From Wuerzburg, we started our journey south and ended up in Strasburg – the little stint into France had nothing to do with country-box-ticking ( honestly…) but was more driven by bad weather and finances. The rain made tenting a little unattractive and southern German accommodation prices are pretty horrendous for the budget traveller (or so we thought before entering Switzerland which is in its very own league of horrendous but more of that later). Strasburg was beautiful and and not dissimilar to Colmar which was even quainter with its little canals and half timbered constructions. From there, we visited the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein which took David by surprise – from not even wanting to go in for lack of interest, he was most enthusiastic about chosing future office furniture and the most comfortable lounge chair ever…
In Basel we were very lucky to be guided around by my friend Sabina who was very skillful in taking us to places we could just about still afford – Switzerland being one of the most expensive countries we have ever been to… After a beautiful day in Lucern we headed south to Lugano passing through the St. Gotthard tunnel – with 17km the longest either of us had ever ever driven through. The idea to take the scenic ‘high road’ over the pass came just after the turn off but at least we got value from the one year motorway vignette we had to purchase on entering the country!
In Lugano we met up with another old friend, Beni, and her cute little daughter Beatrice who showed us one of the best spots to look down on Lago Lugano and the city – funny enough it looked very much like Wellington from up there so we felt right at home!
We b-lined it home to Graz in a very long day, interrupted only by a whirlwind tour of beautiful Padua. The reason for the b-line was a pile of packages waiting for David from Amazon filled with bike stuff for his tour of Slovinia and Croatia – just like Christmas…
David spent a busy week sorting out his equipment and I spent a busy week sorting out school stuff.
Sofia and Liam started Austrian school and preschool last Monday and we are really proud of how great their attitude towards this new part of their ‘journey’ has been. Liam was so excited about his first day that he dressed himself in his school clothes the evening before and slept in them so he could get there faster in the morning. He walked into his new kindie without looking back, is already popular with the girls and has several friends and Sofia equally loves her new school and instantly made friends with a couple of other newbies. It could not have gotten off to a better start!
Two days after school started, David finally set off on his adventure down south from where he is going to resume reporting – since this is a travel blog, at least one of us has to keep up the traveling!
