Dateline: 2014 June 16th: London, Ontario, Canada
The tour map
The European grandish Tour
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Club Shem Paradisio (as I have christened it)
It's always lovely to be back here and contemplate life, as in don't talk to me about life |
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There's a great stall for hand made cheese here
Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val
I usually buy about 5Kgs |
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The local market feels like it hasn't changed since
the revolution |
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There's always something to do as a retiree in France
Sure, often it's nothing, but that's our job now
Nothing and a side order of consuming |
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Ben is a big developer biologist at Roche
Roche supports a lot of the art galleries in town
The gallery is more than happy to give family discounts |
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All art is politics
Or is it some metaphysical concept to
simply make you think about who
you are? |
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Metaphysical concept did I say?
Hey! It's making me think |
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Speaking of metaphysical concepts
We hire bikes and do the town
It's well set up for biking and hardly any death riding |
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Switzerland is so old that all the city ordinances appear
to date from about 1300, so the city luminaries get around
no new buildings by the river ordinances by allowing "Pop Ups"
40 foot containers that are not permanent but are viable
bars, chip shops and boutique, well anything really |
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| Time to contemplate our next drink |
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| More metaphysical concepts on the Rhine |
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| Ben takes us to one of his favourite hikes |
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Luckily, I have no idea what he's
got in store for me, because if I did,
I'd probably stay in Basel.
It's a long hike |
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Two and a half hours later
Luckily Ben took all the weight
like water and grub |
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Obviously, most folks don't walk up to the hotel
There's a direct route by rail. We take the back down
I don't think I could have made it any other way |
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Time for a cruise across the lake and.....
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| With Ben, there's always time for a glass or two of wine |
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| We head back via the ferry to Lucerne (maybe) |
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Now this is fun. Ben meets with some of his work
colleagues on the banks of the river |
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| We bring disposable BBQ's and wine and live it up |
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All the locals partake in a float down the river in summer
You have or borrow a "Wiklefisch" where you stow all your gear
and use as a float as you head downstream for about 2Km. KIt's great |
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Post Wickelfisch. Basel is a truly lovely place. It's totally international,
english is everywhere, it's chock full of expats on incredible salaries.
My kind of place 50 years ago |
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If you can afford to live and play in Basel, you've
pretty well made it in the career game
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Basel is a pretty international city, so it's easy getting a flight to Iceland from here
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Someone around here need new knees?
Our AirBnB in Reykjavik. It was one of the cheapest, plus pretty dire |
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Downtown Reykjavik. Yep, this is Iceland's coffee shop, but it was very good
Just as an FYI, assume everything in Iceland is unbelievably expensive |
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Here we are waiting for the puffin cruise, which is also
on the menu tonight
It's also the quay for whale watching |
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This guy is from the Faroes Islands, population about
20,000 I think, but a fun enough tour of the birds |
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Iceland doesn't seem to mind showing tourists
the local birdlife in the morning, and having
them on the menu in the evening |
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Yes, we were both guilty of
crimes against nature |
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Same with whales
And this is the restaurant on the other
side of the dock where you do another
type of whale watching
Mine's medium rare thanks
It was very gamy and very tasty
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Yes, Gothic horror.
Concrete extravaganza masquerading as art
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Iceland is pretty much all as desolate as this
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We get a car and we're out into the wilds
It's like something out of Mordor with occasional
treats of these hardy flowers all over |
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We head out of town where we have another Airbnb out in the
middle of nowhere. The hot tub has a hot feed from
the local geyser, and a cold feed from the local
glacier. We have a wine feed from the duty free |
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The Althing was founded here in 930 at Þingvellir
Maybe site of the oldest parliament in the world.
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And this crevasse is actually the continental divide
Yep, this is where the European and North American
tectonic plates start their multi million year trek |
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We had a picnic. There are 2 supermarkets in Reykjavik
and neither have much more than spam |
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| My favourite place in Iceland |
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Yep, we had one, or occasionally more
every day we stayed
Because the water has no additives,
constant immersions
doesn't appear to bugger up your skin |
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plus my favourite Icelander
Her favourite meal is apparently,
sheeps head. No, that's not what she
fed us |
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We head east. There's only one road and it goes
around the island. We only head east about 100Km |
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There's always clouds, and usually rain
so often waterfalls |
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| This is, or was, a glacier, and the black muck, gentle reader, is our pollution, like Canadian forest fires et al, writ large |
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| Actually, VERY large |
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| And here are the guilty parties |
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| Gullfoss Falls, with tourist |
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| Same falls, same tourist |
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It's actually quite exciting, but Iceland's thrill is
mainly in it's hot water and glaciers
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| Tourists, multiple, at the front of the falls when the sun was shining |
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We stop at one of the little communities on the route
every place has a swimming pool, hot tubs heated of course
by the local tectonic activities
It's free for us old folks
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As befits an island made solely by tectonic
upwellings, there's obviously lots of
subterranean heating. This is a geyser
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Our flight is in the evening, so we indulge in a few hours
at the Blue Lagoon. It's actually quite a good gig
Bring your own towels and shower at least 3 time
I was still itching 2 days later |
And then it's back to Canada for family business in London
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Having kids is outrageously expensive, educating them!?
Hah! Don't ask |
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Family portrait celebrating Kayla now being officially unemployed. (Unemployable?)
A family trait, long in the making handed down from father to daughter (and son)
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From Your Correspondent
