1994 Neustift

Wed 1994-07-20 {14709}

Up at 5h, leave at 6h, getting to Gatwick (South) at ~7h. Via A-roads & Reigate as father doesn't like the M25 route. No problems, despite it being a train-strike day. My bag searched comprehensively, but no response from the walk-through. Out by Air UK Leisure charter flight LEI6129, after the usual unnecessary long wait in the departure lounge. Long walk from there to the 'gate'. Plane away about 1h late at 10h BST, arriving at Salzburg at ~12h30 CET. Only 3 jets on the tarmac at Salzburg, all smaller than us. Quickly through the terminal. Lots of Inghams guides, even in the baggage reclaim area. They know we're not on the coach, so our "welcome pack" is at the hotel instead. Collect car easily, it's not group A (Polo 1.3) as ordered, but a B, an Astra 1.4i, white. Extra for 2 drivers. Visa. Got it out of the crowded car park, & away OK. It's a tiny airport, you can see everything, & only one loop of access road. Missed direction, headed towards Vienna at first, but easily rectified at the next junction. Driving ~13h->16h, about 190km. Soon cross into Germany, & on stopping at the queue for the frontier, a German Audi ran into the back of us - fortunately no damage was visible to either car, so we just ignored it. \phi drove all the way. Passport checked at both crossings, out and back into Austria. Stopped for refreshment at service kiosk just into Austria at the second crossing, but still DM needed for machines, I changed my 20DM note to coins at the exchange counter. Heavy rain for part of the journey, generally dull. Still raining slightly when we found the hotel, easily, on the "main" road thro' Neustift. 50Sch toll for the last bit of autobahn. Little walk after settling into Hotel Stubaier-Hof (room 107, 1st floor, balcony + hall, separate bedroom, WC & bathroom, wooden carved panelling, mouldings on the ceiling, lamp brackets modelled on sprays of flowers, "inspect the business" wash-across bog, decent deep bath, if a little short. Radio alarm, telephone, TV with satellite). Hotel rate is 600Sch summer & 950Sch winter, half-board. Dinner time, descend for a couple of beers (one each, I mean) then to our table for the week. Shared with just-retired couple who've been to most places & have a fund of stories. Dinner: buffet, soup, barbecue, zither player. Dull & more rain, but warm. Good view of the mountains from the bedroom window, but the road is busy, so it's noisier than Lenk was. Bought a 1:50000 map of the area. Eve, clouds half-way down the mountains, rain, cars swishing past, warm enough to have all the windows open. Next to an Aus girl on the plane, a 737, about 170 seats, 3+3 across. Basic food & service on this charter airline. Car has a sunroof & central locking with deadlocks, & an RDS radio. Lots of Inghams people around, & everything seems to have been organised efficiently. Car from Avis.

Thu 1994-07-21 {14710}

Our first continental breakfast, meat, cheese, bread, rolls, unsalted creamy butter, juice, coffee. Also muesli, prunes & that sort of thing for those that like it. To an Inghams meeting at Hotel Hoferwirt, mostly fogies, the guide a young woman with very round vowels (eg "bowles") - Deirdre. Exchanged voucher for Venice ticket. Then up the local chair-lift (2-seaters, bar in front, optional plastic bubble cover, small foot-rest dangling below) up 11er ("Elfer") - "Zwelfer" appears to be due S of the church, so suppose called after 12-o'clock alignment. 11er is a bit before that, presumably about 11 o'clock. 1000m at Neustift, 1800m at top of lift. Walk about a bit, watching the paragliders & exploring the more level paths, then down. ~6km along to go down 800m, warm, but little sunshine. Humid at ground (valley) level, fresh at the top. Chairs stopped now & then, as fixed to rope, & stopped when eg supplies put onto the occasional flat (for the restaurant at the top). Blisters on the way down (\phi). Mostly road down, accessible to 4wd vehicles, but last part diverted from the road & a scramble down a path. Aft in hotel, recovering & reading. Substantial dinner, after a beer, pate in chou, soup, salad, pork in beer sauce (or smoked pork with sauerkraut) vanilla cream (superb) with advocaat or such like at the bottom. Hotel tariff of 600Sch half board is consistent with what we're paying. Used Eurocheque card in local till with no problems, to get out another 2500Sch. Paragliders jumping off the local mountains, at roughly the top of the cable car, or ~200m above, & landing in the valley. Lots of them. Eve walk for exercise after dinner, hobbling on the blisters. Staff very efficient & friendly, even observed sniffing wine corks. We had a carafe of house - recommended bottles were ~13L. Chair lift 110Sch for up only [~17Sch = 1L will do]. Table to ourselves at dinner, as others to concert in Innsbruck. They were at breakfast, & we saw them going up on the lift as we were about starting to walk down. At breakfast, presented with a menu & a pen, to select preference for evening. But they also ask again eve, & it's not clear if there's a compulsion to have what you've chosen. You are expected to sit at the same place every day, for breakfast & dinner. Breakfast & dinner being so substantial, there's little need for lunch. Boots OK, but dunno if the blisters are caused by going downhill for 6km, or the boots. Started only about half-way down. No rain, but cloudy by eve. But still warm.

