Episode 24

Now we are making our way back to Europe. Along the way we passed through a rather nice area of northern Greece through the towns of Konotini, Xanthi and Drama all places my lot have visited in the past. We headed to Thessaloniki to see their friend Elefthera and to introduce me.

Elefthera made us very welcome and I seem to have made a good impression on her and also on her friend Simon when he came in later, he and I could be very good mates. We found Elefthera to be in the midst of sorting things out and preparing for a move to Berlin where her husband Tassos is now working. She will be going at the end of the year. Meanwhile she has discovered, like most humans do when it comes to moving, that she has collected far more stuff than she had ever realized.

Elefthera's mother is there giving her a hand and her Dad is about from time to time, he dashes in for a few minutes then goes off again so we didn’t get to see much of him. A couple of friends popped in to see us too, Simon and his friend, my lot had met Simon last time and enjoyed seeing him again and I think I made a suitable impression. The weather however, wasn’t so agreeable it was absolutely tipping down when we arrived with the streets inches deep in water, L got soaked to the skin when she went in search of a way to get into the parking lot at the apartment, a number of one way streets complicates matters.

Something L finds very interesting that Elefthera told us, is that a burial mound that has been excavated in the last few weeks archaeologists now believe it could be that of Alexander. It has been found that the architect that designed it was one of Alexanders and the body inside is mummified as was Alexanders, so now it is being DNA tested. This can be done because his mothers remains have DNA been tested. L is eagerly awaiting the outcome.

More than 24hours later we set off again, this time there was clear blue sky and a very strong icy cold wind. My lot did plan to pass through Macedonia and Serbia, however, it seems that the green card that had been faxed to D didn’t have these countries ticked on it so instead of paying a lot more for insurance we just took an alternate route into Bulgaria then on into Romania. So long as we stay in EU countries we don’t need that 'green card’.

The sunshine didn’t last long, soon the heavy cloud came over and it seemed to stay. It wasn’t especially cold, probably milder than normal for this time of year, just bleak and raw.

D doesn’t seem particularly interested in doing much in the way of sightseeing so we are just plodding on towards the UK. L says she wants to at least see that castle in Germany we’d passed on the way eastward, now that the summer crowds have dispersed.

We passed through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary in a few days with heavily overcast skies and often a very thick haze that hampered any view there might have been. We crossed briefly into Slovakia then back into Hungary only to exit next time into Austria. We crossed the Danube river several times and nearly took a ferry across at one point but deciding we had no local currency we skipped over the border into Slovakia and used a bridge, how boring is that.

In Austria we stuck to the smaller roads and wound our way along one narrow valley after another. The countryside is still very green, there haven’t been enough frosts to dry it off and the winter crops are lush and well grown. We did go over a pass at around 1700m where there was some patchy snow. Its all that remains from a heavy snowfall about the same time we had that downpour in Thessaloniki. There are many ski resorts along this route and we have seen that the ski lifts and snow making machines seem to be ready for the start of the skiing season in a couple of weeks. At present it looks as if the snow making machines are going to get a good workout unless nature does a bit of a u-turn and dumps some serious snow and then stays cold enough to keep it. It is bleak still but not really cold.

Then we came back to Fusson to see the Sleeping Beauty Castle. This is the one made famous by the Disney TV show and L remembers that you weren’t allowed to take photos anywhere near the place.

We were here early on in the trip but the enormously long queue even before the place opened had put my lot off at the time but L wanted to come back to see it. She had nagging suspicion that it might be the ‘sleeping beauty’ castle, however, she had got into her head the notion that that castle was in Austria, not Germany, so she got Dawn and Heather back in England to do some research and they come up trumps as indeed they always do.

So here we were again, parked in the same parking lot but without the crowds. It was only just opening time and we got tickets without queuing for ages. Still it was more than an hour until the time of our tour, an English language one. We walked up the path to the castle, a pleasant 40min uphill walk through the thick swirling fog nearly getting run over by horses pulling carriages, an alternate way to the castle.

Really couldn’t see much when we did arrive at the castle but now and again the fog would clear above us and we could see the castle, below it stayed a solid mass. We soon found that there was a tour every five minutes, goodness knows how they cope with the summer crowds if they are that frequent now when there really didn’t seem to be that many people about. A tour can be got in one of many languages, we noticed that both Chinese and Russian were catered for.

We had a guide that spoke very good English and we were only a small group of 18 people, not like some that had more than 50 people.

The castle isn’t very old, it was built between 1869 and 1886 by Ludwig 11 of Bavaria. On the site there has been a castle or fort since the 12th century that had been repaired and fallen into decay a few times over the centuries. Then Ludwig came along and had some one paint for him his idea of what a middle ages castle should look like, then he set out to have it built. First he had removed the actual middle ages castle that was there, didn’t look pretty enough apparently, and had this one erected. It was never finished; Ludwig was declared insane in 1886 and carted off to some place beside the lake where he was found drowned a couple of days later. He only lived in the castle for 172 days.

The tour took us to only a few rooms and lasted a mere half hour, not much for our €11ea. Not me, I sneaked in with L. We visited the Throne room built in a Byzantine style with a dome roof and Carara white marble steps and platform for the throne that was never built. It was beautifully decorated but you will have to visit the web site to see it as no photos are allowed. Bet they have problems enforcing that rule with fifty or more people on a tour all waving their mobile phones about.

Also visited Ludwigs bedroom, dressing room, dining room and study. Then the music room that wasn’t used in his time but each year since 1936 a concert has been staged here. Wonder how many illicit photos are taken then?

