Arrivederci Livigno - Bonjour Araches via Lake Como

1/ Arrivederci Livigno!

For me, Livigno will forever be associated with burning thigh muscles, great pasta and a broken heart.....I chose the gloves!!

For Graeme, Livigno was La Skieda. The greatest festival he's ever been to. The people, the skiing and .....oooohhh all that equipment and the freedom to "gear talk" all day, every day, for seven whole days. My man has been in heaven!

We're on the way home now, via Italy and not Switzerland as Graeme had originally planned. The high pass to Andermatt is still closed. We tried to travel this route on the way back from Slovakia but ended up on the back of a train, in a tunnel, under a mountain. After fighting with Penny (the GPS), Graeme finally conceded that it was not worth driving all the way there only find that "She Who Must Be Obeyed (Penny)" was correct and the road was closed. Much sulking!!

To ease the tension between Graeme and Penny, I diplomatically suggested that we drop in on George for lunch. George who? Clooney, of course! Reportedly George has a little shack somewhere on the shores of Lake Coma. I'm sure he'd love us to drop by and say hello!

2/ Graeme in a contemplative mood. What pasta should I order?

We didn't have much luck finding George's place. But we did manage to find Lake Como and a great little spot for a quiet pasta lunch. Quite an achievement for us really, especially since SWMBO has been switched off by Graeme. [His personal act of "rage against the machine"!]

Pictures tell the story. Lake Como is beautiful. I would imagine however, being so close to Milano and Torino, it positively heaves in the summer. But in the soft spring sunshine, a late afternoon stroll along the shoreline was sublime.

4/ The Sunday Bric-a -brac stalls lining the shores of Lake Como

On the Snowy Road Again - And an Italian Mud Derby

Excited about the trip to Livigno but as always dreading the thought of driving there! It's Saturday and I'm sure the roads will be clogged! Fingers crossed we won't get lost and it won't be as chaotic as during the last school holiday period! We left Dana to lock up for us and we headed off at 8am to hopefully make Livigno before dark.

1/ Lost in a Blizzard!

So much for the wishful thinking!!!

Do you need snow in your resort? Well, let Andy & Graeme know and they will plan a road trip to your area. Why, why, why does it alway chuck down with snow whenever we want to go somewhere?

Penny the GPS, is seriously in our bad books. The route she planned for us, over a high mountain road turned out to be closed during the winter! But to discover this inconvenient little fact, we had to drive through another pass at 2330m in a full blizzard and white out conditions. The snowbanks on the side of the road towered over us almost engulfing the 10m snow poles. Visibility was down to about 2m as the howling wind drove snow over the road. Eventually it was all too much for Pepi and we began sliding all over the road. Poor ol' Graeme had to get out and put the chains on. After surviving all this, imagine our disgust when we then learned that our road was closed and we had to go back the way we had come. Oh the joys of European driving!

Turning Penny off, we found the only other alternative into Livigno, a one way tunnel through the mountains from the Swiss side. Of course it's Saturday isn't it? This means that it's changeover day and the road is clogged with people leaving and arriving at the resort. A little tricky when you only have a one-way tunnel!!

Of course, the first we knew about this was when we were stopped by officials on the mountain road and herded into a muddy paddock with about 500 other cars. We had no idea what was going on, but every one else seemed to be sitting patiently in their cars waiting for something to happen. So as the saying goes, "when in Rome..." When I say people were waiting patiently, I'll exclude the occupants of the numerous vans with Czech, Polish and Slovakian number plates. They didn't seem at all concerned about the wait. They were playing disco music, throwing down beers and vodka and dancing around in the mud. Quite entertaining really. Although the novelty did start to wear off after the first hour!!

To ensure that the mountain road does not become gridlocked, during periods of heavy traffic, officials herd all cars into large grass holding pens. Unfortunately, the grass doesn't survive and with all the traffic, they become large smelly quagmires! In this way they can control the number of cars through the tunnel and at the swiss border beyond.

But the really exciting time comes when the officials open the gate of the holding pen to release the set number of cars onto the road. It's a Le Mans start in the mud. 16 lanes of cars are trying to take a U corner in deep mud and narrow to 2 lanes at the same time. I have never seen anything like it, in all my life. In the end, to save the nervous breakdown, I just closed my eyes and let Graeme fight his way through the mess.

No sooner did we get through the tunnel, than we were queued again at the Swiss Border. Another E$25 cash just to get out of Switzerland! Thank you very much!! No doubt about the Swiss! They certainly know how to cash in on the tourist at every possible step.

