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

Slovenia in 7 Days

Hello,

Back from the seven day tour of Slovenia with my friend from Australia. Well it was not actually a tour of the whole of Slovenia, we only did parts of the western bit, including Piran (and surrounds), Postojna Caves, Ljubljana (the capital) and Lakes Bled and Bohinj. A selection of pictures is below. But as with any trip there were a few things that happened along the way....

Transportation Tales
Travelled mainly by bus and there appears to always be plenty to entertain. On one bus, the mother was obviously getting tired of looking after her young child, so child caring duties were being shared amongst the bus passengers. At least two other passengers had the privilege of looking after her child.
I am amazed by the number of tourists that get on the bus not having much idea of where they are going and what they are going to do. At least a couple of times they started compiling their itinerary in consultation with the bus driver, specifically seeking his advice on their travel and accommodation options. Whatever happened to the internet? Sometimes they are better planners, like the Japanese woman who wanted to go to a place so she showed a picture of it, from a brochure, to the driver. In fact I think the Japanese get the reward for the best tourists. They are quite, polite and appreciate any help anyone gives them.
The bus trip back to Piran was particularly eventful. First there was the Italian who had to sit next to me spreading himself out instead of sitting next to his wife as it appeared that the wife's bag was more important than the husband. Plus he had more hair in his ears than on his head. Then there was the three American tourists that missed their bus stop at Postojna despite it being a major bus terminal and the driver shouting out the station name (usually you are lucky just to be given time to get off of the bus). The bus driver asked them whether they had fallen asleep (in English), there was no reply. They were lucky, they only had a kilometre walk back to the station.
But perhaps the most memorable thing was being thrown off the bus - a first. It turned out that we were on the wrong bus to Postojna and so we were dumped on the side of the road a few hundred metres from the bus station (the bus driver should have checked the tickets properly and earlier). It turns out that we missed the previous bus but I blame the ticket seller who instead of giving me the ticket was arranging her catch up with her friend for coffee. It was very embarrassing. To compound the embarrassment, my friend's back pack got caught on the bus door as traffic was piling up behind us.

Hotels
It's amazing what people do where buffets are offered, be it breakfast or dinner. At dinner I saw someone carrying off three chocolate cakes and two pastry cakes. I thought it was for a group but he was the only one at the table. At breakfast I saw him fill his breakfast bowl from the coffee machine with milk instead of the provided jugs.
It might be a generalisation but it appears that Spanish people can only eat meals in groups and in selecting their food they need to consult with their colleagues across the room and at a volume level which drowns out any other noise. They also seem to be on a strict time schedule when getting their food (fear of the food running out?) as you get about 10 minutes of frantic activity around the food and then you don't see them again.
I wonder what goes in hotels sometimes when people are out. When were returned to the hotel one day my friend's bed had dry red lipstick or nail polish all over it. We complained and the bedding was changed but it will remain a mystery as to how it got there.
There's also not a lot of room in hotel lifts, my friend nearly decapitated a small child with his back pack. There should be a warning.

Hungry Birds
A word of warning, the pigeons in Ljubljana are very hungry and aggressive. One couldn't bother waiting for the crumbs from my friend's hot dog (or wouldn't be satisfied with that) and instead tried to take the hot dog itself. In Bled the sparrows there like cream cake (a speciality of the Hotel Park cafe and well recommended) but at least they wait and take turns to clean up the plates when people leave the cafe.

Bicycles
One semi-trailer driver had an innovative way to always have alternative transport; he had his bike attached to the back of his cabin. 
Also saw a cyclist in Ljubljana cycling along with his dog quite comfortably lying on a trailer at the back.

Gorge Walk
The walk down the Vintgar Gorge, near Lake Bled, was a highlight (see pictures below) but people's behaviour was interesting. There seemed to be some competition amongst visitors to see who could take the greatest amount of pictures of themselves in the gorge. At one stage, one pair were taking a picture every 10 metres or so alternating positions. There was also this group of Hungarians which I can only describe as a cloud of noise - it was non stop loud talking/shouting at each other - you could here them a mile away as they approached and then as they moved past the noise eventually melted way. Then there were the dogs. Do you really have to bring a dog along on a busy gorge walk of three kilometres with its narrow walkway? I bet if they had to pay for the dog they wouldn't be as keen.

Anyway, here are the pictures... 

Nanos, near Postojna

Postojna Cave

Views from Ljubljana Castle

Bled Castle

Bled Lake, from Bled Castle

View from Bled Castle

Around Lake Bohinj

Vintgar Gorge, near Bled