Pizza and Schnitzel

We made the 2 hour drive from Innsbruck to Bolzano in Northern Italy yesterday no problem, the views of the Alps were amazing. We set up camp and then departed on a drive I had read about through the Dolomite Mountain range. Perhaps a little cocky with our car but my thinking was if we didn't do these drives we may as well have taken trains.

I expected it to be a drive like going through the Rockies, steep in places but mostly fine and breathtaking. I also expected the 200km round trip to be around 4 hours. Well this drive was more than I bargained for. It quickly became like driving up a ski hill over and over again, which it was. We did countless hairpin turns up mountain sides, countless as in multiple hundred not dozens. We drove through so many beautiful ski villages, each one would make for an amazing week in the Alps. The views were second to none an something we will never forget, but the road was too much for the car.

After 4 hours we reached halfway and I was stressing a bit, really hoping we wouldn't have to go back that way. We did find a slightly easier return, but still over 2 hours and with plenty of steep climbs and descents. When dark hit in the middle of the mountains we really knew a breakdown would be a real shitter. Long story short we made it back to our site after 6 hours of emotional highs and lows. After sleeping on it I of course feel like it was worth it, but the brakes now squeal and the tranny made some new noises, warning light flashed a bit too. Poor little car.

As more well read people than myself will already know, this area of Italy was part of Austria for 700 years up until the end of WW1. All the signs are in German and Italian, all the villages we drove through were very German looking, and everyone at our camp ground speaks German. The menu last night had only pizza and schnitzel on it. It's very strange to think about an entire region with so many people changing hands less than 100 years ago. The signs of how recent it is are very obvious.

Personally I'm glad it's Italy because if it were still Austria they'd probably charge me another €128 for 40km of autobahn driving through a country that was just in my way. Bastards.

-Justin

Awww, Austria!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. No, really today has been much more good than bad. The highlight for me being seeing mountains for the first time in almost a year. This might not seem all that exciting to you spoiled Canadians out there, but England has NO mountains. Zero. They have some large hills, granted, but the south west of Germany and now Austria have proper big rocky jagged beautiful bountiful mountain. Ah, it has made me feel so at home.

The past two days in Munich (Munchen) have been really great as well. We booked a 15 bed room in a hostel and ended up having a 4 bed room with ensuite for both nights to ourselves. We drank 1L beers in a real brew haus called Hofbrauhaus, where we made friends with a few Americans and an Aussie. We walked around a beautiful park; I had no idea Munich had so much nature. And drank at a few more biergartens along the way. We both really enjoyed the city, and I found both Cologne and Munich to be very liveable places. I really liked Germany. Go there.

Also a major highlight so far has been visiting the Neuschwanstein today- it's probably the most impressive castle I will ever see. It's rumored to be the one Disney based all their cases off of. Pretty romantic. Justin had been wanting to see it for a while and we got to do a proper hike up to it which felt really good. It was better than a picture, well maybe just our pictures, can portray.

And then we entered Austria and got pulled over by the police and fined €120. So our budget is blown for a while. To be honest, we knew there was an €8 road tax in Austria, and were fully prepared to pay it, but we thought it would be like a toll booth. Apparently not. You have to buy it at a gas station when entering the country. Stupid tourists.
Anyways our campsite here in Innsbruck is lovely; mountains on one side and a city view on the other. Probably not worth €150, but hey, who's keeping track. (me).

Love you all.
Gen

Made it to Munich

We've just arrived from Cologne and the Micra actually survived another 600km, despite 2 hours of bumper to bumper transmission abuse on the motorway. It's fine when we're cruising along but coming to a stop is a nerve racking clunk and grind as it down shifts. Anyone's guess how many more of those it takes to kill it.

I've been dreaming of driving the autobahn longer than I've even been driving, and in none of those daydreams was I putting along in the slow lane at 100km/h in a car on its last breath. It was pretty intense timing when to pass a lorry without impeding a high end sports car doing 200. I guess I can't cross everything off my bucket list this time around. I'll be renting a Porsche on my next trip down the autobahn.

Cologne was not on our short list of must visits but it was conveniently located on our way and made sense to stop. I'm really glad we did. Our campground was only 7km and a short tram ride from the centre of the city, with it's amazing cathedral and numerous brewpubs. The Rhein river ran past our campground and through the city, and was just beautiful, countless sandy beaches and treed areas perfect for an evening beer and sunset.

I hadn't expected to skate much, but did bring my board and Cologne happened to have probably the best skate plaza I've ever seen right on the river which was a nice surprise and some well needed time on the board.

