Home -> Europe -> Italy -> Travelogue 2004 -> Wednesday 19 May

The first drive towards Italy

We are going to Italy!
Why Italy, people ask? Although Italy is a very popular holiday destination it is not so obvious for us, since we have not much affinity with this country. But it is the only big West-European country that we haven't visited yet and people tell us that it is a nice country. So, that is what we are going to find out ourselves, this time.
We are a bit early with our summer holiday, this year. It is also one of the shortest summer holidays ever for us, only a bit more than 3 weeks. The cause of this is that our employers don't want to give us more days off... can you imagine? And there are two reasons for going so early: Teije has a temporary job and cannot take his holiday later in the season and somewhere in July we will become grandparents: Therese, Elisabeth's eldest daughter, expects her first child and naturally we cannot leave then!

At 10 we leave home and soon we are flying on the German Autobahn. We cross the border at Nieuweschans (only 45 km. from our home) and then drive via Osnabr�ck to Kassel and from there the long road southward. After 600 km. we need a break and we have the opportunity to make our first holiday pictures. The weather is fine, better than in Holland, so we are glad we have left our country far behind.

It is funny to watch the kilometers go by: we see the landscape changing, with now and then villages in the distance, but for some reason our perspective is totally different when making a long drive like this. We think in hundreds of kilometers instead of short distances and reality seems to be farther away. When we have to follow a two-lane road for some time and drive through the villages, our speed slows down and reality is near again.

The same happens when we leave the highways after 900 kilometers and find ourselves on the slowgoing two-lane roads in the south of Germany. It is like 'going out of warp' (Star Trek) and land up once more in the normal world. A world which is very beautiful, we realise, when we see the Alps before us!

We had no idea how far we would come today, but around 7 we enter Austria and start looking for a hotel in the first village we see, Reutte. In the center we find a big old house, the Black Eagle where we are taken to a room by a very old lady, whose back is so bent that she has trouble looking up.

The view from our balcony is great and the weather is still fine. Tomorrow we will continue our trip to Italy but now we first go on a walk through this nice village.

Reutte is a characteristic Austrian mountain village with it's houses and architecture, but it is striking how many foreigners live here, especially Turkish people. There are also a lot of foreign restaurants and after sitting outside at a pub (in t-shirt, until half past 8) we get ourselves a Kebab sandwich at a Turkish snackbar which we eat on our balcony.

We feel completely in a holiday mood now, especially with having mountains all around us. It feels good that it is possible to be in a completely different world after a one-day trip. Everybody who has read earlier stories on this website knows we just love mountains! That is, to see them, not to climb them...

As for Italy and our plans there? This time we just had a short preparation time and only made a list of some places we want to see; we will see how the plan will develops. Just before we arrived here, we considered the possibility of going to a campsite near Venice tomorrow, after a trip through the Alps and the Dolomites. We should see Venice!
After that maybe in the direction of Genova, and then further southwards: the Cinque Terre, Pisa, Florence, Rome off course and after that we will see how much time we have left. Pompei is definitely on the list of places we want to visit. But first we enjoy the magnificient view from our balcony while the sun slowly sets behind the mountains.

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije