Tag: Cable Cars

Agitation Celebration

by Living Wherever We Are, posted in Embracing Uncertainty, Life Lessons, Travel, World Travel
Heading into Innsbruck, Austria the thing we all looked forward to the most?  Clean clothes.  Packing for our trip had been minimal and being that my super power is my keen sense of smell we were now desperately begging for a little clothing agitation.  The past several locations NO public laundromats, trust me we hunted, inquired, and hoped.  It had been several weeks since the south of France and our fully equipped apartment and intense hiking and sweating at Lake Garda has taking its toll.  To escalate our necessity for freshness was the misplaced “help” that reception in Riva del Garda imparted which was the location of a self-laundrymat  in town.  Thank you madam but apparently that closed 2 years ago, a fact that we were not made privy to until we had crammed our dirty and only somewhat soiled clothing into bags retiring them from the line-up until further notice.  Our associates at the laundry facility seemed taken aback by our celebration in fluffing and folding as well as the jubilation of a child as she made a wardrobe change immediately responding to the buzz of the dryer.
Photo from BubblePoint Website says it all!
Innsbruck riverside clean dress celebration
Innsbruck Old City

Heading into Mayrhofen, Austria another Alp location Rick was shocked of the changes since his last visit to the Valley many years ago.  Things had progressed at a rate more advanced then he imaged, although asking someone from our area in New Jersey they would be just as taken aback of the Route 1 megalithic “advancement” but in contrast you cannot compare the two. The lovely and quaint downtown remains intact.  It makes our adventure more organic to arrive into a town, select a location to stay, and then how long to visit.  In many destination locations in Europe you can arrive anytime night or day and there is a electronic board of hotels with a map method or a listing each with lights of available rooms.  Prior to seeking out the board we stopped into a few hotels that we viewed through prior research that may meet our needs.  Eh, not to impressed and/or the price did not accurately match the facility.

Lovely Austrian church

On our way to the hotel vacancy board a wee voiced pointed to a sign for Hotel Veronica, “What about this one?”.  Anxious to set our footing down we proceeded onto the board.  Through searching on the board and the attached computer system and reviewing the options the same voice comes through, “What about this one?  I want this one it looks beautiful.”  It was the same hotel again, a fact too intentional to ignore.  Upon laying our eyes upon it Hotel Veronica was perfect, a small boutique hotel with an apartment and most importantly to a child a small indoor pool in the lower level.

Hotel Veronica
Hotel Veronica

The cable car in this town, which we took, was the largest in Austria.  It is not the size of the Bahn, the angle in which it steeply ascends the mountain, or the speed but the elevation above the ground below.  The operator on the cable car looks begrudgingly as he enters his booth onboard but more relevant looks as if he was awake into the wee hours possibly watching one of the world cup semi-final matches.  The view from the summit made it all worth while one again as you can tell from the photos this time displaying a wide range of the Alps in the not to distant background.  Visiting a 500 year old mountain dairy was attempted but the pungent smell and the massive amount of flies from the mild winter kept us a bit at bay.  The descent was more nerve racking as the car was brimming with prepubescent, mostly male, riders chaperoned by a handful of uninterested counselors.

Retired cable car
View from the top
Chaos on the Bahn
Mountain Food – shared plate bigger then your head!

 

While in Mayrhofen we attended a beer garden with traditional music and enjoyed the atmosphere and pageantry.  Ila in her traditional gown, that has now replaced her crown as her daily garb, fit right in!

 

Illegal Bathing Suits and Shaky Cable Cars

by Living Wherever We Are, posted in Embracing Uncertainty, Life Lessons, Travel, World Travel

The French have lots of nude beaches and topless sunbathing on beaches is readily acceptable.  But too much clothing?  Who knew that was actually be illegal!

We exited from the South of France a few days ahead of schedule, as if we have a schedule, before our rental had ended.  The winds changed and we felt the urge to proceed onward.  But to where?  Good question, one that we keep asking daily for we are now truly into the living wherever we are portion, some hankerings and ideas but no reservations and no firm plans.

We decided to head north through France and then over the Alps.  One the way we decided to stop at Aix Les Bain in the Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France.  It was used even in the Roman Empire for the healing powers of its baths.  Well, from our experiences some of the energy from that time period still remains.  We only stopped for one night after originally reserving 2.  We experienced several odd issues with the hotel in which we were to stay.  We have traveled quite a bit in France on this trip as well as prior and of course many, many times Rick has vacationed there.  The bathing suit issue was a new one.

We waited for an hour into the early twilight hours for a seniors water aerobics class to end so we could get our 3 year old the pool time we promised her earlier in the day and did not want to renege on.  Rick entered the pool as a few elderly ladies glared, looked shocked, and thus reported his pool garb as apparently disgracefully inappropriate.  What was he wearing?  A speedo?  No, the opposite.  He was wearing a normal shorts type bathing suite, liner and all.  The guardian of the pool pulled Rick aside to inform him of his inappropriate behavior.  There is a law on the books that men are not permitted to wear suits that could possibly be worn outside of the pool.  Apparently, from what I have researched this is due to an attempt to keep outside debris from entering the pool.  But really, a man could be wearing a skin tight sweat collecting suit all day under his shorts but as long as the tush of the outside of the suit is not seeing daylight then all is well!

After that fiasco and more at a hotel that resembled the shining.  We drove to Chamonix-Mont Blanc, France.  Home of France’s highest point in the Alps as well as its largest, but much receded, glacier (thank you global warming).  Nevertheless, the experience was spectacular.  Our amazing, breathtaking pictures do not do it justice.  Our original stop turned into 6 days, 5 nights.  On our first full day we took a train up to the massive Glacier.  Once on top Ilaria was thrilled to be taking a cable car/gondola down to the Glacier itself.  In theory it was a beautiful ideal.  When a person is single there is a different perspective on life, death, and immortality but, as a parent those thoughts linger on that of your offspring.

Once on the car we proceeded to descend literally straight down, only to discover mid-trip that there is a pause in the route in which you remain suspended for minutes motionless as the others board and disembark from the stations.  For those who have had the pleasure of riding such carts, you know that in the petite carts the smallest shift causes the cart to sway.  Even an excited 40 pounds looking out can transfer the weight.  Parents wondering thoughts are one thing, but when a little voice bellows questions about when the cart falls how they can hold on as it goes head over feet crashing into the cliff and trees below somehow it does not cause the guardians to chuckle in the least.  Obviously we endured.

It is amazing what mountain air can do to the energy of a 42 inch tall being.  Exhilarated on other hikes high in the heightened elevations she pressed forward, no, she ran up and down the mountains.  Nature in its purest forms!