It can’t always be the best..
It was the nineties comedy ‘Game On’, where in one particular episode the main character Matthew declares ‘There is a time to surf, and there is a time to wax your board’. I still find myself quoting that at times.
Today was a time to wax the board. Not every day is going to be a classic; some days you just have to get on with it. If there was a sign to summarise this day, this would pretty much be it:
It started well. Again I was up with the larks. Awake before 6am and listening to a podcast. I decide to go out for a walk in the morning sunshine. Still early..
After a good breakfast and our taking forever to pay the bill with a very confused hotel owners wife we make out to the road. Today is Sunday. Quite warm here now.
On the road it is fairly busy.
I create a new entry for my ‘Ramble Glossary of Motorcycling’. I call it the ‘Fucknugget Cluster’. No, we’re not talking some healthy breakfast cereal or tasty chocolate treat.
Nope, not that.
What I’m referring to here is groups of motorcyclists, riding along together in a tight knitted formation, some of them obviously way too cool for school, but riding as though the district synchronised riding examiner is lurking in a hedgerow somewhere, scoring them on their synchronised riding ability and general all round cool. Brian and I chat later- what on earth do you get out of riding like that? It just seems totally bizarre. Each to their own I suppose - or each to their group. Whatever.
And there’s lots of groups of said clusters. Lots and lots. Sunday is cluster club day. Woop de do.
The day so far is generally unremarkable. We need to cross into Austria and to do so join up with the A7 Autobahn to head in. Things are fairly clear on the road and we clap sight of the glorious Alps, they gradually loom larger as time ticks by. As we hit the mountain, the tunnel links in to the Austrian route 179 and the traffic is stopped well before we get through to the end of the motorway. We tippy toe on, through the traffic, amongst various groups of fucknugget clusters, through the disgruntled occupants of motorhomes, the bored on coaches, the po-faced occupants of Audis with Thule roof boxes and yet more clusterfolk.
There are no accidents or anything to note, it seems it is just Sunday and this is volume of traffic- well, we guess. It’s now hot and miserable on the road and that manifests itself with some bad temepered motoring.
An afternoon petrol stop in Austria, and no sooner are we filling up, that we are joined by the daddy of all clusters, complete with assistant Road Captain who directs in the hoards of Harley Davidsons and their pilots in their sweaty bondage gear to their landing points. That puts the tin hat on it. Christ, let’s get this day over with. At least it didn’t rain yet, I suppose.
In fairness things do improve. Well, a bit. We head up into the mountains now, but roads still pretty busy. It just seems there’s no way around it. It is Sunday afternoon and Austria has taken to the tarmac. I try to get a sticker at Obergurgl (there’s a particular Steptoe and Son episode I like which makes mention of it), but Obergurgl is very much closed.
We take a run up the Timmelsjoch Pass, fairly unremarkable on the way up to the museum.
14 Euros gets you past the booth (eventually) for a trundle over and down the other side. It certainly improves but there’s lots and lots of traffic.
I did get a sticker or two.
We make our way down towards our destination. Crikey it is bleedin’ hot. I’ve forgotten my sunscreen this afternoon and I’m a tad red faced as we skirt into Italy and the town of Vipetino. Let’s get today over with.
We don’t have a hotel booked today, and our usual go to of booking.com isn’t showing much. Brian takes to the role of accommodation bloodhound and manages to find us a nice spot a short walk from town.
Much needed.
I break the general (but occasionally flouted) domestic beer rule. It was worth breaking the rule today.. yep, this really did hit the spot. And there was a promise of German bier, right?
Vipetino is actually very nice. Actually very Austrian though. It’d be hard to tell it was Italy at all if you didn’t know it was.
Trying to stick with the theme of eat local, we talked last night about how we’d be in Italy tonight and therefore a Pizza would seem to be the order of the day. We find a rather odd restaurant come tennis club (I think it was called Match Point, or something like that) and are seated in a pretty busy place for dinner.
Good starter…
.. and very good Pizza
Verdict: The odd tennis restaurant serves up an ace.
A stroll back and so to bed.
