Walks Near Innsbruck - Part 2

Hello and welcome to the last instalment of the walks near Innsbruck photos. These are taken from three different locations; Nordkette range, Mutteralm, and near Telfs. As you can see from the photos the weather was not so good for a bit but now has improved as I leave for the final leg of my trip - a quick stopover in Verona on the way back to Piran.

But of course there have been a few incidents...

Path Rage

That might be what you call an argument between one of the guides and one of the walkers. But before I get to that point, I will start at the beginning. Some  of us got on the bus at Innsbruck for the guided walk and then we went to another town to pick up some more walkers. This particular British tourist was already grumbling when she got on the bus. Then when we started walking, in went the headphones and then the "singing" started. But the behaviour only degenerated. As we were walking up a gravel vehicle track, a mere incline by Austrian standards, we (the walkers in the front) heard raised voices; the British walker was complaining to the guide at the back that she signed up for a walk not a mountain climb. Her definition of a mountain climb appeared to be traversing any lump above sea level. This is not the accepted definition. Luckily, we came to the point where walkers could elect to go with one of the guides on the easier walk or with the other guide on the more difficult one. All the walkers except for the British walker and her friend  elected to go on the harder walk. The tribe had spoken. And we had a great walk until we met again at the lunch spot. After we had our lunch, the two British walkers appeared and sat to the side. Then after a little while the chief antagonist said what are we waiting for as we are just sitting here not even part of the group. I wondered how that could have occurred. As we were walking down they slowly drifted to the rear of the group. But she wasn't finished yet. Halfway through the bus drive she moved to the back of the bus. When we got to her bus stop her friend got off but there was no sign of her - after a delay she finally emerged and left the bus. I don't know whether she fell asleep or not but i can imagine for her it must have been a physically and emotionally draining day, as probably most days are in her life.

Dogs

Yes this topic again, it's just that dog owners just keep on giving. On the same walk as Path Rage we came across a person blowing a weird sounding whistle. It turned out to be a dog whistle but try as the owner did the dog had different ideas. It was not coming back on command. Then in Innsbruck I saw someone "walking" their German Shepherd. Or more accurately he was struggling to restrain it while it tried to kill every dog that it could see. Not sure whether that type of dog should be walked down a busy street. Then there was the dog that should be called Whizzer if they are not. Every five metres or so the dog would flood the middle of the footpath. I don't know what it's problem was but if the owner was in the vicinity he wasn't acknowledging ownership. 

Interesting Walkers

On the guided walks I have been on I have met some really friendly and nice people, including a Swiss and an Australian. I don't talk much on these walks but the only thing I heard this particular old New Zealand man say over the two walks we were together on was: I'll have an alcohol free beer" and "where's the bus". On one of the walks he had earphones in for the whole walk.

TV

Interesting things on TV. Austrian TV had coverage of the European Faustball (Fistballl) championships. Never knew this sport existed. It's like volleyball but on an outside and bigger pitch and you can let the ball bounce twice before having to hit it over the net. Seems to be designed for those no good at volleyball (too slow or short) or old people.

Germany seems to have a lot of raw material for reality TV programmes based on how many of these are on TV. If only I had a better grasp of German I think I would enjoy them more.

Anyway here are the photos...

 

Walks Near Innsbruck - Part 1

Hello again,

The weather has been good for walking, although a bit too hot being in the low 30s, until today when it rained heavily for part of the day, it's going to stay cool for most of this week.

Some of the walks I have done have been with the free guided walk program offered here in Innsbruck; where you get a guide, bus transport, and you go up to the mountains. Some of the group dynamics is interesting. On one walk the guide told people that they can walk ahead of him but they must wait at any intersections. At the first intersection following this a person continued walking, down the wrong path. The guide also said to stay to the right of the track as there were mountain bikers, first time we encountered a bike someone was standing on the right side in the way of the bike. Then there was the person who was checking the phone every five minutes, he eventually let it go, probably because of poor reception. Then there was the person that was listening to music while walking, I guess what the guide had to say was not much of interest.

Innsbruck has beggars too but they are not as active as the ones in Trieste. These ones just sit on the footpath holding a cup or with a cap in front of them. I have remarked before that some of beggars dont't consider their marketing much. Today I came across three together talking and smoking while the hat was in front of them awaiting donations.

And finally, ironically, I get away with being a local in Austria more than I do in Slovenia. In Slovenia when I speak Slovenian, people think I am English, German or have an intellectual impairment. I prefer that hey think I have an impairment as they are more understanding. Whereas in Austria, people often think I am a German speaker when I use my limited German. Perhaps it's the chequered shirts I wear (they like checks here) or it could be that there are so many local and national variations of German I can get away with it.