Made our way through the kitchen and scullery area where we could take photos and that was about it, exited into the souvenir shop as per usual.

A short way further on up the hill is an iron bridge that offers the best view of the castle so we made our way up here and duly took some photos. I was under strict instructions not to fall off the bridge because that would be a one way exercise. No return for Ben.

After this interlude we carried on across Germany along scenic routes where the view was totally obscured by fog and haze so it was a waste of effort really, then on into Luxembourg, Belgium and finally to Dunkerque in France where we took the ferry back to England.

So again we lobed up at Heathers where as usual we were made very welcome. The next day Heather was off to spend a few days with her sister-in-law. While here her daughter, Rebecca, had arranged to take her along with Rebecca’s partner Tony to dine at Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant for their Christmas presents. They all thoroughly enjoyed the experience which is probably just as well considering the expense. Meanwhile we took care of Trevor, the cat, who rarely appears unless he wants feeding and totally ignores me sitting on the sofa.

L, with a great deal of frustration and even more hair pulling booked our flights home: I was stuffed into the carry on bag, fortunately not in the checked baggage with that squeaky chook that Heather and Dawn had given L to take home to Peggy, L’s sister-in-law and brothers dog. It makes a terrible noise and there is no stopping it from doing so, even squeezed tight and taped up. Every time it gets moved or bumped in the suitcase it squeaks. L felt sure she was going to get pulled over by customs accused of carrying something illegal in her bag.

We left Heathers in the early hours of a chilly December morning heading for Heathrow and some 30 hours or so later we arrived in Sydney after dark on a Friday evening, it was somewhat warmer than England had been.

L’s niece Amy, her husband Gerardo and baby Romeo met us and whisked up off to their flat at Carlingford, a suburb of Sydney where we spent the next couple of days. While here I was kept in the bag being considered far too grubby to show my face. I was not happy about that:

L and D enjoyed a lovely lunch and get together with L’s cousins Pat and Rob and their respective families some of whom she hadn’t seem for far more than 30 years. Then on Monday we flew up to Brisbane, that was the day of the Martin Place siege in Sydney. Amy took us to the airport passing through a long tunnel, then when she was returning home she found that the tunnel had been closed so had to make a considerably longer return trip.

In Brissy (Brisbane) we were met by Cliff and taken back to his and Helen’s home at Burpengary where we spent a couple more days before catching the train back to Bundy where Peter and Tracie met us at the station and took us back to Burnett Heads. The squeaky chook that had managed to keep quiet while passing through customs was duly presented to Peggy, however, Peggy proved to be not as silly as male dogs and almost ignored it completely. Certainly not the reaction Heather and Dawn were hoping for.

The next day I was bathed and dried out in the sun so now that I am nice and clean again and respectable, L has rejoined the turtle volunteers so is doing night duty on the beach, however there seems to be very few turtles on our beach this year, they are going further down the coast to Mon Repos and even the Bargara beaches. The weather is sunny and hot and although it was green from some light rain it has now dried up and in dire need of more rain.

A bit of summing up of the trip as we made our way back and L had nothing better to do in an evening. From Romania eastward there is a vast amount of rubbish spread about the countryside. We have noticed that in Romania and Bulgaria the problem seems to be worse in the eastern part of the country. Moldova is worse where garbage bins are rare, worst of all is Azerbaijan. Baku, the capital is very clean especially the inner and older part of the city, however once outside the whole country is just one big rubbish dump and bins are difficult to find even in towns. Georgia and Armenia have loads of large garbage bins all around the place though the empting of them seems to be somewhat spasmodic and there is a vast amount of rubbish strewn around the place. Turkey seems to be getting to grips with the problem and some areas have been cleaned up somewhat.

The other problem that is common to all these countries is that of stray dogs. There must be millions of them overall. Just about anywhere you pull up there is at least one resident stray, often several. At this time of year as winter comes on they are cold and starving and many more are being killed on the roads. L finds this situation quite distressing. As there is rabies right through this region one has to be wary of them too.

Another thing is the driving: D has decided that the Georgians are the worst, they are very aggressive, traffic lights have little significance, pedestrian crossings are just marks on the roads that both cars and pedestrians ignore and there is a vast amount of stock on the road that apparently has right of way, at least that’s the view of their herders. Of all that stock on the roads we didn’t see any animals that had been killed except for one duck or goose and one hen that D hit whilst avoiding the pigs.

Azerbaijan wasn’t quite so bad with the drivers being less aggressive and stopping for people on crossings. Less live stock on the roads too: Armenia had plenty of live stock with the same attitude as Georgia but they weren’t as aggressive and not in quite as much of a hurry. Turkey is where things have improved in the last few years although it still has a long way to go to western European standards: Of course the really good roads in Turkey, most of them 4 lane divided highways do make things easier, at least one shouldn’t have on coming traffic to contend with, but one does. The Turks don’t believe in going the long way round so often you will have a car or a famer on his tractor driving towards you along the emergency stopping lane. NOT GOOD!

In all we had a very enjoyable trip, saw some very interesting places and learnt a lot about these people and their countries. For anyone that wants to go to someplace different that isn’t yet overrun with tourists then my lot recommend Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Plenty of history, great scenery and friendly people, just no wildlife.

I will sign off for 2014 by wishing you all the very best for Christmas and may 2015 bring you health, wealth and happiness, the last two in reverse order. CHEERS FOLKS!!!!!!!!!!