We met a couple of very entertaining Germans at our campground last night. They were in their 40s and celebrating their anniversary with a weekend in Cologne and a lot of wine. They insisted we drink with them and enjoy an evening of broken English, local knowledge and palm reading. It was memorable to say the least, but they were both great and it was awesome to socialise with some locals.

I picked a metro station arbitrarily outside of Munich to park the car and head into the city to our hostel which worked out great. Free parking right outside and avoided all traffic. Now we've got a couple days to see what Munich has to offer.

Oh, and if anyone isn't sick of our photos we've both been using instagram a bit if you're on there and wanna search our names.

-Justin

You Say Cologne, I Say Köln

Well the little Micra made it to Gremany. We are camping for 2 nights along the Rhine river in a little suburb outside of the city and then will head to Munich on Saturday where we have booked a hostel for another 2 nights. That will be the first time we attempt to find parking outside the city and train in. Should be exciting?

Already I can tell the language barrier is a bit more serious here than the other countries we have visited. We followed our campground's directions to get into the city (where we currently are using wifi for as long as we can) but it was more by fluke we made it here. I can only imagine what the coming days will bring.

Now off to look up some common German phrases before wifi time is up!

Gen

Day 2

We're on our second night at our campground in Bruges. It is technically camping, but in a way I have never done nor expected to ever do. We are a short bus ride to the centre of Bruges, we are near no body of water and in close proximity to our neighbors. There is wifi available and clean toilets and showers. This isn't camping.

It is however a pretty affordable way to bum around Europe. Not really cheap, but €20 for 2 people to sleep and 24 hours of parking isn't too bad. I think we'll be alternating between this and hostels as long as we have the car.

Genevieve has set a budget goal of €50 a day, but I think we will more likely be doubling that on the regular. It'll be a fun cop/sourpuss cop scenario.

Bruges is beautiful, almost unnaturally so. The buildings and canals are so photogenic. It's sort of similar to Rhodes Town mixed with Amsterdam with its old stone streets and canals, but it's so much more pristine and with no unoccupied or unkept buildings. The place looks a little bit fairytale.

We're off to Cologne tomorrow morning, if we can get another 400km's out of the Micra. Topped up the gearbox oil before we left and it sounds a little better, but expectations are still quite low. The local mechanic didn't have much faith it would even get to Dover, and I don't think either of us expect him to get a postcard from Sicily.

-Justin

In Bruges

We made it to Belgium and will be spending two nights camping near Bruges. The ferry ride over to France was pretty awesome- we are so used to taking BC ferries it was nice to be on one so different. There was only a small outside deck so that wasn't great, but the shopping and bars on the inside far surpassed any short trip ferry I've been in so far.
Justin has been pretty impressed that we travelled through 3 countries all before noon today. I don't think our. Canadian sense of distance will ever get used to how close things are here.
Anyways that's my quick update!
Gen

Goodbye Wimbledon

It's our last day in our flat in Wimbledon. We are all packed up, and tomorrow will have the inspection and hand over the keys. It feels like it snuck up on us quite quickly, and we are sad to leave, but we have quite the adventure ahead of us.

A Shotgun First

Last night we had a bit of a send off party. Thank you so much to everyone who came. It was lots of fun to have a bit of a piss up, and we felt so happy to have you all here with us. I made some traditional 'Canadian' food... french onion chip dip, poutine, kraft dinner, and ranch dressing. We also had the caesars flowing, and Hailee even made a delicious cucumber & gin version. It was all quite unhealthy and not very classy -  just the way a good party should be.

On Tuesday we head out on a bit of a European adventure. We plan on driving, and also plan for the car to break down; It has a problem with the gearbox and apparently will stop working at any time. We've bought travel backpacks and extra car insurance to tow us to the nearest mechanic to prepare for it (where we will then get it scrapped). We have a plan B sorted but both really hope we can drive and camp for a while before we have to backpack and train around.

We are going to drive through Belgium and Germany to get to Italy where we will motor around the entire coast of the country. If the car fails we will fly to Italy and do everything on foot. To be honest at this point we are just hoping that the car makes it to Danny and Hailee's with all our stuff tomorrow. One day at a time...

It occurred to me yesterday that many moons ago my birthday would be falling on the first day of school. This year, instead of school, I'm starting a crazy trip that I'm sure will provide me with lessons that I will look back on and learn from for many years to come. I'm excited, and a little scared to learn those lessons.

We'll try and update our blog often just so those of you that worry (our parents) will know where we are and that we are safe.

Send our car positive vibes if you think of it. We need all the help we can get.

Gen

*** Update: We made it to Hailee and Danny's.