Anyway here are the first lot of pictures taken in the Stubai valley (from two different walks, the second one being closer to Innsbruck, which is the city seen below in some of the photos)....

Innsbruck Revisted

Hello,

Arrived in Innsbruck - the weather has been sunny and very hot, so good for mountain walking (sort of) I'll post those pictures in subsequent blogs.

But anyway the train trip from Piran through Trieste and Venice was interesting. Lots of beggars at Trieste station. One in particular caught my eye as he had the biggest feet I have ever seen on a human. The priorities in Trieste station are quite interesting, the first thing the ticket machine does when you try to buy a ticket is to literally shout out in your language to watch out for pickpockets.

The train to Venice was standing room only with everyone apparently going to Venice - it was like the Met. I changed trains at Venezia Mestre - which is the unattractive part of Venice and where the average person lives. There are a few hotels and tourists here who probably now realise why their accommodation was a bargain. It is a short trip to Venezia Santa Lucia (the holiday village we know as Venice) by train or bus across the causeway.

On the trains there were a lot more police, both in Italy and Austria, than usual. When the Italians did their passport check, the only person checked in our carriage complained to police that the only reason her passport was being checked was because she was black (in German) - and she'd be right. When we got into Austrian territory police checked everyone's passport - just like the good old days. A sign of the times. 

Of course there was at least one passenger that provided entertainment. He was an old Austrian man, who had two children with him. First thing when he got on was to make everyone move their bags then he could have his above him. If only he was as good at ordering around  his kids as he was other passengers as the children were out of control, they were doing whatever they liked, even at his expense. And of course he had to get off at Bolzano to have a smoke but unfortunately we didn't leave him behind. There was another cigarette stop at Brenner, again no luck. There was some justice, however, when he was fiddling  around with the luggage in the rack and a small backpack fell down on his head and then got delicately balanced on his head until he could retrieve it. The children were laughing on the outside and I was laughing on the inside.

For the week I am staying in the one hotel in Innsbruck. It has an interesting bathroom/shower. It's a room which has 2 glass walls with mottled glass from the bottom to about half way up  for privacy I guess), then clear glass. Not much use if you are a tall woman, and I think it would be distracting if you were watching TV while someone was in the shower. Although a plus I guess is that you can watch TV from the shower. Another interesting thing is that after a certain time the TV switches itself off but before it does so it gives you a one minute countdown on the screen,. It doesn't give you any option to stop it - I guess it thinks you have watched enough. Also I am not quite sure why for breakfast the only cereal available is coco pops - they might have got it really cheap in bulk.

Meal delivery times pretty impressive at the two restaurants I have been to so far, for the first time. Faster than Nandos!

Anyway a few pictures of Innsbruck. And more will follow with those taken on the walks.

The Slovenian Coast

Hello again. The weather seems to have "cooled" off in the last couple of weeks. Still warm and sunny - high 20s - but not as humid, and a little bit more wind about. Summer may be on the way out (or am I getting used to it?). Off to Austria next week to do some walks in the mountains, so will do another blog then.
  
In the meantime I have been doing some local walks, including from Izola (town up the coast) to Piran (very scenic, see the pictures below).

But inevitably a few tales to tell...

Visitors to Piran
Over the last few months, as well as the usual tourists, there have been quite a number of summer camp youth groups staying in Piran (who appear to be mainly Austrian or Eastern European). You can tell as they make them wear brightly coloured scarves around their necks (like scouts). They stay in the numerous hostels here (and unfortunately one is nearby to me). Their major activity seems to be aimlessly walking around Piran making noise - they literally are a travelling cloud of noise (I guess that enables the parents to go on their holidays). But it's the people staying at the hostels which particular irritate me. They appear to think that Piran is some sort of amusement park or museum. They don't seem to realise that people, live, work and sleep in Piran. They take up residence in front of people's houses, sometimes sitting on any available steps, and have these, what appear, to be very in depth and animated discussions. Then there are the tourists that walk down the narrow lanes in Piran like zombies - completely oblivious to the existence of anything or anyone else (even me who is trying to get past).

