Today is the day to leave for Venice, Italy, followed by a boat ride around the Mediterranean to see some sights and then a languid cruise back to the USA calling in at Madeira, Saint Thomas and Puerto Rica.
As usual, the trip east is pretty brutal - pack bags in the morning, fly to Dallas, TX, in the afternoon, on to London, England in the evening and overnight and then connect to Venice early afternoon tomorrow, about 30 hours after we last got up.
Our intention then is to visit Venice on Friday evening to see the city all lit up and do it over on Saturday morning while they polish our boat. We shall see - we have high hopes as always.
Once we leave Dallas we do not expect to use the internet too much until we arrive back on these 
shores next month - a miserably slow connection on the boat runs at around $20.00 per hour so we have our MP3 players loaded with plenty of books to fill those moments between eating and sleeping.
Being an Italian vessel, there is little more than CNN available in English language and, because of the mix of nationalities on board, all public address announcements are broadcast in five different tongues - Oh Joy.
More Anon.
Occasionally, when prodded out of our lethargy, we break out the strobe lights, backdrops and related paraphernalia and play at Henri Cartier-Bresson wannabees for a while in the basement. This past Sunday was just such a day. Ready made models were on hand in the form of grandkids, the weather was icky and we needed the exercise so off we went. See pictures here.
Marching Band season is in full swing. A few days ago, in frightfully frigid temperatures, the Leo High School Band, which includes grandchild #4, was performing at the local High School and we went along to check it out. This time the entire ensemble was sporting their full regalia of plumes, helmets and lots of flair. Check it out.
With its 120,000 inhabitants, Innsbruck is the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol and the fifth largest city in Austria. The river Inn runs through town, hence the name Innsbruck, bruck being the German word for bridge. The city's seal and coat of arms show a bird's-eye view of the Inn bridge, a design used since 1267. From 1420 to 1665, the town was the residence of the Tyrolean sovereigns who left the legacy of a well-preserved gothic Old Town, the Hofburg Palace and the Court Church with the grave monument of Emperor Maximilian I. The Innsbruck University was founded in 1669.
In 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in the Anschluss and, between 1943 and April 1945, the city was the target of twenty-one bomb attacks and suffered heavy damage. During the war the Germans located the KZ Innsbruck-Reichenau concentration camp in the city.
More recently, Innsbruck hosted the Olympic Winter Games in both 1964 and again in 1976 - twice in an unprecedented twelve year period. This quirk occurred after the IOC, in 1970, selected Denver to host the 1976 Winter Games. The independent Colorado voters had other ideas however, and, in 1972, rejected a bond referendum to finance the Denver sports fest causing the committee to impose on Innsbruck a second time. To look around town, click here.
Phew! Made it back from Olde England and the biggest pub crawl we have ever undertaken. Daughter #2 successfully married - lasted a month already so it looks like a good un - and a wonderful time was had by one and all. If you're into wedding pics, you may well be cured by clicking here.
Until the wedding announcement was sprung on us in June, we had had neither the intention or inclination to troll around the UK again. Ever. One slightly guilty regret over this stance was not having many Public House (pubs) pictures in an era when this singularly British institution is in seriously rapid decline. A serendipitous solution presented itself however, when Marian came across a list of about 200 pubs around the 
the British Isles that provided some level of camping facilities - what an opportunity! Thus it was that we spent the next month roaming the old country snapping pictures of hundreds of pubs while visiting numerous "must see" attractions that we never quite got around to in the near forty years that we lived there. Killing two birds with one stone is an apt aphorism for this episode, for kill us it nearly did! Net result? Another 20 or 30 blog posts behind, 3,000 more pictures to review and discard and, worst of all , heightened confusion precipitated by all that funny money and those multiple time changes.A digression: When I started work in England in the '50s, I earned a whopping 1.75 GBP for my 44 hour week - that's 1.75 for the week not per 
hour. Today, that entire week's pay, before taxes, wouldn't come close to buying a cup of coffee.
With this realization, we decided some R&R was in order to get our heads straight and start some catch-up with the backlog. Accordingly, its off to Venice next week for a boat ride around the Mediterranean followed by a relaxing slow boat to Fort Lauderdale to be back in the USA in time for Thanksgiving. More anon...
From Lindau, we quickly entered Austria and were soon lost in the craggy peaks of the Tyrols. There was no campsite in the vicinity of our next destination so that was going to have to be a hit and run and we needed somewhere to stay in the meantime. Campingplatz Lermoos Lärchenhof, a winter sports campsite, turned out to be it. A basic site in the yard behind the gas station in this tiny Tyrolean town of just over 1,000 inhabitants. Squeezed between the main route through town and the railroad track, it did have, electricity, water and, most crucially, Magnum ice cream bars. We were sold.
After setting camp, we went walkabout in the village in the valley. We decided against taking the bicycles since every road we had seen in the area was too steep for us wimps to even contemplate. Tourism in Lermoos is a winter activity with numerous accommodations for skiers, ranging from grand lodges to hostels that seemed better suited to hamsters, and numerous restaurants catering to the same clientele. In mid-May, not too much was going on. I did keep an eye out for Heidi mit die lederhosen und die grosse Knockern but no luck there either. See views around town here.
Lindau, in Bavaria, had been on our do-if-convenient list but, following Marian's interrogation of our German neighbors in Buchs, it was promoted to a must-do visit. So, back to Germany. Thankfully, I'm just the driver.
