with Aysha and Cohen. They will spend a day Paris. Then both the kids and the 4 grand kids will fly to Split Croatia, where Linda and I will be waiting for then.  We will spend 10 days together in Croatia in 3 different locations... Split, Zadar and Sisan, a village close to Pula.  

After our time together, Linda and I will fly back to Canada. The rest of the crew will stay on and find their own adventure.

We are all pretty excited.  We have all done some research but it will be a new experience for all of us.  I'll try to find time to update the blog regularly.

Back to my packing....