Fri 1994-07-22 {14711}

Hot & sunny all day. Both still stiff after yesterday. In the car, up the valley (up another 800m), then by cable-car to 2900m on the glacier (150Sch ea). People skiing on the glacier, being tugged up by a ski pull (T-bars on extending ropes). Also walking up in a long crocodile to the top (3200m, we didn't). Sat around looking at the wild terrain at the end of the glacier. (Asked to press the shutter for a German foursome.) Air probably about 5degC, but feels very hot in the sun. Huge machine with crawler tracks smoothing the snow & officials on a snow-mobile. This cable car a 2-rope one, one running, one hauling, with the cars running off the rope at the terminal & middle stations. After that, out the other way, & under the Europa bridge, some pix from a lay-by. But very hot down at this level (32degC by the car's data display). Bought some drink & food at a shop, then ate it in the hotel in the cool. Later walk along to a cafe for a beer. Aft dinner to post cards, & back past a wind-band concert at the bandstand. Then liqueurs in the room (Hazelnut cream, from the supermarket). \theta drove to the glacier, \phi the rest. Saw lots of Puntos, a Cinquecento & a Twingo. Lots of Chrysler people-carriers about (Voyager?). Beer in cafe is 31Sch for 500cm^3 (~1L80). Still warm & clear at 21h20, tho' thunderstorms were mentioned by last-night's forecast.

Sat 1994-07-23 {14712}

348km, 228Sch @ 10.12Sch/litre [60p/l for 94 octane unleaded] ~22.5l -> 6.8l/100km (~41mi/UKgall). Breakfast alone (others later) then off by car. Drive down into Innsbruck, around the W side, then up again to a car park between Norkettenbahn & Hungerbergbahn. Go down on the funicular into Innsbruck, & head off in a random direction. Find a shop, buy a map, then head for the town centre. Busy, large centre, but clean, and in one street exceptionally so, with mostly trams & trolley buses, no cars, & only a few diesel buses. Had a mineral water in a cafe on a sort of traffic island in this street. Didn't actually find the part I remembered, the tram concourse (perhaps that was a different trip - will have to check the photos) but it looked familiar. Mountains visible at both sides. Very hot & humid (up to 32degC on car's thermometer at the 500m (Innsbruck) to 1000m (Neustift) 'level'), so, onto a No.1 tram [36Sch for 2] to the funicular station, & back up (~90Sch for 2, return, the car well-filled on the way back up). The track curves sideways in places, & the 2 cars pass in the middle, a symmetrical passing loop with points. Each leg of the rope has its own pulleys, which allows them to curve, & to diverge at the passing place. Pulleys slope appropriately at curves & junctions. There's a station for the zoo halfway between the base & the mid-point. Then onto the cable car up to the top (440Sch for 2 both ways). The first stage (of the Norkettenbahn) goes to Seegrube (860->1805m), the second to Hafelekar (2300m). First stage is 2 cars, about 30 people per car, each on a running rope, with a hauling rope linking the two, with intermediate piers. One up, one down. Docking stations have lead-in wooden buffers, the middle part of which changes sides depending on which car is due, so that there is always a platform on both sides of the car, one for loading & one for unloading. The second stage is just a single car on a running rope, with a small counterweight running on the other end of the hauling rope, on a parallel, thinner, running rope. No piers on this one, just one stretch. Cool at the top, about 15degC, but 80% humidity. Bearable, compared to down below! Had a light lunch up here in the restaurant. Then a look from the observation balcony outside, until the dark clouds started to gather & the sun went in. So down again (with many others), a quick look round at the mid-station, & down again. Then reverse the car journey back to the hotel. Still hot, but not as hot. Later, around dinner, the thunder started, & a little rain, but nothing very heavy (yet, at 20h35). Get a little of the cricket on 9410kHz World Service. S Africa are about 300 up in their second innings, with about 3 wickets down. Good views down onto Innsbruck from the hair-pin descent from the Brenner pass road (but the view from the mountain was better). Finished a 24-exp in my cheapo camera. Later - a decent storm.

