It is an object of repeated worry for me that the view of Europe that I experience is not true European life, or even something close. Would my time be better spent participating in real Australian life, and seeing and learning about the world through the lens of Foreign Correspondent, and late night SBS movies?
Côte d’Azur, or the French Riviera. It sounds nice, but it’s just a centuries old surfers paradise. My first impression of the coast was as a sparkling sunny seaside sprawl. Tiny boats zipping along the water, leaving white wakes. Silent jets soaring out from the city, others circling then gliding in. This was looking through the haze from the relative serenity of the mountain at Col de Vence.
Do you like to wake up with everything wet because the rain got in?
Prepare yourself for some quite negative messages. As you know I am generally contented and eager to be agreeable. And I am savouring the joy and challenge of this bike tour. I really think it’s a worthwhile undertaking, though in reality it isn’t. See… there you are, negative messages.
For some reason it’s necessary to point out what’s wrong and what makes me unhappy. To complain. Don’t read if you don’t want to. Actually, do read or there’s not much point me writing this. Just don’t be mislead by the tone of some of the blog entries.
Lastly, avoid inconvenience: load this into your feed reader.
This blog isn’t working. The entries are really dull, and they take too long to write. Day-by-day reports don’t really work because pretty much every day is the same — I wake up, observe the weather, pack tent, go somewhere, get lost, find a camping, chat with some Dutch campers, go to sleep. Also the daily format makes it difficult to write about interesting things.
So the new format is shorter entries on specific topics, and daily reports will go into a KML file viewable in Google Earth, perhaps the web browser also if I can make it work.
Instead of writing in a stinking net cafe, I am writing on A4 pieces of paper folded into quarters. So if the entries still aren’t interesting, then at least they won’t be too long.
In Lyon today. A whole tour map, some older tour reports from Austria, and some pitiful camera work, preserved forever on YouTube.
Arrived in Zürich yesterday. Had a bit of a disaster-riddled yesterday morning.
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Wet morning. Most of my things were wet because I let water get on the groundsheet under my tent, and it just soaked up through the floor. Wet.
I don’t really like ski resort towns, but due to inclement weather, I had to stay a day in Zell am Ziller.