Back in the early seventies (that’s 1970’s not 18) Lancia made a two door sports car called a Fulvia, a great rally winning sports car. I always wanted one of these iconic sports cars so I was not disappointed when Hertz swapped our Fiat hire car for a two door Lancia five speed manual in cobalt blue that was being delivered “fresha froma the garaga”, how good was this car going to be after fifty odd years of engineering development, excitement plus, blasting down the autostrada at mach one, roof down, probably a paddle gear change. No better still we’ll hit the back roads and re-live the nineteen seventies Italian Rally Championship, …. this was going to be a drive!

Not disappointed that is until the Lancia emergeda froma the garaga

How the mighty have fallen 1.3 litre diesel, really…….?

Anyway this is our ride to Slovenia and this is Lake Bled.

View from the lookout.

So many stairs.

Safety first.

The Castle.

LJUBLJANA

Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia has a lovely bridge across the Ljubljanica River. Legend has it that Jason and the Argonauts killed a dragon while Jason was establishing the city and that it is one of the four statues on the bridge. So add that Jason’s fight list: Harpies, Seven headed hydra, Medusa, the list goes on and on. All this from a young Todd Armstrong, born on July 25, 1937 in Missouri, USA… in the 1963 version anyway.

Another local legend claims that if a virgin crosses the bridge the dragons wag their tails. We waited and waited and waited and……….

No discernible tail movement.

VINTGAR GORGE

The name Vintgar probably originates from German Weingarten (the vineyards in the nearby Podhom), another interpretation says that the gorge section resembles a wine glass.

Vintgar Gorge was very busy even though it was mid week. It is quite pretty but would have looked better with less visitors. The gorge is accessed via a narrow walkway “attached” to the cliff walls with various bits of “structural” steel and timber. Attached and structural is a bit of poetic license as the walkway quite often re-locates itself to a less desirable and much lower position within the gorge. The walkway has been described as and “engineering wonder” largely I feel because it’s a wonder it doesn’t re-locate itself more often. Anyway we safely traversed the gorge’s one and a half kilometre length and after a quick calculation on the iphone engineering app, that all careful travellers should consider downloading, we returned by the longer more arduous route (sans walkway).

The gorge

The walk back.

Plenty of visitors.

Section of walkway.

By the way the section of walkway above has been replaced.

Bonus pictures

Two oared gondola.

Church bells rang contiuously.

Some sort of shop.

Lookout.

Green stuff

Fish in the sky with clouds.

What Sup! This Sup.

Gorge.

Brian,(Eastern Sparrow?)

Look for Hummingbird Moth

On a sad note we were very disappointed to learn that we had made a grave error in our holiday planning. We arrived at Bled two weeks too early and as a result will now have to forfeit our chance to see the Okarina Championships.

Ho boyj I wasj really lookink forwarj to the playink off betweenj Guillaumme Perret and Natacha Atlas.

It would be very easy to get into a castigation of current merchandising and the like in the greater Venice area. So let not do that. Let’s look at some exciting stuff. Let’s talk money, ghettos, banks, Shakespeare and the like.

In the early 1500’s Venice, being a very open minded city allowed the Jews (who were looking for a new home) to live in an area of the city where the foundries were, these areas were known as “geti” now Ghetto. The Jews handled the banking and money trade, which Venetians for religious reasons could or would not. The Jews set up Venetian tables or banco for money exchange now banks. This is the setting for Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice a great comedy about money, love, deceit and betrayal that sees most of the cast including Bassanio, Antonio, Jessica, Portia and Shylock get their just deserts.

The really good news is the worlds oldest bank is in Venice and it’s now a bar.

By the way, if you are not up on banking a Giro is the exchange of money from one account to another so Bancogiro is the exchange of money at a bank from one account holder to another. Sorry Ollie I know you knew that, any teacher worth their salt knows that. That reminds me the word salary comes from salt which was the method of payment in Venice a while back (salt being a valuable commodity). These days it’s Euros … salt bags full of Euros.

A Sotoportego is a passage through a building to the other side. So Sotoportego del banko giro means you can walk through the bank pay money and realising you are now fresh out of ducets, throw yourself in the canal.

Why do modern clocks and watches only have twelve hours on the dial when there’s twenty four hours in a day?

Two times twelve o’clock. This is a proper clock!

Two or three days is about as much as a normal person can comfortably spend in Venice particularly if cruise ship days are included. On these days the number of tourists swells by up to three thousand in one hit. These extras have a few hours to see the city, that is to cram in as many churches, pizza bars, gondola rides, and high end shop visits as possible. On cruise ship days the locals are easy to spot, they are the ones hiding on the top floors and rooftops, or skirting the back streets to avoid the dreaded selfie sticks (we saw a lot of back streets). Those brave locals that do mix with the masses of ship folk can be seen spitting vitriol at the aforementioned and who could blame them after all Venice was founded as a safe haven for the people escaping persecution in mainland Europe.

Will tourist dollars keep Venice afloat? Probably not. The water levels in the canals are rising slightly year by year and the city is actually sinking on it’s foundations. A few years back work started on a flood mitigation plan in the Venice Lagoon, the company doing the installation however went broke so until that is sorted Venice will have to put up with the odd knee high flood, but don’t worry there is now a smart phone app to predict water levels.

There was a woman this morning at the “gourmet buffet breakfast” (that’s another story) shooting her own documentary on her smart phone. Her narration ran ” I’m in the dining area now heading for the juice bar which by the way is next to the coffee machine and adjacent to the cereal section, oh my god I can’t believe they did that….”. Well maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but only slight.

Fascinated by this new trend of the digital age I did a quick google search to pick up some tips for would be smart phone jockeys and harvested the following tips for the perfect selfie.

1.Look up toward the camera. (Always handy if you actually want to be IN the picture).

2.Extend your head away from your neck. (This will ensure you look like a giraffe).

3.Instead of holding your phone in front of you, hold it to the side for a flawless angle. (OK, triangle, rectangle, flawless angle… got it).

4.Relax your mouth, and exhale, blowing air through your lips. ( I’ve tried this and there is no way I can blow air through my lips, this just makes my cheeks puff up).

5.In your selfie-ready position, slowly spin until you find your best light. (Six times I turned round and still no best light, just light headed from all the turning).

It’s a good thing we have Nick our new resident grip in the family so he can set this stuff up for us. Lights–camera– actio——–Noooooo!… flat battery.

In August of this year one hundred and fifty thousand tourists are expected in Venice. The city, or archipelago if you will, has a population of fifty five thousand. Each year more residents move away as the cost of staying goes up. I had a haircut today (didn’t see that one coming did you) and the barber, a long time resident told me how the city is changing. “The taxis and gondolas are run by the Mafia with a five hundred thousand Euro buy in” also “Real Estate prices are going up so much no one can afford to live here, it’s Hotels and B and B’s. and shops for tourists.” I suggested a ticket kiosk at the train station and call it “Venice Land”. He looked glum and agreed that was likely.

75 Bucks for a gondola ride. Smart phone at the ready.

By the way culture is not dead in Venice, if that’s what you thought I was suggesting, just a little while ago Jen snapped a picture of Michael Angelo’s David and insisted I include it.

NUDITY WARNING

NUDITY WARNING

NUDITY WARNING

Mikki, knowing you would not be put off by a little (no pun intended) nudity. To answer your question the quality of coffee at every hotel so far is rubbish. I suspect most coffee shops use goats milk or maybe the barristers spit in the tourist coffee. We are thinking of ordering a de-constructed coffee so as to better understand the underlying and fundamental flaws in what is after all a simple process. You would think a country that spawned such great talent as da Vinci would be able to train someone to mix coffee, water and the occasional drop of milk together in something like the correct proportions to create something approaching a decent cup of coffee. But sadly no.