2/ The quagmire! Gentlemen, start your engines!!

It's now dark and finally we have arrived in Livigno. To top off a rather fraught day, our mobile phone is not working. We can text out but we cannot use it to make phone calls. We have no idea why this is and no patience left to find out. Eventually, with some luck we find our apartment and meet our lovely young hostess, Genni Zini.

The apartment is very neat and tiday, although it's in the roof cavity on the 3rd floor of the apartment building. 51 stairs from the ground! I think it will suit us nicely for the week, although Graeme may develop a nasty crook in his neck!!

3/ Graeme in our height challenged apartment

Dumping our gear, we were off again to find the La Skieda Festival head-quarters at the other end of the town. We managed this with out further incident even though it was now snowing very heavily. Registered, we returned with our flat to get some sleep before the big first day of the festival!

While today was certainly a challenging one, there was some good news.....along the way through Italy we came upon what looked very much like the Australian "Twisties" snack food. A perennial favourite of ours we were excited to try them. Same packaging, same twistie rice crisp shape, but with a milder cheese flavour than the strong chedder flavour of the Australian version. Yum!

We Find Dana, despite Autoroutes & Officious Border Guards!

1/ Dana and her first French Patissiere!!

Dana arrived from Slovakia today.

Despite a flurry of emails and texts back and forth after we returned from Italy, until this morning, we were still unclear when or where we needed to meet her. Around mid-morning we received a text to say that she would be waiting for us at the border between Switzerland and France. She was travelling with a Czek friend on a tour bus on its way to the Three Valleys ski area.

Great we thought! We know how to get there! Or so we thought. The ever geographically challenged Oxley's missed the relevant auto-route exit and we found ourselves on the way to Paris!! Major swear words!!**?@!!

These autoroutes are all well and good, but if you miss an exit, you are stuck on the road for what always seems like an eternity. When this happened to us in Slovakia, we ended up travelling nearly half way back on our tracks. Ooops! I didn't mean to admit that! Dana is reading our blog!!

But even worse, when you do finally exit the auto-route, there's a toll, and to add insult to injury you have to take another ticket and pay again when you finally exit at the right place. I think shares in the French auto-route system has got to be a winner. Think of all those other directionally challenged tourists out there travelling through France in the busy summer season! Surely there are others out there, like us?????? Please tell us reassure us, it's true!

Arriving at the French/Swiss border near Geneva, the Swiss bureaucrats were out in force. Throughout Europe, Saturday is "change-over" day. The roads, train stations and airports are always jam packed. Saturday's are the worst days to travel, particularly during any holiday period. We shudder as we remember our German autoroute nightmare on the way to visit Dana last month.

So here we are on a Saturday, joining the queue at the Swiss border. We only want to do a "U- Turn" and go back and pick up Dana who has been dropped on the other side of the border. But of course, with our bright red number plates, we attract the unwelcome attention of the ever efficient Swiss border guards. They are wanting us to buy an annual Swiss road pass - about SF40 Swiss Francs (NZ$62). How to get out of this one?

Forget the french! I think the "seriously dumb Anglo tourist" routine is the way to go! So I lean over Graeme and sweetly explain to the officer that "we really wanted to be in Italy but we took the wrong auto-route exit somewhere back there!" I wave my arms wildly for emphasis! The guard fixes me with his steely gaze...hmmm? "Definitely a loopy Anglo tourist" he is thinking. "Is it worth the paperwork?" And....luckily for us, he decided to let us off, do a U-Turn and pick up the ever patient Dana back in France!

For such remarkably loose plans, Dana's pick up has gone relatively smoothly. After 20 hours on the bus(!!) she only waited 20 minutes for our arrival. Understandably, she is a little shattered from such a long trip on the bus. But this lady is seriously tough and she so wanted to come skiing with us that if she'd had to hitch a ride in the back of a cattle truck all the way from Slovakia, I think she would have!!

A quick stop for some French coffee in Cluses and a visit to an outstanding Patissiere for cake and we were on our way back to Le Refuge and the start of our ski week with Dana. Her first time in the French Alps for 14 years!!

Evian Les Bains

1/ Beautiful and inaccessible lakeside chateaux!

The legs just won't do it for us today!! Graeme and I have skied 7 days straight! Even the thought of more powder skiing didn't outweigh the thrill of a morning sleep-in! We've gone soft!! The final nail in the coffin was a late night after sharing an impromptu meal with Rick and Liz last night.

2/ The loneliness of a summer resort in winter!

So after a slothful start to the morning we headed off to Evian-les Bains, the home of the namesake mineral water. Well that was the intention. Somehow the boys got distracted by the thoughts of a walk along the foreshore and pulled off into a car parking area on the outskirts of the town.

Summer resorts are sad places in the winter. Without the lovely mantle of white snow enjoyed by the mountains, everything is grey and drab. The streets are empty and the feel is one of desertion and sleepiness. While the few crocus poking up in the gardens hinted at spring, a cold breeze and drizzling rain kept us thinking about winter.

Somehow we never found the main town. It seems that we were still some distance away from the famous Evian Casino (one of Europe's largest) and the imperious Hotel Royal. But all was not lost.. we found a good Patisserie!

French Observation
Our attempt to find a walking path along the lake to the village centre was in vain. All the houses and buildings own land right to the water's edge. All was fenced off and access was not permitted. It makes you very thankful that the old girl Vicky (Queen Victoria) in 1840 made a rule to reserve land 20m wide along water courses in NZ for public access.

Imagine not being permitted to walk around Lake Wanaka or beside the Clutha River. Wouldn't bear thinking about?

3/ Boys will be boys!! Look closely!

The journey home was slightly longer than expected as the route we took to Evian had closed behind us due to heavy snow. Mike and Leanne were treated to a new route directed by the dulcet tones of Penny (the "GPS"). Not sure what we would do without this lovely lady, even if she does occassionally get lost in tricky cities like Vienna. I guess the answer is: We would have spent the first month lapping the Geneva Airport carpark!!

4/ Patrick the Fishing guide & Restauranteur. What is about Fishing Guides and owning Restaurants?

Tonight we were treated by Mike and Leanne to a delicious meal at Les Molliets mountain restaurant. This is our favourite local restaurant. Easily the most atmospheric, it is owned by Patrick a local fishing guide. Together with his son Alex and an all male crew - the place runs like a slick military operation. They are impressive to watch when their outside deck is full with over a 100 patrons on a sunny lunch time. Fortunately evenings are a little more laid back and you have time to gaze at all the historical photos, fishing, skiing and farming equipment that adorn the walls.

The delicious Cote de Boef was the order of the evening. Tender and flavoursome and washed down with some delicious french red, it was a perfect evening. Adding to the cosy atmosphere, the snow continued to dump down outside. Fortunately, we had ex-Rally driver Leanne to drive us home. She handled Pepi, clad in his shiny chains and the twisty snow covered mountain roads with ease!!

Oh No!! More Snow = More Skiing!!! Another big day tomorrow! With hopefully the promise of some sunshine!!

The Final Push - And at last, we see the Sun!!

Finally, we see the sun for the final push home! Hooray!!! It's been seriously bad weather for five of the six days we've been travelling to and from Slovakia. We've had difficult driving conditions and long days.

Unfortunately the original route that we wished to take through Switzerland via Andermatt was closed due to heavy snow. Leaving our salubrious accommodation in Chur, we were forced to back-track north via Interlaken. Not such a bad detour given the incredible scenery shown today in all its glory with the bright sunshine.

We have both been to Interlaken before, but of course the memory has dulled. However, Graeme is sure that we parked our car very near the hotel that he and his good friend Ralph, stayed in nearly 30 years ago. He remembers that it was near the clock tower and canal, with a restaurant underneath it. He can't wait to get home to check his photos with the one we took today.

1/ Graeme outside the hotel he thinks he stayed in 30 years ago!!

After a quick coffee in Interlaken our plan was to head south and cross into the Chamonix Valley via Vallorcine. That was the plan.....but unfortunately at this very moment, everyone became directionally challenged and we spent quite a deal of time "pfaffing around" on the shores of the lake trying to find the correct turn-off. When I say everyone, I also include Penny (the GPS). There must have been recent road-works or changes to the road system since she was programmed. She was positively unhelpful, telling us to turn left when the road signs clearly indicated that we should go right! Add to this confusion, the excitement of me behind the wheel and you have a class "A" storm "a brewin!!". Fortunately Graeme realised this and kindly suggested that he take over the driving again!! I enthusiastically relinquished the wheel and for good measure I used the "Off button" to silence the now downright annoying Penny. No more relying on technology - it was back to the faithful road atlas for us!!

As luck would have it, we ended up in a beautiful hanging valley brimming with the deep snow of the past days. Driving past Kandersteg at the end of the valley we found ourselves stopped at traffic lights. We assumed that there was a one-way tunnel ahead. Imagine our surprise when the lights changed and our car was loaded onto a train!! Cool!

The Swiss must be some of the best roading engineers in the world. Their twisting mountain roads all seem to need tunnels, viaducts and terracing. This car-train ferry system from Kandersteg to Goppenstein under an otherwise impenetrable mountain range was nothing short of astonishing! What a shame my Mum & Dad never travelled to Europe. My Dad would have just loved travelling through Switzerland to see all these engineering marvels!!

2/ The snowbound Kandersteg

3/ The amazing "car-train" under the mountain

And finally, we arrive at Martigny, our last stop in Switzerland before heading over the Col de la Forclaz (1527m) and Col des Montets (1461m) into the Chamonix Valley. The home stretch!! And familiar territory at last.

Observation - Europe is BIG!

This road trip has seen me seriously readjust my memories of "how big" Europe truly is. I think my memories of European travel have been distorted by train travel. Travelling on night trains meant that I was asleep for much of the journey and had no real understanding of the vastness passing below me.

Growing up in Australia, and living in NZ, I had an arrogant belief that we, antipodeans, were surely the champions of long distance travel. Sure, us Aussies & Kiwis do some long stints behind the wheel, but the roads are uncrowded, we are travelling fairly slowly and the levels of concentration required are nowhere near what you need to travel at 140km/hr + on a crowded, snowy autobahn with signage all in a foreign language! Our meetings with our Dutchie on the first day of the school holidays and a young Latvian who was going to be driving for 19 hours through the night from Slovakia has seen me change my opinion!

Yeeha!! We're back safe and sound in our little 48m2 in Araches!!

Boredom, Tedium and Long Distance European Travel

1/ Sleet & Snow- standard driving weather for the Oxleys!!

Does anyone else find long distance car travel incredibly tedious? Two hours after leaving Vienna this morning, I am already squirming in my seat. Then I’m looking for something to eat, not because I’m hungry but because I’m bored. Chewing gum is usually the cure ..either that or I may as well as add a kg per 100 km to my waistline. A couple more miles down the road and I’m attempting to play Vortex on the Ipod incredibly badly. While I blame the bumpy road for my poor reflexes, if I’m honest, I have to admit that my reactions are terrible and no matter how much I practice I am never going to be good at computer games. Next, I torture Graeme with pleas to play “I spy” in French, or even worse I beg to put the Michel Thomas Learn French on the radio. At this point, Graeme usually pulls into a roadside café for coffee and cake!

2/ An interesting Austrian roadsign!

The weather is typically horrendous. Driving wet snow, grey skies and really poor visibility. The good news is that Tuesday has proven to be a good day to travel. Very little traffic and relatively few trucks meant that driving was fairly straightforward today. Well that was until our route through the mountains to Innsbruk were closed due to heavy snow.

3/ People walking on the footpaths in southern Austria. The snow is so deep, they are walking in "snow trenches"!!

Trust us to choose a route that was closed!! There has been some serious snow right through Europe over the last week and we are looking forward to getting back amongst it in France!! But today, our enforced detour added about 2 hours to our driving as we had to re-programme an indignant Penelope (the “GPS”).

With no firm plans where to spend the night, we have ended up in Chur, NE Switzerland just over the border from Austria. Graeme is convinced we asked the lady at the information centre to book us a small bed & breakfast, but we have ended up staying in an incredibly bizarre 40 room hotel cum sports complex. It’s clean and quiet but it has all the charisma of an army barracks. Sniffing the air, I swear I could smell the liniment from the last tennis team who stayed here.

The hotel is focused on sporting activities and the restaurant overlooks the 5 indoor tennis courts. Luckily the food in the hotel restaurant was edible and while dining, we were entertained by a women’s double match being played out on the court below our window. The women were of a similar age and I was reminded strongly of Wanaka summer tennis battles with Daphne, Sally and Anna. I’m looking forward to getting a racquet back in my hand when I get home, even if it will be the middle of winter.

We really had only one mission tonight, dinner and sleep. I can’t wait to get back to our little flat in Araches. Fingers crossed for at least clear weather for driving tomorrow. We passed right through the beautiful Tyrolian valley today and didn’t see a thing except the tail lights of the car in front!

A self-guided tour of Dana & Tibor's neighbourhood!

1/ Dana & Tibor's cuter than cute log cabin!!

Life with Dana & Tibor and their family has settled into an easy routine. The day starts around 6am, as their kids go to school early. Their kids are tough. Mischa and Tomi are on the school bus before 7am in the cold and driving snow. After getting to Proprad, the major town about 20 minutes drive away, they have to walk another 20 minutes to school. Both kids are highly intelligent and they love going to school. Mischa speaks perfect English and Tomi is a whiz at mathematics. Tomi also loves to invent board games and so far, Graeme spends most of the early evenings playing Tomi at his own games!! Graeme and I were both soundly beaten on our first night, but Graeme appears to be staging a significant come back tonight while I am writing this blog.