It was the nineties comedy ‘Game On’, where in one particular episode the main character Matthew declares ‘There is a time to surf, and there is a time to wax your board’. I still find myself quoting that at times.
Today was a time to wax the board. Not every day is going to be a classic; some days you just have to get on with it. If there was a sign to summarise this day, this would pretty much be it:
It started well. Again I was up with the larks. Awake before 6am and listening to a podcast. I decide to go out for a walk in the morning sunshine. Still early..
After a good breakfast and our taking forever to pay the bill with a very confused hotel owners wife we make out to the road. Today is Sunday. Quite warm here now.
On the road it is fairly busy.
I create a new entry for my ‘Ramble Glossary of Motorcycling’. I call it the ‘Fucknugget Cluster’. No, we’re not talking some healthy breakfast cereal or tasty chocolate treat.
Nope, not that.
What I’m referring to here is groups of motorcyclists, riding along together in a tight knitted formation, some of them obviously way too cool for school, but riding as though the district synchronised riding examiner is lurking in a hedgerow somewhere, scoring them on their synchronised riding ability and general all round cool. Brian and I chat later- what on earth do you get out of riding like that? It just seems totally bizarre. Each to their own I suppose - or each to their group. Whatever.
And there’s lots of groups of said clusters. Lots and lots. Sunday is cluster club day. Woop de do.
The day so far is generally unremarkable. We need to cross into Austria and to do so join up with the A7 Autobahn to head in. Things are fairly clear on the road and we clap sight of the glorious Alps, they gradually loom larger as time ticks by. As we hit the mountain, the tunnel links in to the Austrian route 179 and the traffic is stopped well before we get through to the end of the motorway. We tippy toe on, through the traffic, amongst various groups of fucknugget clusters, through the disgruntled occupants of motorhomes, the bored on coaches, the po-faced occupants of Audis with Thule roof boxes and yet more clusterfolk.
There are no accidents or anything to note, it seems it is just Sunday and this is volume of traffic- well, we guess. It’s now hot and miserable on the road and that manifests itself with some bad temepered motoring.
An afternoon petrol stop in Austria, and no sooner are we filling up, that we are joined by the daddy of all clusters, complete with assistant Road Captain who directs in the hoards of Harley Davidsons and their pilots in their sweaty bondage gear to their landing points. That puts the tin hat on it. Christ, let’s get this day over with. At least it didn’t rain yet, I suppose.
In fairness things do improve. Well, a bit. We head up into the mountains now, but roads still pretty busy. It just seems there’s no way around it. It is Sunday afternoon and Austria has taken to the tarmac. I try to get a sticker at Obergurgl (there’s a particular Steptoe and Son episode I like which makes mention of it), but Obergurgl is very much closed.
We take a run up the Timmelsjoch Pass, fairly unremarkable on the way up to the museum.
14 Euros gets you past the booth (eventually) for a trundle over and down the other side. It certainly improves but there’s lots and lots of traffic.
I did get a sticker or two.
We make our way down towards our destination. Crikey it is bleedin’ hot. I’ve forgotten my sunscreen this afternoon and I’m a tad red faced as we skirt into Italy and the town of Vipetino. Let’s get today over with.
We don’t have a hotel booked today, and our usual go to of booking.com isn’t showing much. Brian takes to the role of accommodation bloodhound and manages to find us a nice spot a short walk from town.
Much needed.
I break the general (but occasionally flouted) domestic beer rule. It was worth breaking the rule today.. yep, this really did hit the spot. And there was a promise of German bier, right?
Vipetino is actually very nice. Actually very Austrian though. It’d be hard to tell it was Italy at all if you didn’t know it was.
Trying to stick with the theme of eat local, we talked last night about how we’d be in Italy tonight and therefore a Pizza would seem to be the order of the day. We find a rather odd restaurant come tennis club (I think it was called Match Point, or something like that) and are seated in a pretty busy place for dinner.
Good starter…
.. and very good Pizza
Verdict: The odd tennis restaurant serves up an ace.
A stroll back and so to bed.