Sun 1994-07-24 {14713}

Hot & sunny again. Order early breakfast & lunch-pack for tomorrow. Lone breakfast again. Out in the car towards the glacier, stopping at a quiet spot, with mountain view, rocks to sit on, pinetrees for shade, a little brook a-gurgling & cows clanging away at the grass & clover. And no-one else. Lie in & out of the sun, reading & lazing. One other car stopped, briefly, at the same spot. Later back to Neustift for beer & ice-cream at a cafe. Austria appears to be changing car registrations. Old ones typically Tnnn nnn. New is A[A] nnn--, where the 1st letters are district (I- Innsbruck, IL- Innsbruck Lande, eg) the rest appears to be a random alphanumeric group, often referring to something, eg the paraglider school has IL-PARA1 on its Espace. I've also seen MARYn. It's not PSV & others, as some buses have the new & (a very few) cars have the old. Most cars here are D, I or A, then NL, CH, a few F, a couple of H, 3 GBs, one S. Seen one SLO (Slovakia? Slovenia?) & one N Irish. By far the biggest slice of the foreign tourist trade is D. Thunder later. Tomorrow's breakfast & lunch pack arrived in the room while we were having dinner.

Mon 1994-07-25 {14714}

Venice day. Up at 5h, breakfast in room, leave 5h45. On coach in central square by 6h20. Deirdre is there to count us away. Cool. Then coach meanders to Igls to collect another batch, & guide Linzi, an anorexic in a short skirt, dyed hair, & dozens of bangles. But able to talk all the way there. Set off down Brenner autobahn & various others (autostrada, I suppose) to Venice. One stop for a pee, then another at 200 lira. Money changed on coach at 2200l=1L (20L for 2 recommended) + free 200l change for the 2nd pee stop (left by last week's outing, & so on). Also take 200Sch for boat transfer ("optional", but there's not really any other way in) & 120Sch ea for a gondola trip (genuinely optional). Getting hot by then. Arrive at big coach park (Trenchetto) at ~12h, get off coach - then is it hot! ~35degC & blazing all day. Appreciate coach, air-conditioned, which felt just 'hot', bearing no relation to outside. Coach also has cruise control, 8 gears, lots of power, fridge, decent (reclining) seats, WC, &c &c. 2 drivers, Sep (Guiseppe) most of the way, & Hans for part of the way back. From car park, meet another 2-deck load of Inghams with another guide, & share a motor boat transfer to the main island, ~35mins. Even hotter! [There is in fact a land link, but no motor (wheeled) vehicles in Venice, & it's a long walk!]. Land on main frontage, even hotter & very crowded with all nationalities. Walk as a crocodile along front to St Marks Square, & then left to our own devices for ~13h..16h15. We looked at square, then headed for cool in the back streets, very narrow, crowded, but out of the sun all day. Meandered a bit, ending up at the Rialto. Most of our lira on buying cold mineral water, essential, at about 2000l (nearly 1L) per 0.5l. Then round by another route to St Marks, & into the park to cool off under a tree. Then stroll along the front, it's cool eating an ice-lolly under a tree there, out of the sun & in maximum breeze. Everything is damp. Put the map in my pocket, & it's puckered up as if dunked. From there to the Basilica (let in, unlike a lot of Yanks, as we were not wearing skimpy shorts), but it was oppressively hot there as well, & almost too dark to see, despite changing sun specs for clear ones. After than, we went back to the park, then a bit of shopping in the side streets for glass gondola, then congregate in the square for the gondola trip (at 16h15). 6 per boat, about a couple of dozen of them, for 30 mins on a trip along narrow canals from S Moise church, past S Salvador, onto the Grand canal by the Rialto, then back via Rio di S Luca to starting place. A bit cooler on these narrow waterways, a bit desolate too, lots of dark, anonymous passages, closed-up buildings, a bit eerie, quiet compared to the bustle elsewhere. But lots of boats, causing a gondola-jam. A few (aggressive) small motor boats as well on these little ways. Rowing is strange, the oar goes back & forth, & the propulsion comes from a little flick. The back stroke is usually in the water, with the blade turned edge-on. The boat is unsymmetrical, to suit rowing on one side only. Very manoeuvrable. Our man, a joker, sang "macaroni, spaghetti", &c. On boat with family from Bristol, father, mother, daughter &, presumably, her boyfriend. Congregate again at 17h15 to follow Linzi & her umbrella back to the boat, the coach, & the relief of air-conditioning again. Cool beers &c waiting on the coach as well. A quiz on the way back; gave the combined ages of the 2 drivers & guide as >150! Less chat on return. Stop for meal at motorway self-service (we had pasta & salad + local Soave wine), then on in the dark. We were dropped at Shoenberg services to be taken to Neustift in a taxi & a couple of minibuses, while the coach went on to drop at Igls. Back to the hotel at 23h30, & in through the back door. Lunch eaten in coach before Venice. Prices rapidly decrease away from St Marks Square. Little restaurants with tables in the narrow streets. Streets suddenly ending in waterways & vv. Can't walk anywhere in a straight line. Not a car anywhere on the island, just people, a very strange experience. Saw only one Cinquecento in Italy. Very smoothly organised throughout, tho' it cost a minimum of about 25L each above the "free trip to Venice" offered, inc meals &c. Next time, don't do Venice in July! But cooler later in the day, as the sun was lower & more shade could be found, & there was a little more breeze. Pigeon shitted on the back of my shirt. Waved thro' at all 4 customs points (A & I, out & back), but coach had to pay a tax going into Italy. Other guide fatter & more ordinary (Helen?), also younger. Loos in Venice 500l ("men come to the front please, no queue for men") (provided you wanted the urinals, the WCs were common, like the French). Loos in the grill coming back were free, but men's only 2*WC, so a bit of a queue there. Also a long queue to get food, as both coaches in at once. For quick-service part of services in Italy, pay first, get a ticket, then collect food/drink from bar. Usu a supermarket there as well, & the only way out is right through it. Even Venetian market stall holders have cellphones, clipped to the back of their stalls. The coach driver was using one extensively while driving in Austria.

Tue 1994-07-26 {14715}

Last full day. Late enough to see the others at breakfast. Up the local mountain again (but return ticket this time). Sunshine, on & off, with clouds forming over the peaks. Sit & admire the scenery from a few different vantage points for several hours, then descend, lunch (beer, pizza (\phi) sausage & ice-cream (\theta)) at cafe, to the M-Preis supermarket for chocolates & booze gifts (something odd & blue for R), then relax. Dull by then, overcast but still hot. First roll of thunder at 16h20. Lots of rain later.

Wed 1994-07-27 {14716}

Home-going day. Saw others at breakfast, paid 590Sch hotel extras bill by Eurocheque, into car & away, \phi driving. Hot already, up to 30degC by the queue for the D->Austrian border post. Drop the car at the airport (rental car park still full) & ask advice from Inghams rep. Leave cases in left-luggage (ie just behind the heavy steel door at the end, in the baggage handling area) & take taxi into the centre of Salzburg (100Sch flat - ancient blonde hag in a big Merc). Look around, photograph, eat ice-cream &c. Hot. Taxi goes right into the centre thro' crowds of people. No other cars in this bit. Lots of Americans. Taxi back again (108Sch this time, on the meter) then start a long wait. Tried BT Chargecard (022 903 044) from payphone in airport. Put in 1Sch, got thro' the operator bits, got ringing tone, then cut off. Lunch in the restaurant, looking over the tarmac. Few aircraft, except 4 there for 1900..1930 flights, each arriving about 1h before. Other flights all little propeller things. (These 4 jet flights were 3 * 737 Air UK Leisure, 1 Manchester, 2 Gatwick, & one Monarch A320 for Gatwick.) 700 people all at once! Cock-up when our exit door was used just before we boarded for a tiddly plane to Hamburg. Our 150-odd headed for the exit, & they had some difficulty finding the half-dozen for Hamburg. Took off about 30 mins late. No-one in the green channel. There was also a blue ('EC') channel, but of course we're not coming from an EC country (yet!). Father there waiting.