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!

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!

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.