Dana & Tibor’s house is just lovely. A real log cabin, it is kept toasty warm by a fascinating wood burner. While the firebox is small, the heating unit is huge. It works by heating a circuitous flue system inside the brickwork. The brickwork absorbs the heat and then slowly releases it throughout the day. They only use 2 small boxes of firewood per day, once in the morning and again in the evening. This system heats the entire house.

2/ Andy writing away beside the magnificent fire!

Today, Dana set us loose to explore their surrounding country-side while they had business and stuff to do with the kids.

Armed with Dana’s itinerary and road atlas we headed off to explore the villages and historical sites in their region. The largest city Poprad, is about 15 minutes drive from their village. We like Poprad! It’s about the only town name in the immediate vicinity (and probably the whole of Slovakia) that we can pronounce. The Slovak language is a challenge. The spoken language is lovely. To us, it sounds to us like a mixture of Italian and Russian. But it’s not a harsh sound like German. The distinctive feature of the written language is the abundance of circumflexes, umlages, accents and graves. Without understanding their significance to the pronunciation of words, our attempts to speak the language have met with uproarious laughter from the Hrmodka family!

After a fairly late start in the morning, our first destination was Spisske Podradhie and one of the largest travertine castles in Central Europe. Getting there proved as challenging as always for us. Penelope (the GPS system) was no help at all. She hadn’t been to Slovakia before and once we strayed from the main highway, she was lost. And so were we! We actually ended up in a village called Spisska Nova Ves, which, as we learned later was Tibor's home town. Finally we made it back on route and found the famous Spissky Hrad - a derelict limestone castle perched on a lonely hill in the middle of surrounding paddocks.

3/ Spissky Hrad - a huge deserted castle

After circumnavigating the castle, we found a lovely spot for lunch. Serving traditional Slovakian food we enjoyed a delicious cabbage soup, noodles,beer & coffee all for E$12. The cheapest meal we've had in Europe so far!!

After lunch, Dana's itinerary took us to the historical walled city of Levoca. Here we wandered around the town's courtyard looking at the shops. The shops and businesses are so different than what we are used to. There are no big display windows. Only a small selection of goods are shown in a small window to the street. To enter the shop you have to go into the building via a large centre corridor and each shop lies to the left or right. I guess this style of display is a relic of the communist era, when really there was nothing much to offer for sale and large window displays were pretty pointless!!

Finally on the way home we visited a thermal spring area. We were disappointed not to have brought our bathers with us, as a swim in the hot springs would have been a lovely escape from the -10C temperatures of the day. There are loads of hot springs in Slovakia, and taking the waters is a very popular past-time for Slovakians. The winters here are generally long and very cold. You can understand the attraction!!

4/ Hot Springs near Kezmarok

Well it really wouldn't be a road trip without us getting lost. And today was no exception. Not only did we accidently divert to Tibor's home town in the morning, as we started for home we took a wrong turn in Poprad and ended up in the Whirlpool factory complex. It took us nearly 15 minutes to find our way out again. As we drove around and around, it reminded us of being caught in an endless spin cycle. Dana & Tibor were amazed that we could have found the Whirlpool factory let alone get lost in the complex. Aaaah ...but we explained that we especially "geographically challenged". We're not sure they understood this term, but they certainly understood that n0-one they knew could possibly get lost in the Poprad!!

Tomorrow, we are back under supervision with Tibor & Dana. We are going to do a walk in another National Park area of Slovakia - we can't wait!

Onwards. East to Slovakia!

1/ Crossing the border into Slovakia

It was with great relunctance that we packed up our kit this morning and headed out again on the autoroute. We are excited to be visiting an unfamiliar country and seeing Dana & Tibor again, but we just wish we didn't have to drive all day to get there! Today we have to make it half-way across Austria and then all the way to the north eastern border of Slovakia.

The weather is suitably heinous. But fortunately, unlike the highways to the Austrian ski resorts, the road is empty. It is snowing, sleeting and raining in equal measure. Visibility is limited and we feel that we are only seeing a tiny glimpse of the terrain around us.

Poor old Pepi Peugeot is covered in snow, salt and grime. Our skis on the roof racks are getting hammered. The edges are covered in rust! I can't even begin to imagine what the salt is doing to Pepi's metal underbelly!

