Lake Sculpture

One of our themes for riding around Lake Constance is the abundance of sculpture.  Last time at Lake Geneva was Freddie's statue at Montreux and the Fork in the lake. I had heard about a matching table and chairs in Lake Constance but we did not find that one. There were plenty of others though and fantasy at that.  It may have been at Konstanz as we did not see the whole town but we did find Imperia.

Fat Lady

Long legged Mermaids

holding a horse

Not sure what he's doing...

or her...

Many parts to this whole

Ship Spotting

I have been in charge the last few days so everyone here has been doing what I say.  I got someone like myself onto the plant watering which gave me time for window gazing. I spied the Triton SeaHawk going past. There are web pages that track ships and will also find ships and pinpoint their current position on a map. It told me it was docking near Geelong at 7:30 pm. It is a bulk cargo carrier built in 2011.   Not sure what the upright structure is for.  I have heard of train spotting and there was a guy back in the old MMBW days who would run outside trying to photograph a passing plane so he could identify it. Or you could just go to Air Traffic School and get paid to learn about planes.

Orchidist

Triton SeaHawk

Beach Walk

I have been having some cold feet issues. Trying to sort thru photos is a sit down job without much movement so I got up and checked out the beach.  There does not seem to be a jellyfish invasion like last year although there were a couple around. There is always something washing up and I spied an ugly critter.  I forgot to bring a bag for rubbish but it seemed fairly clear.

PS My phone has lost power. I will have to try something else to get it going.

PPS Hold the volume down button and the power button simultaneously for 15 sec. This restarts the phone.  On the last day of our Swiss ride the GoPro was stuck powered on. I had to do the same for 15 seconds but I did not find this out until after the ride finished.

They threatened but went away

Ugly

Leopold

We rode to the shops at Leopold and along the way I was thinking of Bugs Bunny being Leopold for some reason.  This was a 30km ride and we stepped it up due to our previous Swiss riding.  The country side did pass by easily, good weather helped. We went to Ollie's Cafe which we have used before. It is good there with muffins straight out of the oven and hi tech coffee machines as you can set a temperature for the coffee, eg 75°.

Developments

Ollie's

Hot Muffin

Leopold

SS Edina

The SS stands for Screw Steamer eg a steam engine drove a single propeller or screw. This ship was old and its last 60 yar or so was spent in Port Phillip Bay up until 1938.  We went to the Edina cafe for lunch and it was BarraSatdi for BarraMundi. Tasty it was as well, highly recommended. We had been here some few yar ago under a previous name. It has a good view of Port Arlington and handy if you are waiting for a ferry.

Barra on Rosti

Edina

Not quite stamps yet

Haven't had a look at any stamps since the return however I ran out of double sided pages before we left so the first thing I did was order a few more which arrived today.  One thing about stamp companies, they are always promoting their mission on envelopes and this one was covered by 52 stamps.  The way the photos and videos from the trip are piling up I wont get to any stamps for a while. In Barcelona we stumbled onto a fair selling coins and stamps. The English here was non existent but when I said bicyclette they started rummaging and I bought four packets from them.

PS I got my pirate photo in place now.

This lot was about 20€

Stand on Zanzibar

For some reason there are no photos in my camera so I will have to source another to fill in yesterday's post. I took one book away for the six weeks and the reading of it was very disjointed with gaps of two weeks then maybe time on a train or in a waiting room. As well, the style of this book was harder to read.  Ironically the main story line was always headed "Continuity" when I could never get continuous reading time.  The in between bits were a bit crazy, like trying to provide extra atmosphere by quoting a radio advert or snippets from a newspaper or just ramblings from someone on the street. Eventually you came to a "Continuity" section and the main story progressed.  In the end the world in this book was progressing in a similar way to the start of the story, so it must be about nothing.

Asher and the Pirate

Lasagne, Pumpkin soup and apple pie, the big three, doesn't get any better than that.  We handed over a few Europe knicknacks and discussed the travel adventures, including a few that were had in Bali in the last week.  Heidi even managed to win some grog along the way, two bottles of which we have in the boot.  I have a few photos but will have to put them up tomorrow.

AHHHH

Travel Notes

We make notes as we go and one of them was to try some of the food we found along the way when we got back home.  We had our fair share of pizza as they were easily shared.  We tried to get shareable meals every day. There were some days when we did not eat any evening meal. We did that four or five times after a particularly large lunch.  Debbie made a pizza with three eggs balanced on top.  She has never tried this before but it worked.

Lunch in Toulon France

Professional Pizza with eggs

Clifton Engineers

The day we left 6 weeks back, a series of trucks was rolling up to the beach access ramp.  Another deluge had previously dug a new trench thru the sand despite the work to clear the channel where the water was intended to go. This time a metal side wall has been placed and the rock wall removed.  Also a more porous drain has been placed beside the ramp. This will have no effect as I have not observed any runoff from this direction.  We eagerly await the next storm. Whilst on the inspection we did some shopping with the handy trolley that someone left. We got a bargain blue drum with some mussels and five bags of dog poo, which the laziest of dog walkers have left on the beach.