Venice often referred to as “Queen of the Adriatic”, “City of Water,” “City of Masks,” “City of Bridges,” “The Floating City,” and “City of Canals.”might also be referred to as “City of the Tourist hell bent on taking you head off with a smart phone on a selfie stick”

After several hours of touring the city on foot three things became apparent:

1. It is very easy to get lost in Venice. The narrow streets canals and convoluted walkways quite easily have you back where you started when you are actually looking for St.What it’s Basilica.

2. It is so much easier to get around on foot because, a.Its dead flat except for the odd bridge and b.There are no cars to run you over. (The down side to having no cars is that many more tourists with selfie sticks survive as their natural predator, the motor vehicle, is missing from the environment.)

3. Venice is very old and could use a bit of plaster here and there and maybe a good coat or two of “Solagard Semi Gloss”. (Being water based the bushes and rollers would clean up like new with a quick rinse in the canal.)

The Word Cup of Churches

Seeing as how its all about the art in these parts and in particular the “church art” I feel compelled to compare Gaudi’s church of the SagradaFamília in Barcelona with Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice, however………….this would take forever, be very boring and probably end up in a penalty shoot out at the end. Gaudi’s church wins hands down in my opinion being unique in every way. Saint Mark’s strikes me as being more of a monument to repetitive excess, column after column dome after dome spire after spire angel after angel. Let’s settle for a one goal each draw and leave it at that.

St. Whatsitsnames.

Stock Venice picture.

Local opinion of the tourists perhaps.

Leonardo da Vinci

We stumbled across an interactive da Vinci exhibition highlighting some of his mechanical inventions including hang gliders, tanks, submarines etc.

The Last Supper, Mona Lisa and The Vitruvian Man are Leo’s best known works however he also recorded countless thousands of other ideas in journals sometimes writing backwards and including shopping lists and other notes to himself like;”Is Mona Lisa smiling or is it just me? She better not be smiling, I pdistinctly remember telling her not to smile. Damn it, she is smiling, well I’m not starting over…….(note to self: build hang glider before Sunday)”

By the way the building the da Vinci display was in was the church used in the Indiana Jones movie. That’s at Scoletta – Complesso Monumentale Scuola Grande di San Rocco 3052, Campo San Rocco, 30125 Venezia VE if you’re in the neighbourhood.

We have only been in Spain a few days however we have covered a lot of ground. For the last two days we decided to head back into the Pyrenees Mountains for a couple of quick walks. It seems there is always plenty to see in Spain.

The UNESCO listed bridge/gondola at Bilbao. The Vizcaya Bridge was built to connect the two banks which are situated at the mouth of the Nervion River.  Built in 1893, designed by  Alberto Palacio, one of Gustave Eiffel’s followers.

If you’re pet dies and you can’t say good bye….. try a stylish pair of sandals made from it’s pelt, or some other bits.

We stumbled upon a zoo with Spain’s rarest animal now only seen in captivity. This, the very rare view from the back, a sort of giant mouse not unlike Ratoncito Perez mentioned a little later.

An Archaeological site.

Early man knocking out a quick cave painting to sell at the markets on Domingo….sorry Sunday we’ve been here longer than I thought!

Lots of lovely scenery.

And lets not forget the wild flowers and yes pictures were taken, good lord were pictures taken, this being less than five percent last count!

I made a new friend, I call him 4299.

Jen found a slug, She calls him Slug.

Churches. One village had six houses, four churches and eight residents. That one point five people per house, two people per church and one of the people at the church has to be the one out the front doing the spruiking.

J.C. on the way to church

All rise

It’s all uphill to comume with God

By the way, a free beer to who can name the town and country in Europe responsible for the Goggomobile (if you look at the picture the deal is off). I thought it was Italy.

Goggomobile Shrine…of sorts.

Folklore

‘El Coco’ , a monstrous creature that eats children if they cause trouble. Incorporating this story in rhymes or lullabies is popular, and many parents use it to encourage children to go to bed. So you’re five and you are going to bed while El Coco is hanging around…….right!