Dogs
Tourists insist on bringing their dogs when visiting or staying in Piran - a few locals have dogs but it is not particularly dog friendly as it is an old medieval town with narrow lanes, multi-storied houses (with no backyards)  and little (green) open space. So inevitably they whiz and poo on people's front doors, rubbish left out for collection etc. and the tourists don't seem to care or see. I wonder whether they would tolerate that in their own neighbourhood?  It's got so bad that the main streets are regularly washed now.
One day when walking down the coast, one of them had three dogs and was throwing something into the sea for them to jump in and retrieve. Obviously, the owner found this more entertaining than the dogs who, as I was walking past, refused to jump in again. One of the dogs even came towards me and looked at me in the hope that I would offer an alternative land based activity to entertain it. I felt sorry for disappointing it.
Don't get me wrong, I like dogs - I just don't like other peoples' as they usually don't seem to like me (I have been bitten once and chased a couple of times).

Interesting People
Waiting in queues you come across interesting people. At the post office one day I was standing behind a grandmother who was wearing a baseball cap (madeof of jean material) with "honky" written on the front in sparkly writing - she was wearing it backwards. Yes. Then in the supermarket I was behind one of the town alcoholics who was negotiating with the shop assistant for a lower price for the alcohol he was buying as he didn't have enough money (at 8am in the morning).

Another First
My intercom for my apartment doesn't work or so I thought. One day it went off for the first time, so I went downstairs to see whether it really was the intercom as I have never heard it before. Standing at the front door were four men: three of which were police. That's a first. I thought they were going to check my passport or something but instead they were looking for a stolen phone which the owner (who was the fourth man) had tracked down via GPS to the location. They couldn't get much sense out of me so they buzzed one of the other neighbours who was able to better help them. Later I saw them at an adjacent house where they jumped through an open window (it is usually opened). No idea whether they found the phone. Many of the apartments on the other side of the countyard/garden are holiday apartments.

Public Transport
It never fails to deliver entertainment value. On one occasion the bus driver had a horrendous trip, and the horn blowing, heavy breathing and abuse coming out of his mouth increased progressively throughout the trip from Koper to Piran (about a one hour trip). First, there were the three Italians that held him up when he was late leaving Koper. One of them had completely the wrong bus.  It only got worse when at just about every bus stop a car was parked blocking him, and then there were the cars blocking him while they maneuvered into car parking spaces. I think everyone was glad when we got to Piran as physical violence was on the cards for the next person getting in his way.
Then on another bus ride an Italian got on with beanie and hoodie over his head (to top matters off his hoodie had sort of a floral design). It was a sunny and warm day, being 25. Fears of skin cancer?
And then there was the woman who got up and pressed the buzzer after the bus driver passed her stop (more like an bus interchange) and complained that he didn't stop at her stop.  The driver responded by saying that if you don't press the buzzer or stand up how am I supposed to know you want to get off. She really didn't have a response.
Tourists lack of planning continues to astound me. I caught the bus two days in a row and at the same stop and time there were tourists asking whether the bus was going to Ljubljana, apart from the fact that the bus stop has a timetable, the next bus leaves almost 2 hours later. This is not a State secret. Plus there was some Americans that tried asking for a group discount (four of them) on the bus, it's usually the Germans that try that one. Slovenia must be really expensive for them.

Olympics
The coverage has not been great here because of the time zone and coverage being limited to the main government stations (not sports channels) in Slovenia, Austria, Germany and Italy, so they only show the main things that interests them. But I did note some interesting names representing Poland, Netherlands, Austria, Qatar and Germany in table tennis: Liu, Li, Li Jie, Li Ping, Y. Han.
I noticed many of the Brazilian track athletes wearing bright green arm warmers, didn't really work for them did it. The Japanese athletes with their bright fluro red/pink tops was obviously meant to make some sort of statement too. I noticed quite a number of Kenyan born long distance athletes representing Brunei. I wonder what lured them to live in Brunei: the climate; its safety;or the pile of money they were probably paid by the government to represent the country?
And what's with the biting of medals for photographs all about? 
It was also an interesting thing the Brazilians did this time with the diving pool, making it green instead of the usual blue. Slovenian TV referred to it as being more like a fish pond.
The different approaches of countries winning medals is very interesting. I noticed on British Sky TV they were tracking the progress of their medal count against what was projected before the Games they would win whereas in Slovenia any medal of any description is celebrated as a day of national triumph.

Any finally, the pictures.... 

Morning in Piran

Ships off Piran, with Croatian coast in the background

Izola

Ruins of a Roman Villa, near Izola

View from near Izola towards the track to Strunjan/Piran which runs over the cliffs

View of Izola, from the top of the walk

Along the coast walk

View of Piran

View of Strunjan

Continuing on the coast track to Strunjan, Piran

Another view towards Piran

View from Strunjan across the bay towards Piran

Strunjan Salt Works

View back to Strunjan

The old city walls of Piran in the distance