On the road

Thursday, 30th of November.

This morning we overslept a bit, had our breakfast on the 13th floor of our hotel and had a magnificent view of the city and the surrounding mountains.

Nice view from the hotels sky lounge.

You have to admit: Germans bake super nice Brötchen; and with scrambled eggs, local cheese and a coffee, it was heaven. We started the last part of our journey in a good mood: German roads are large and nice! aren't they? but not yet 50 km further, STAU or traffic jams started and they continued  throughout all of the 600 km  and  if it didn't snow, it rained. The whole country or at least the part we traveled through is a big construction site. What should have been an easy trip, was the horror of the whole journey. Thankfully the beautiful scenery made up for the lost time; as I have said before, bad weather allows for nice pictures. This picture is taken from a riding car and through the windshield.

Beautiful scenery along the road

We arrived 3 hours late at home trembling on our feet from exhaustion. We unloaded the car, had a soup, phoned the children, took a shower and went to bed.

Saturday, the 25th of November

our neighbors invited us to have dinner on the eve of leaving. Usually our dogs accompanies us till the door and waits for us till we leave. She waits for hours voluntarily. This time, she didn't came with us. I felt sad because I didn't say good bye. We did a bit of walking and calling and after 5 minutes she came running to us, but stopped at a few meters. I went to her to caress and cajole her, but she fled; my husband did the same and she fled again: she understood we were leaving and was either sad or mad or whatever feeling a dog may have. My eyes were flooding but finally after much trying, she let us caress her. We made a nest with dry leaves for her outside the garden for her and she settled down, wagging her tail finally.

Sunday, 26th of November

This morning we got up at 5 am, left at 6 am, rode for 2 hours in the dark and arrived safely at the border. On the road, my mind had been preoccupied with the end date of  my passport; I didn't want to control it, you know: don't wake sleeping dogs. I am somewhat superstitious in this kind of things, thus I kept low and thought: there is nothing I can do right now and if there is a problem, I 'll be genuinely surprised. When my passport was controlled, a great weight fell off my shoulders, everything ok; next was my husbands passport; he is usually right on top of things, so I was at ease, but then the police says: your passport has expired! Do you have a valuable ID card? Luckily he had. What happened: one way or the other his old passport hadn't been  made unusable and he had taken his expired passport instead of his new one. Luckily the attendant didn't make trouble and we could continue our road.

When travelling eastwards, we saw an event that I've seen on the screen, but never with my own eyes. I was looking through the window when I saw a square in the sky, a dark square and the square was moving, more like rolling, in the sky and the square became bigger and then smaller and then grew very wide and large and the little birds disappeared. Wow, a bird ballet just for us! it was a small and short performance but I am so thrilled I've seen it.

Monday, 27th of November.

Today we have only 350 km to go, so we got up around nine, had breakfast and decided to go at a leisurely pace because it was pouring and the sky looked grey as lead. We left the hotel at noon and drove almost the whole time in the rain. In places where it didn't rain, the clouds were hanging really low, a nice spectacle!

Mist and clouds embellish our trip.

When we got our tickets for the transfer, we checked on the cozy cafe where we spent the night last year, it was closed. Our ferry leaves at 6.30 am and we have to be there at 4.30 am so it is a bit ridiculous to spent a couple of hours in a hotel room; last year the time flew in the  very cozy cafe that is closed now. Nothing left than to pass the night sitting on bar chairs. Well, we have the whole of tomorrow to sleep and rest.

My husband waiting in the lounge.

Tuesday, 28th of November.

The crossing was uneventful. It took a 45 minutes to load the cars and another 45 minutes to arrange the trucks and the boat left with a loud toot, 90 minutes late. We went straight to bed, woke up in time before the restaurant closed, strolled around the ship but nothing to see, except water. The sea was calm, only small waves. There were not many people on board, maybe a 150 with some special characters among which a truck driver in his 60ties with long wavy bleached hair, someone with his beard braided, looking like Toutanchamon in shorts with slippers and it was barely 3°. We went sleeping early, still exhausted from the previous 24 hrs, to wake up early ready to leave the ship at 9 am.

Wednesday, 29th of November.

We were up on time, made our bags, left our cabin, delivered our keys and went for a coffee. We had plenty of time to savor our coffee and when the doors to the garage opened, we waited 30 min in the car and were able to leave the ferry. It took a long time to get out of the port and to the highway. A couple years ago, the ferry sailed through the Grand Canale and it was an experience to see San Marco square and its obelisks from above. Sadly, the ferry takes now another very boring route, almost nothing to see; only when there is fog is it worth to see. When 100 km on the highway, it started snowing, just enough to scare us. The snow continued intermittently  through the Dolomites and in Austria till we were at our destination in Germany. I could take some pictures while the car was going, but the windows weren't very clean but there were ,

Snow makes driving difficult.

Next week, hopefully in between curing our black olives, I 'll find time to make some chokers or necklaces for the coming festivities and some small leather goods you can give as a present to your loved ones or you can use them yourself.

See you next Thursday!