2/ A very grimy Pepi!

3/ How to wreck your skis without using them!!

I am going to refrain from making any comments or impressions about Slovakia at this stage. It is too early to tell. Certainly the grim weather is not making the uninspired soviet architecture of the buildings look any better. But looks can be deceiving and our opinions are also coloured by the monotony of driving. Best wait until we've spent some real time here.

4/ Hmmm. Soviet style housing blocks!

Well it wouldn't be a proper road trip without us getting lost! It was dark, snowing, Penny was completely lost! She had no maps for the area we were travelling through. By sheer dumb luck rather than any good navigation on my part, we managed to find Stola - Dana & Tibor's town. After a quick phone call to Dana, she was able to direct us to their beautiful log cabin.

Of course, Dana and Tibor look exactly the same. But of course their children, Michaela (Mischa) & Tomi have grown substantially in the two years since we have seen them. Mischa is now 12 (going on 22!!) and Tomi is 8. I will confess that Graeme and I were totally wrung out by the hard drive today and we were probably not very good company. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be rested and ready to catch up with all the news since Dana & Tibor were in NZ two years ago.

Antipodeans Know Nothing About Traffic!!

1/It's bucketing snow! Let's just slow to 100km/hr!! Great !@##!! Idea!!

WE WERE WARNED!! Hubert constantly warned us against travelling on a Saturday (especially in the school holidays). Now...we know why!!

I vow and declare that I will never, ever, complain about heavy traffic again. Not word of complaint will escape my lips if I am stuck in traffic from Auckland Airport, not a moan or groan about Melbourne footy traffic nor will I curse if I am stuck on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Australians and New Zealanders know nothing about heavy traffic!

2/ That's four lanes at a standstill!!

Today, we, along with the entire Dutch population decided to drive east through Europe. Leaving on Friday morning from Araches, it’s taken us 2 days and 16 hours of driving to travel less than 600km! Our route has taken us through Switzerland, Lichtenstein (can’t remember this part), Austria, Germany and back again into Austria. To top it off, it has been snowing heavily for almost all the journey. Yesterday was the start of the French (Paris), British and obviously, given the predominance of NL Number Plates on the road, - Dutch school holidays. The Autobahn from Munich, east to the Innsbruk turn off was at a standstill for most of the day. At its worst, it took us over an hour to travel 5 kilometres. That’s walking pace! Even when we decided to pull off the road for lunch at a petrol station, it took us over half an hour to negotiate the carpark!! It was chaos.

But you just gotta love those pragmatic dutchies! We met a nice man in the lunch stop who was travelling with his sons to a rented house in southern Austria. He had left Holland at 1:30am that morning. When we met him he had been travelling for 12 hours. He was laughing and cheerful and thoroughly delightful. We suspect he may have also been high on copious quantities of caffeine. But he certainly made us feel a bit humbled and shy about mentioning our stiff necks and sore backs.

3/ Andy's usual expression while a passenger!

Long distance car travel is not for me. I am not a good passenger at the best of times. When it is snowing heavily, you are doing 120km/hr just to stay with the flow of the traffic and there are still cars roaring past you at 150- 180km/hr – I am transformed by fear into a blithering mess. Poor Graeme. He is a very good driver and he has to suffer me slamming on the imaginary brake in the passenger seat. I also combine this with full body twitching routines, regular gasping and eye covering movements as we hurtle around bends or through long tunnels. Any time we have to slow for a stoppage, I reach for the hazard light button – conveniently located in the centre of the dashboard. After 8 hours of this, we are both wrung out physically and emotionally!!

4/ I've worn the triangle symbol off this button due to overuse!!

By 3 o’clock, our plans to reach Vienna were abandoned. Instead we opted for Salzberg. It’s been over 17 years since I last visited Salzberg and Graeme 30 years. We have forgotten the city's breathtaking beauty. The consummate European tourist town, Salzberg has every thing. Incredible history, scenery, groovy bars and restaurants and of course loads of interesting shops to tempt the Euros from your wallet. Of course being the lowest of low season, we found accommodation easy to find and good value. 72 Euro for a good double room with ensuite and breakfast. The hotel Weisse Taube (White Dove) where we are staying, is over 600 years old and has been run by the same family for 5 generations. We are enjoying our re-visit so much, I think that we'll stay another night. My nervous system needs another 24 hours to recover!! We’ll drive all the way through to Slovakia tomorrow and leave the exploration of Vienna until our return home.

On the Road to Slovakia! Where are we???