Ratoncito Perez, a mouse who lived in a box of cookies with his family in Madrid, and ran through pipes to reach the bedrooms of the kids who had lost their teeth. Great, rats in the house as well as El Coco.

Hercules. There are several versions of the legend of Hercules forming of the Pyrenees. One involved Atlas and his daughter Pirene who was the most beautiful of the goddesses. Apparently there was a bit of a tiff and Herc more than a little cheesed off set to work on the Spanish / French border.

So it’s goodbye to Herc’s lovely “pair-of -knees” sorry Pyrenees. Industrial deafness.

Just when you think you are getting the hang of rudimentary Spanish, that’s forehead smacking-hand waving communication, you enter Basque Country. Now we have to smack our foreheads and hand wave in two languages because really, I have no clue what either of these groups are saying. Manuel, or whatever his name is, at our hotel speaks so fast that you can’t tell one syllable from the next and I’m assuming here the Spanish or Basque actually have syllables, just quietly, I’m pretty sure they don’t. To make it more interesting, when Manuel realises he is not getting the point across he gets faster, louder and more animated…. then I bring out the big gun “google translator” then its all si si (only with the acute accent, which is no doubt on the keyboard somewhere, Alt+0193 or something).

But as usual I digress. First things first as they say. I now unreservedly withdraw my criticism of both the “stainless steel toilet” and the “potential toolbox” previously mentioned. I now consider them to be first class pieces of art. This change of heart was in no small way related to today’s outing to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. If a few tree prunings and used computer cases hanging from a hastily erected trellis with a dozen Buddha figurines suspended upside down can “make” the Guggenheim then the toilet and toolbox have my vote. I wasn’t going to mention Motherwell’s Iberia but seeing as I’m there now….. it’s a black canvas with a patch of white in left hand lower corner. (that’s the left not the right corner).

The Guggenheim Museum (Architect Frank Gehry) at Bilbao is spectacular and has got to be up there with the Sydney Opera House (Jen says better) and not just because they are both curved and  both have tiled exteriors and wait a minute……….. Motherwell was one of Pollocks buddies! Blue Poles, Iberia?, this New York School of Abstract Expressionism is starting to look a bit suspect. I wonder if Utzon and Gehry were buddies?

Anyway the pictures……

The Spider United Arab Emirates look out!

Worlds biggest pinata – tough UAE

Jen and the puppy.

Great from every angle

By the way something is fishy here because Gehry claims his inspiration for all of his buildings comes from childhood memories of fish.

I love artistic descriptions, I thought the artificial lake on the river side came right up to the building. How wrong could I be? Turns out it actually blurs the boundary of the  building and the river by “caressing its foundation” and giving the impression that the building is a boat in the river. Could be!

Gaztelugatxe an islet just off the coast on the Bay of Biscay and dates from the ninth century. It is connected to the mainland by an impressive man made bridge. The chapel is dedicated to John the Baptist. The island was a strategic spot for controlling the coast.  Historically Gaztelugatxe constituted one of the bastions of resistance against invasion from Alfonso XI, the King of Castile. Gaztelugatxe was defended in 1334 by seven knights who resisted the attacks of a well organised army for more than a month. Having failed to siege the island, Alfonso withdrew humiliated. In 1593 it was attacked again and sacked by Francis Drake, whose troops plundered everything to be found in the sanctuary and threw a hermit off the cliff.

Gaztelugatxe panorama.

One and a half kilometres of walkway including 250 odd steps.

John the Baptist was a bit of a boat boffin judging by the lovely bronze propeller.

Below is a picture taken from Gaztelugatxe if you zoom in you can just see Cork in Ireland on the right, just to the left is Greenland but a fair bit further away and on the left a little further over is Newfoundland. Neat eh!

By the way part of season seven of Game of Thrones was filmed at Gaztelugatxe.

San Sebastian Spanish Port on the Bay of Biscay, a major sea trading port until the discovery of the Americas reduced it’s popularity is packed full of history, delightful architecture and fascinating stories. Here are just a few examples:

San Sebastian has more tapas bars than any place in the known world.