Lindau is a German town and stands on the only island in Bavaria. The island, which is just 0.26 square miles in size, is at the eastern end of Lake Constance, also known as the Bodensee. The earliest recorded mention of Lindau is 882 CE, although the remains of an early Roman settlement dating back to the 1st century have been found on the island. The town is close to the intersection of the Austrian, German and Swiss borders and Lake Constance is actually part of the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps. The Rhine flows into the lake from the south and out again at the west end. The lake, Central Europe's third largest, is more than 
1,300 feet above sea level, about 37 miles long and 8 miles wide at the widest point.
Lindau, the medieval city on the island, with its relaxing location on Lake Constance, is a popular tourist destination. St. Stephan's church was founded in 1180 and in 1224 the Franciscans founded a monastery on the island. In 1853 a causeway was built to carry the railroad onto the island and supplement the existing road bridge. Three years later, the city built a new harbor complete with a statue of the Bavarian Lion and Bavaria's only lighthouse. For a quick tour, click here.
The Buchs that we visited - there are several in Switzerland - is on the left bank of the Rhine in eastern Switzerland where the river forms the eastern border of the country. With a population of around 10,000, Buchs is a comfortable little burg built along the Rhine and fading into the steepening foothills of the Alps to the west.
Language was quite trying, being about a fifty-fifty mix of German and French. This does not mean that half the folk spoke French and the other half German, but that each sentence contained about 50% German nouns and adjectives and 50% French. We never comprehended enough to even begin to decode the syntax. However, the campsite had a nice atmosphere, was handy to the town and the Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus style of owners were very helpful. 
The biggest negative was the local church clock with its unattractive and very loud chimes that persisted 24/7. With a positive turn in the weather we stayed on for several days, this being the first real chance to get to know Penny and sort out her little peccadilloes.
Across the river Rhine from Buchs lies the Principality of Liechtenstein, a diminutive, 62 square mile, doubly landlocked Alpine micro-state with its roughly 35,000 population. Liechtenstein is a constitutional monarchy, its capital is Valduz while its biggest city, Schaan, lies directly across the river from Buchs. The country has a strong financial sector located in Vaduz, and has been identified as a tax haven although, of course, all that chicanery may soon end in tears - we wish. Check out the time warp here.
From Basel, the River Rhine heads east (assuming, of course, one is heading upstream as we were) across the top of Switzerland and then veers south again to form the eastern border of the country. We decided to cut a diagonal course overland to the eastern border and take in the sights of Zurich along the way. Zurich and Geneva, Switzerland's two biggest cities and also her commercial powerhouses, both consistently appear near the top of the numerous "Most Livable City" lists, so Zurich had to be worth a stop, right? Well, stop we did. Traffic lights, traffic jams, road works, massive reconstruction projects and even being backed into by a ditsy Swiss Miss at a grocery store. Zurich had it all. All, that is, except any parking accessible to Penny, any campsite within 30 miles of public transport or any weather conducive to leaving our little home on wheels. Score another bust for Switzerland. Road pictures here.
In common with many Europeans, numerous Americans and, come to think of it, most people we have ever met, we had no desire to go to Switzerland. Ever. Thus, it came as a bit of a shock when the Deutschland "D" on the rear ends of cars was replaced by "CH" plates. CH? Hmm. Oh, of course, Confoederatio Helvetica, why didn't I know that - we're in Switzerland, more specifically, Basel. The third most populous city in the country, at about 170,000, Basel is in the north west corner of Switzerland, on the river Rhine bordering France to the west, and Germany to the north.
So, what's not to love about a country that is always ranked in the top few on every list of richest countries, every list of most desirable country to live in, a country that hasn't seen international 
combat since 1815, that cunningly stayed out of the EU, kept its own currency and speaks four different languages? It sure beats me, yet most respondants, when asked if they would like to visit there, produce an involuntary shudder and walk away.
The Basel Münster, originally a Catholic cathedral, reformed into a Protestant church along the way, is the major tourist attraction in town and, surprise, surprise, is currently undergoing yet another refurbishment. Most of the building dates back to the Romanesque structure of the late 12th century, completed around 1225. In 1356 an earthquake destroyed five of the church towers, various vaults and parts of the crypts. Thus far however, Switzerland failed to ring our bell. See the sights here.
Officially, next Wednesday, Great-Grandson Henry will be one year old. Today was his birthday party. See pictures here.
Approximately translated as Free Borough, Freiburg was founded in 1120 as a free market town, by Konrad and Duke Bertold III of Zähringen. Straddling the Dreisam river, Freiburg has access to the rivers Rhine and Danube as well as overland routes to the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
Silver mines in the area helped make Freiburg one of the richest cities in Europe, and in 1327 the city even minted its own coin, the Rappenpfennig. Along the way, Freiburg evolved from a mining centric town into a cultural center for the arts and sciences through the development of its university.
The city was bombed twice during WWII, first by 
friendly fire in May 1940, when the Luftwaffe mistakenly dropped 60 or so bombs near the train station and killed more than fifty people and later, by 300 bombers of RAF Bomber Command in November 1944. The second attack destroyed much of the city center although, after the war, the city was rebuilt along the lines of the original medieval layout. At the centre of the old city is the Münsterplatz, the largest square in town, where a farmers' market is held every day except Sundays. The city has an extensive pedestrian zone where automobiles are banned and also has an effective public transit system, operated by the city. Great place for a walkabout. See more pictures here.
Today is the day to leave for Venice, Italy, followed by a boat ride around the Mediterranean to see some sights and then a languid cruise back to the USA calling in at Madeira, Saint Thomas and Puerto Rica.
shores next month - a miserably slow connection on the boat runs at around $20.00 per hour so we have our MP3 players loaded with plenty of books to fill those moments between eating and sleeping.