1/ A: "Haven't we been in this tunnel before???" G: "Don't think so?" P (the GPS): "At the first available opportunity do "U-Turn"! "

Phew!! We’ve made it to Bregenz, Austria today after a later start than expected. At least, I think we are in Austria, but we could also be in Germany, Switzerland or Lichtenstein! Let’s face it! Graeme and I are both fairly directionally challenged at the best of times. Thank goodness for Penelope the unflappable GPS system! While we are obviously on the shores of Lake Constantine, there was no small amount of confusion getting here. We could have come here directly from Switzerland, but somehow we managed to cross into Austria, Germany and then back again into Austria. We suddenly found ourselves in a big long tunnel and then – hey presto – Deutschland! Only people with our special talent for getting lost could have done this. But as I look outside my hotel window, I have just noticed the red and white flags flying outside our hotel. I guess that means that we are, in fact, in Austria.

The town is really funky and we’re staying tonight in a quirky 3 star place called Hotel Bodensee. We had to secretly smile to ourselves when a lovely young Austrian girl showed us a couple of rooms all of which had defective lighting. We were transported back to a former life when we would do the great “room-sell” only to find that something was wrong when we opened the door to show the room. The worst was always when we'd already sold the room before and we burst in on our poor unsuspecting guests Fawlty style! Always fun! Not sure that the Austrian’s quite see the funny side of things. Certainly, our girl wasn’t cracking the same jokes as we would do in the same situation. After showing us a second room that also had no lighting, our hostess was getting quite upset. We were tired, hungry and really not sure where all this was heading, so we put her out of her misery and just took the room. While dark, it was clean (as far as we could tell in the dim light), spacious and not over the top in terms of price.

2/ More snow! Poor car - it's should be starting to sprout sleds!

A quick dinner at an Italian restaurant nearby, a quick sneak into a modern art gallery on the way home, then I will confess that it was home in bed early for us. With the snow coming down it will be another long and fairly taxing drive to Vienna tomorrow.

Wet Blizzard!

A full on blizzard. Graeme is out in the wet snow putting on the chains.

The rain finally turned to snow very early in the morning and about 20cm of very wet snow greeted us. We are currently sharing the Teste residence with a group of their male friends. Last weekend, their wives had stayed and this weekend was the boy's turn. These boys were "party animals"!! But their late nights meant that they were not very early starters! We hardly saw them as we had left to go skiing well before they arose. The girls seemed more organised!! We are looking forward to having the Teste Family back in residence this weekend!!

Getting to the Telecabine this morning proved a little tricky. Wet snow was bucketing down and about 50m up our road, a huge 40 seater bus had managed to wedge itself on a snow bank and was stuck fast. As it was blocking the road we had to turn around and head back down our road. This is not our preferred route. The road is steep and frequently very icy. Applying the brakes at any point during the journey can have all sorts of unexpected results!! But we managed to get back down our hill and on to the main road without incident. Being early, it appeared that the snow ploughs had not really started their job, or if they had, the snow was coming so fast that they couldn't keep up!

It is always a little scary driving in these conditions as the locals persist in driving at the same speed they would in summer! We know that they are locals as their car registration plates end in "74", the number for our Haute-Savoie region. I will certainly accept that the locals generally have snow tyres and they are used to driving in icy & snowy conditions. But it's the old story. When something totally unexpected happens it won't matter that they are all ex World Cup Rally drivers, their brakes won't stop them any faster than a slow tourist! The crash will just be a bigger mess!

Speaking of tourists. To this exciting cocktail of driving snow, icy roads and suicidal locals, you also need to add the "seriously dumb" tourist whose favourite trick is to get half-way up a hill, lose traction, stop in the middle of the road blocking both lanes of traffic and then decide to put chains on. You can imagine the Local's reaction to this sort of nonsense!

So today, not only were we confronted with the stuck bus, but on our way up to the Telecabine we met with the "dumb tourist". Driving conditions were becoming borderline even with snow tyres. We were going to make it if we didn't have to stop. But alas as the tourist's car in front of us started to lose traction and begin its slide back down the hill, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour! A 6 minute chain fitting job by one, Mr Graeme Oxley and we were on our way again. With chains on Pepi Peugeot becomes a 4WD!! We zoomed past the bewildered tourist who was still trying to figure out whether the chains go on the front or back wheels!

After that eventful morning we had a couple of runs in the heavy snow and then retreated for an early coffee to calm the nerves. Unfortunately, there has been more rain than snow today and there was nothing much to report in the way of good skiing. We decided to come home for lunch and to finish the last of the french homework. Lessons this afternoon and then a casual drink and dinner with Liz & Rick. A nice Saturday night!!

