DAYS 64
The Alps
Date: TUESDAY 12th June DAY 64
Weather: Lovely again, but likely to get a tad chilly at 2500m high..
Mileage: We end the day at 3870
"The hills are alive to the sound of - passengers moaning they're cold"
PUTTING SARA IN THE FRAME AGAIN
Only this time it's a cold frame!
A lovely sunny drive up from Slovenia to Austria, but almost as soon as we check into our Swiss Chalet the clouds come over. We immediately realise that an Austrian Alpine pass in the rain, out of season, may not warrant two days, so we make up a story and cancel one day. Luckily we were able to do some walking in the valley and take a ride up the cable car to the 2.500m peak on it's opening day of the 2018 season. Sadly, after parting with E40 to ride up and back, when we got to the top we were told "Blizzardenden cumlich soongersplitch, goun backun downun posten hasenisch". We managed to get one more shot of Sara in a frame (her new thing) and back down we went, as orderedish, and Mrs H was straight up to the ticket office demanding our Deutchmarks back, which she duly got after a bit of argy-bargy. Thankfully in the evening the weather cleared up and we drove to the top with the top down and the heating on. It is the first time we have been cold for two months! Amazing views though.
DAY 65
Wednesday 13th June
Weather: Filthy all day.
As you can see above left our Swiss Chalet was BIG, very Austrian in every way, lots of heavy wood. The village, pictured center, was lovely in the dry. In the wet, pictured right - not so much!! We dine in the village. Sara gets food poisoning poor thing, our first illness. See - as soon as she gets wet and chilly she comes down with something. That girl is made for warmer climes - BACK SOUTH THIS INSTANT!!!
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Sadly, no. That is not to be, north is where we are headed, north into the cold, the wet and the bloody traffic. We cross over the pass again but this time it is solid cloud, no views, thank goodness we managed to see the pass on the evening before or I'd have been right hacked off! Down the other side in the fog, miles and miles of lovely empty roads until we finally hit a motorway - and then all hell lets loose. Talk about a return to normality. Not only is it wet and cold (first time in 8 weeks) but there is flipping traffic everywhere. One quarter trucks doing 70, one quarter cars doing 80, and one half total freaks doing 110mph in the wet. Jams, rain and more rain, plus some added jams. We drove for 6.5 hours because as it was pissing down there was little else to do.
What we did achieve was to get much closer to where we wanted to be to rest up before finishing the journey to the Upper Middle Rhine Valley as it is formally known. We overnight in a quite nice German hotel near Gunzberg (not actually nice enough to warrent a photo though). We are aiming to visit the stretch between Bingen and Koblenz which is another 4 hours drive away. Hopefully we will see some sun and warmth so that poor Mrs H can recover her beans. River cruises, wine tastings and Pinot Gris are all on the menu......