SKI Trip - the first. Europe 2024

 After an early start - 6am, and a huge breakfast consisting of an egg foo young type dish made with lemon balm, along with turkish coffee, croissants, apple strudel and yogurt, we rolled ourselves out of the house and squeezed into the van to set off for the trainstation.  We arrived in plenty of time and found ourselves a lovely private cabin which we had not booked or paid for. We'd only paid for 2nd class seats.  The conductor didn't seem to mind and it was only a 90 minute trip anyway before we changed trains.  This was completely baffling as we had no idea what platform to go to and finally found an officer to help who looked up his computer thing and told us we had to be on platform 4 in 4 minutes because the train was leaving.  10 bags, 3 people along the platform,, down the stairs, turn right, along the platform, up the stairs, find a conductor who throws us onto the train.  We found a seat and sat down only to find we were on the wrong carriage by 3, with our 10 bags.

 Wednesday morning we checked out of the Golden fields apartment and took all our gear to Branko's place. After another huge breakfast we set off for the caves, photos to follow. We arrived in time for the first tour at 9.15, which finished just after 10. The caves are magnificent, and there are handy audio guides so keep us informed along the way.  After this we set off to see a castle built into a rockface, with caves below. We were assured that the inside of the castle was nothing much to look at, and it cost 19 Euro each. Then two bus loads of kids arrived and 3 bus loads of Asian tourists a few minutes later and we decided the castle was full anyway.  We set off for home, and driving at 130km per hour without using indicators was doing great things for my blood pressure. I wouldn't call it a premonition, but we'd been driving heaps and this was the only time I really felt that it wasn't safe. I messaged Ruth that we were on the way home from sightseeing, just in ca

 Little needs to be said about this day apart from the amazing photos attached.  We were picked up from our wonderful apartment at 6.30 and went back to the Dezman's for breakfast then headed off for Bled. After spending 35 minutes trying to pay for parking on the new automated digital fancy schmancy payment machine, we were off.  Ascending the forest track made slippery from overnight rains, we reached the top and took these photos, then made our way back to the Lake, and back up to the carpark. I needed to use the forest facilities on the way and Juliette assured me there were very few bears in the forest, and certainly not close to the road. I didn't stall on my mission (pun intended).  We stopped at a picturesque town and bought some bread rolls and chicken and cheese for lunch. Bruce discovered Cockta, with which we have now replenished our supply.  We climbed the next mountain, having paid our dues - only about 5 Euro each - and were rewarded with the views of this magnif

Leaving Darwin for Singapore...... In Singapore. this is a glass topped pool. Hard to photograph.  So, here we are. We've arrived on the continent. Zurich airport is much like any other, except, like Singapore there are trains to take you to one place to the next - in this case to where we picked up our luggage.  Having collected all four pieces we headed over to customs. There wasn't any. What there was was the clear bright sky, pavement and directions to the train station. A few false starts later and we were aboard the train to the Zurich town centre, where we wasted some time because we couldn't find lockers to put suitcases in, and then we couldn't work out how it worked. How it worked was that you paid for 6 hours and when we returned 10 hours later, we paid for 3 more hours. hmmm. In any case, The train station is reminiscent of Sydney Central station, except that 7am in Zurich is crowded with people, and we when returned at 6 pm, there's about 10 times as ma