The weather conditions were not conducive to good photography hence the lack of material for today. Hopefully when the sun does finally shine again we'll have the camera working again and get some good photos.

What? It's Sunday? And Where's the Snow?

1/ The "drive-in Boulangerie" at Sallanches

Well, it's official..we've finally lost touch with reality. We forgot that today was Sunday!

After a very late start to the morning, as a result of another night socialising with those party animals..Rick, Gavin & Welsh Sue, and Dave & Irish Sue, we had decided to head down the hill to Sallanches for a spot of shopping. It was grey and dreary when we awoke and the weather report predicted the arrival of a storm front with heavy snow by mid afternoon. We thought we'd better get going!!

In addition to Au Vieux Campeur (Graeme's favourite shop) there is also another a good outdoor outlet in Sallanches. Called "Quechua" the store mainly specialises in clothing. We had heard from Welsh Sue that they were having a sale. Maybe..just maybe...if there was a sale we could actually afford to buy something?

Unfortunately, we forgot that aside from ski resort areas, France pretty much closes down on a Sunday. So our drive was really for nothing. Quechua was closed, along with pretty much every other shop in Sallanches (even Carrefours!!). Although we did discover a neat "drive-in Boulangerie" on the way home. We had passed this converted fuel station several times on previous visits to Sallanches. There has always been a good number of cars parked outside, so we thought that it might be worth a try. The bread, and according to Graeme, the "pain au chocolat" were delicious, and about 25% cheaper than what we pay for the same thing here in Araches! The french obviously price according to altitude!!

2/ Pepi on her ice skating rink!!

Arriving back to Le Refuge for lunch we were excited to see the snow pleting down around us. Our delight was shortlived however! The snow turned to heavy rain and kept up all through the afternoon. Graeme was beside himself. Predicting an early end to the ski season he worked himself into a right frenzy.

Despite the rain, the temperature was still hovering around zero and our driveway and the local roads transformed to treacherous ice-skating rinks. Very disconcerting.

We were saved from total depression by an outing to visit Irish Dave & Sue, who had kindly invited us to dinner at their cute little chalet. Check it out at www.alpexperience.com They cooked us a delicious dinner. Prawn cakes on salad, a mild thai curry and lemon delicious pudding. Scrumptious!

The conversation flowed and flowed. Dave & Sue can hold a good cracking convesation. Somehow we got talking about TV programs and we ended up watching the latest episodes of "24" and then a British reality program called "Come Dine with Me". The idea of the show is to get 5 people who have never met each other to cook each other a dinner party. After each meal and privately in front of the cameras, each contestant then scores the meal out of 10. The winner gets $1,000 GBP - whoopee!!!??

Of course, all the participants are suitably odd. In the series we watched, there was a very attractive young Scottish mother who had a bit of drinking problem, a born again Christian African- American woman from Texas, a very wealthy landed gentleman wine critic who was obsessed with all things Tuscan, a Felicity Kendall look-a-like retiree who also enjoyed a "tipple" and a pasty looking "20-something" scottish cocktail waiter with a chip on his shoulder. All I can say is that it made morbidly good viewing. The alcoholic yummy mummy and the cocktail whipper snapper fell out, the born again christian nearly set her kitchen on fire and the wine critic bored everyone rigid with endless Tuscan tales. Felicity Kendall won.

As soon as we got home in the early hours of the morning we sent Dave & Sue an email. 10/10 we declared!! The pressure is now on!! We will no doubt be required to return the favour.

Speaking of getting home - what a challenge! While Pepi handled the slushy / icy main roads well, it was all too much for her on our side street, when Graeme gently applied the brakes in preparation for turning into our drive. Pepi hit sheet ice and continued to sail gracefully down the hill past our driveway. Hmmm what to do next? We managed to pull off the lane (not that there was any traffic) and slipped on the chains. Not a fun thing to do at 1am in freezing rain! I held the torch and gave appropriate moral support. But with chains on, we were now in business! Pepi crunched her way back up the ice and into our skating park driveway.

Parking safely in our driveway, we were mystified by the presence of an unknown vehicle. We thought that it might have been Rick & Liz's old car or Olivier's (our french neighbour). But no, it was not there's. It was still there mid morning and vanished just before lunch. We didn't catch the owner, and all we can assume is that they hit the same patch of ice and decided to park their car in our driveway and walk home? The mystery remains.

We cross our fingers and toes for snow tomorrow as predicted!

3/ The Mystery Visitor