So many Tapas Bars so few veggies!

Somewhere in Spain there are farms with hundreds of pigs with no legs. This is because San Sebastian has more tapas bars than any place in the known world and they have hundreds, possibly thousands of pigs legs hanging from their ceilings.

Pigs Legs!

San Sebastian could be the only city in the world where you can buy a Tapas Cone “to go”. This is especially handy if you are lactose intolerant and out with your friends who are all enjoying a yummy Belgian chocolate waffle cone with nuts on top.

Mmmmmm! Pig leg, offal and bread sticks.

If you are hard up for cash, you can grab that old wok you haven’t used since you discovered you can’t cook worth a damn with it anyway, turn it upside down, whack it with leather covered finger pads harvested from an old pair of gardening gloves and sell home made CD’s of you’re recordings to enthusiastic yoga loving tourists at ten euros a pop.Whew what a sentence.

Enjoy Cathy!

At the base of the hill between two of San Sebastian’s lovely harbours you will find the first all stainless steel toilet in Spain built to compliment the outstanding sandstone architecture that artisans laboured over for centuries. Lets just hope this is the last all stainless steel toilet in Spain built to………

The following picture of some sort of sculpture, which no doubt has hidden meaning and I do mean hidden. It is defended by security cameras designed to stop unscrupulous scrap metal dealers from doing the locals a favour and cashing it in, or perhaps turning it in to a musical instrument to amuse tourists. Give me an hour with an angle grinder and a welder and I reckon I could make a half decent toolbox out of it.

But enough of this foolishness lets get serious. Atop the hill adjacent to the afore mentioned all chrome toilet stands a fort and it is an absolute architectural and engineering marvel (the Spanish are very good at both these things). They even thought to put a little chapel next to the gunpowder magazine so they could nick in and offer up a quick prayer before blasting the bejesus out of the opposition forces. As always when at war it’s best to have God and his family on side.

By the way, San Miguel Dorchester 9.1% there’s just nothing left to say………….

While the village of Esco officially dates back to the 12th century, archaeological evidence suggests the land around the village has been inhabited more or less continually since the Bronze Age. Esco was there for the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, conquest by the Vandals and the Moors and the unification of Spain. Ultimately it was abandoned due to a civil engineering inspiration.

Built in 1959 (Franco period), the Yesa Dam was constructed to create a supply of irrigation and drinking water for the surrounding area. The resulting reservoir flooded the farmlands of Esco leaving the inhabitants with no chance of survival. So in the 1960’s they left. A few sheep herders remain, tough rascals these sheep herders.

Jen coming home from church, Sunday again already?

Chapel

Franco’s Dam

Where’s Juliete when you need her

Main St.

Stairs to bell tower.

View from the bell tower.

By the way we did climb almost to the top via an excellent stone spiral staircase.

I’m told the last episode of this conquest of Europe was more diary than travel info, so sorry about that, lets talk train stuff instead that’s travel related right?

Canfranc Spain is a few kilometres from the French border has an elevation of – pretty high because they ski here and a population of –  who knows or even cares. It’s all about the train station.

The station at the Spanish end of the Somport railway tunnel opened in 1928 it is 240 meters long and has 156 doors and 365 windows, one for each day of the year.

During World War Two the railway was used by those escaping the Nazis and by the Nazis to move some 90 tonnes of gold through Europe.

Since the destruction in 1970 of the bridge at nearby L’Estanguet, on the French side, no more trains stop here. The French decided it was all too difficult apparently so the station has been falling to bits since. There have been several plans to re-purpose the building ranging from Hotel to University. Nothing happening yet however.

Behind the Railway station is a collection of WW2 Bunkers for those with a military bent.

Canfranc

Bunker

The veiw from a bunker

Goods yard

 

By the way in the former Somport railway tunnel there is now a research facility dedicated to dark matter detection by looking at the annual modulation of the expected interaction rates in a target of sodium iodide. So there!