Catching Up

Before writing about the latest adventure I have to bring you up to speed what happened the last four years. 

As Korea is one of the few countries flying to Palau 🇵🇼 we seized that opportunity and went there before flying to South Africa. Palau was awesome: lovely islands and great diving. A must was to swim in the jelly fish lake! We also spent some time on Peleliu which saw fierce fighting in WW2.

Not long after arriving in Johannesburg we made great friends which helped pass the time until our car arrived. Shout out to the Vesparados 🤘

When we reached Cape Town, by way of Lesotho, Melanie flew home and Aaron (our former flat mate who by chance was in ZA) joined me. Together we drove up and down the Garden Route as well ventured inland.

Once Melanie was back we were ready to head into Namibia 🇳🇦 but due to medical reasons had to put our trip on hold. We put the Land Cruiser in storage and flew home. 

Then a little pandemic hit the world which made traveling impossible for a while. So after a year we got the car back and toured a bit through north Italy 🇮🇹 with it. 

In the spring of 2021 Aaron and I flew to the Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 for a bit of backpacking (and looking at a potential house to buy 😉).

In the summer then our group from Mongolia 🇲🇳 reunited and the six of us travelled through France 🇫🇷, visiting the Normandie, Saint-Malo, Dune du Pilat and stopped at the river Ardeche.

In November we met up with the rest of my family in Tenerife. Seeing the nephew and niece, drinking wine and eating good food. 

Shortly there after Melanie and I flew to Morocco 🇲🇦. Strolling through the souks and enjoying some Tagine. 

Then Marcel switched with Melanie and we did a week of Enduro riding around the Atlas Mountains. Was exhausting but awesome!

In 2022 my Atlantic crossing finally happened, after being postponed for two years in a row. 

Starting in Sint Maarten 🇸🇽 in the Caribbean it took us four long weeks to get to the Azores by catamaran.

Where Melanie was waiting for me 😍 Together we travelled around the islands, tried the local dishes, drank local wine and went whale watching. After hundreds of years hunting them the locals had great system to spot them. We were lucky and even saw some sperm whales and a “small” blue whale 🐳 

In the summer then we met up with Tobi and Nik and toured through Czechia 🇨🇿, Austria 🇦🇹 and norther Italy 🇮🇹 by LandCruiser. 

As I still need some nautical miles for my skipper certification Melanie & I booked a week of sailing out of Athens. Spending first some time visiting Hellenic sites before setting sail.

And now you know 😅

Over the highest mountain pass in Europe (13.08.2016 - 15.08.2016)

We drove over the french alps back home to Switzerland! 

But first we had another night in an old castle surrounded by vineyards in the Piedmont region. The following morning we took the most direct route to France. Not exactly the fastest but it made us cross the lovely Colle delle Finestre. At least the uphill part was... The downhill part was a dirt road the first eight kilometers. Not so funny on our tiny wheels.

Anyway, we made it and then crossed the mountain pass between France and Italy. Next was the Col de L'iseran, with 2770 metres above sea the highest in Europe! Okay it was only ten metres more than the Stelvio pass which we did in the beginning of the trip ;)

Snapped some pictures and then we descended to the village of Val d'Isere. Exhausted we decided to enjoy the lovely weather a bit more and stayed for the night.

In the morning we drove on to Chamonix to see the mighty Mont Blanc. And then we were only two passes away from Switzerland! Over some tiny passes we then progressed to Gstaad/Saanen for the final night. 

The night was short and the morning after brutal but we still managed to drive all the way home. 

In total we did 3'504 km in three weeks... At least I did, Winstons odometer displayed 90 km more?! Don't know which one is right :D

Top of Europe!

All roads lead to Rome (01.08.2016 - 05.08.2016)

Rome, Check!

Vatican, Check!

Ferry, Check!

We did finally reach Rome after a night of camping half way from San Marino. There we got the first rain on this trip, about an hour in our tent. Lucky so far!

Our two days in Rome where spent between sightseeing (just the bare minimum, the tourist masses and the heat made it impossible), some Vespa maintenance (leaky oil valve fixed, a new rear tire and oil change), drinking (did I mention the heat?) and eating (soo good!).

The time was up and we drove as close to the colosseum and the Vatican as the police would allow before chasing us away. Snapped some pics and we where off to the coast!

We boarded the ferry as one of the first and checked out our cabin. Many people opted for the cheaper option and slept everywhere on the floor. One couple even raised a tent on deck. Bad idea, once the ship started moving they got almost blown over board. The next day we arrived late in Barcelona due to a late start and rough weather.

During the ride we were afraid the rolling would make our Vespas topple over... Nothing happened, phuu!

South Tyrol, Rimini and San Marino

We made it to country number three! After finally crossing into the South Tyrol and a rather short night in Bolzano we cruised along the beautiful Lago di Garda. A dip in the lake and detour to Sirmione for a pleasant meal we powered on to the east. The next morning we made a quick stop in Chioggia for breakfast as this is a city built in the lagoon like Venice (minus the tourist masses).
From there it was all the way south along the Adriatic coast to Rimini. The part were we stayed wasn't as crowded as expected and we had some beach time to battle our T-Shirt tans ;)
In the night we wandered around town and had to recognize that everybody was either half our age or got kids O_o
Luckily we found a street party full of locals and thanks to this ended up with little sleep and a miserable morning after ;). Some pizza for breakfast to sober up and we tackled the short stretch to the Republic of San Marino! Driving all the way up front to the historic part of the city we parked our mighty machines and headed into the tourist throng. There was some kind of medieval festival going on: people dressed up, stalls, falconry and canon shooting.

Expo 2015, Milano (18.09.2015 - 20.09.2015)

As a quick getaway before the "real" holidays Melanie and I headed south to visit the expo. This years motto is Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life which especially interested me, with my little aquaponics setup at home ;)

Taking the train we arrived 3.5 hours and some metro ride later in our lovely AirBnB residence.
Earlyish the next morning we ventured to the expo. The many people luckily dispersed themselves among the many pavilions. Nevertheless were there some quite large queues in front of some nations. For example Japan had a sign that the waiting time would be 150 minutes for the 50 minutes tour! But probably the biggest line was in front of the Italian complex, all the narcissistic Italians ;)
We skipped the lines and usually headed to the next exhibition, a wise decision as later on many queues had disappeared. Sadly many nations weren't really showing any theme related exhibition, only propaganda and advertisement. Mostly the banana republics were displaying their great leaders, wealth and countryside. I don't know how this will end up with Kazakhstan presenting the expo 2017 with the theme of Future's Energy. Ridiculous as they have giant reserves of oil, natural gas, coal and uranium... Not exactly what I would call future energy sources... 

So the conclusion, skip the queues and visit the first world nations if you want to see anything food related. Nevertheless I can just encourage everybody to visit, if only for the gigantic choice of food and drink!

The next day we spent strolling through Milano as I've never visited the city before. One thing we wanted to see for sure was the Bosco Verticale (vertical forest). A "skyscraper" with 800 trees planted on its balconies! An awesome sight and makes you wonder how the cities of the future might look like.

Bosco Verticle, this is by the way not an Instagram effect but my camera which is slowly dying :(

Side note, what really astounded me were the amount of Chinese people living in Milano. A wiki excursion later revealed that 2% of the inhabitants are of Chinese decent, almost 20'000 people!

A quick stop at the gigantic cathedral and the market hall later we took the metro further south to the canal district. Here centuries ago all the merchandise got transshipped. Now this is the trendy and tourist place with lots of bars, restaurants and shops.

The last day we spent again strolling from cafe to restaurant before boarding the train back home.