Dog Poo by the trolley load

Jet Lag Too Bad

For the first time we have traveled back without a stopover somewhere. It was 6 hours to Dubai with 3 hours in the Dubai airport and 13 hours to Melbourne. However the timing to arrive at 10:20 pm meant that we were in the hotel bed by 11:30pm so sleeping was allowed and we knew nothing until 9:00am.  So far today there has been no Lag problem. The unpacking is done but clothes washing is on hold as I have filled the line.  Next focus will be sorting some photos. A brief look shows around 150 photos taken per day.

Out of the front car window whilst moving

Lunching with the Planes

We had two hours at Flughafen before the gate opened and the timing was perfect for lunch so we found the Terrace Bar outside hovering over the tarmac. It seemed like a good idea, eating with the planes but when one came into a gate or left you knew about it. It was still interesting, although we have moved inside to try out the airport wifi. Those Gate Gourmet people are still putting food into planes even though they went bust in Australia. We flew into here two weeks ago and took a train out, then a train back in, then a car out and drove it back in. The Europecar people were a bit nonplussed when we took the car out one hour early. They adjusted the return time so we had to bring it back one hour early. We only just made it or another day was going to be charged.

No they are not all hospital planes

Schwarzsee

We walked into town to get some rolls but we also found these funny cigar shaped ham and cheese thingies.  We already had the picolos so were all set for a three hour ramble thru the low forests for lunch at the small Lake Schwarzsee.  These tracks were like roads and the only other traffic was the inevitable mountain bikes.  Our legs were sluggish after yesterday and there were some rolling hills in this walk with good views. The Swiss are super efficient and with money to burn. There are no park fees, no forms, no permissions needed. You walk on immaculate trails with rubbish bins disguised by wood. Fire places with wood stocked and stacked. A totally separate bin and bag system for dog poo. We emerged out of the forest right at the hotel after an 8km circuit and there was a polo match on a huge grass field. How can you afford to leave that much vacant land for horse polo? They never go from boiled lollies to chocolates, its always chocolates around here. Swiss chocolates.

Storm Washed Church

Lazy Lunch

Dog Poo only

Why are wooden blocks hanging from information boards?
How have the seven separate sheets remained intact? 

Piz Nair

Previously we had done lower level alpine traverses in Italy, Germany and Switzerland. This time we went to the top as far as the transport would take us. The hotel gave us travel tickets to go anywhere we wanted during the stay. OK then. First we took a cable car straight up from the Hotel. Walked across a bit to catch an alpine train which was steep. After that another cable car which took us to Piz Nair summit.  It was a bit cool but the sun was out and we started the long descent. Scenic is not the word.  We descended with many many stops. We had a champagne lunch at the head of Lake Suvretta. We saved one of the rolls and the third picolo for ron. The wild flowers came into it as well as we got further down. A satisfying day taking 7 hrs.  We looped back to the first cable car we had used at Signal Station. This took us down the last part to our Hotel.

Piz Nair summit - I saw one goat coming down

Wasn't expecting snow - we walked thru four patches

Swiss Alps

Mountain biker stuck in snow

Cool drinks

Flower burst

Lunch

Cold dip

Flower burst II

Kempinski Grand

We had a 3 hour drive to get to St Moritz and some of the small villages along the way were never meant to have cars thru their narrow streets.  St Moritz is spread out in a wide valley surrounded by mountains. This hotel is sprawling. Debbie worked her magic and got the room changed to a frontal down the valley view room with a balcony. The pool here is like some grand romanesque creation.

Kempinski

Mega Pool

Imperia

The harbours in these towns have signature sculptures on either side of the entrance. Imperia is a Lady who commands attention. She revolves on her spot in Konstanz, with the King in one hand and the Bishop in the other.  The woman who must be obeyed.  Our biking has finished and the last day of 38km was done before lunch, so we have been lazing away the afternoon.

Hotel Art

Imperia 

Stein am Rhein from across the way

Gottlieben

The narrow gap between the Untersee and the Undersee happens here at Gottlieben.  We are looking out on the channel and the boat traffic is consistent. The main town nearby is Konstanz which we are not going to see this time around.  We swam, then we sat on a concrete slope into the water. This was a swimming access area.  We arrived here after a leisurely ride of 38 km. We seemed to have  time to spare so our riding must be improving.  We moved to a bench seat and consumed the compulsory bottle of champagne.

Concrete Beach

Mansion along the way

Gottlieber Hotel

BBB Bad

Today's ride was a bit longer than planned as I had arranged to stay at Hotel Bad Horn but this is actually 7 or 8 km out of Rorshach. PS I am looking up here and I can see two Zeppelins in the air right now.  We left Lindau around 10:00 am and the going to Bregenz was easier than I thought as this is the biggest city on the Lake. They have an incredible stadium where they stage water based productions. We started in Germany, rode thru Austria and are now sitting here in Switzerland again, and that was just today. The route took us across the Rhein Delta in a meandering path across three key bridges.

The past our bedtime view

Bregenz current production

Bregenz previous production

The Rhein runs into Lake Constance