Thun Football
While I am sure it wasn’t enough, Nick did get a chance to
take in a couple football games this summer, cheering on Thun FC!
Munich, Germany
Last year we met Johann and Claudia through couch surfing
and headed back to Munich for a quick visit. Since we’d already been to Munich,
it was a relaxing couple of days in the city. We visited the Olympic stadium
and went to a Biergarten in the evening with Claudia and Johann. This place was
packed and could only imagine what it would be like in just a few weeks when
Octoberfest begins. We also got a chance to paddle with Etienne from Munich
SUP, spending and afternoon on the one of the nearby lakes.
Aare River
We spent many weekends around the Aare River this summer.
The Aare runs from Thun through Bern and it’s super popular to go down the
river when the weather is nice. A lot of people start in Thun and end in Bern
taking about 3 hours to complete the journey. There are always plenty of people
picnicking and bbq on the banks, enjoy the day on the river. It’s a class 1
river and has 1 rapid, but for the most part pretty tame and something that
just about everyone can enjoy. We did this last year when we visited and met
Neil and SUP Switzerland and it was a highlight of our trip in Switzerland.
Neil runs a tubing and kayak business as well as the SUPs, and is quite popular
with people renting to go down the river. This is something that we helped with
to earn some $ during our holiday. We’d get the tubes ready, hand them out and
then pick them out down the river in Bern. When we didn’t have to work we got
to enjoy the river paddling down on our SUPs.
Out with Carole and her brother
Further down the river with some friends
Our friend Suzanne
Thomas showing us how it's done
What we did most of the summer..pump up and give out tubes for the river
Took this pic of Neil..awesome!
Nick on the river
Bachalpsee, Grindelwald
Neil, Nick and I took the iSUPs up to Bachalpsee, a mountain
lake up the First gondola in Grindewald. This is exactly the reason why having
inflatables are so perfect! You can carry them on your back and enjoy paddling
in places where many just dream they could. Bachalspee is one of those places.
It took about 25 minutes up the gondola and when we got to the top we could see
awesome views of the Eiger, the Monk with Jungfrau just on the other side. The
Swiss Alps up close are amazing! From the gondola at the top it took about 45
minutes to walk to the lakes. It was a beautiful warm day, but the water was
absolutely freezing. We paddled around, got lots of video and pics to use for
SUP Switzerland and it has to be one of the most beautiful places we’ve paddled
so far! See our video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gUNzGwZMU8
Wonderful Tuscany
Our trip to Tuscany was the highlight of our summer vacation, just wish it lasted longer than 4 days.
We arrived in Florence via the train and stayed in a small
little place just down the street from the magnificent Duomo. We had a bit of
time to wander around, check out some shops, a few churches and walk down to the
river. Florence, while busy, felt much more relaxed then Rome or Venice. We had
an early night as the next morning we would set out on our bikes to discover
the many hills of the Tuscan countryside.
We rented hybrid bikes in the center of Florence from
Florence by Bike. They set up with everything we needed including paneers that
we could put all of our stuff in for the next couple nights. Getting out of the
city was a bit daunting, but didn’t take long and just an hour later we were
already in the hills and amongst the vineyards. Of course that was an uphill
climb the whole way and that seemed to be the case for our entire trip until
the very end.
We rode through small villages along the winding road as we
headed south to our first stop, for lunch, in Greve in Chianti about 3 hours
later. A popular small town to stop in with a cute square filled with al fresco
restaurants and had what I thought was our first ‘real’ taste of Italian. The
food in Italy up until this point was good, but nothing spectacular and our
meal here in Greve was fantastic. Carbo-loaded up for the next part of the ride
we went up (mostly up) and down the winding countryside and came to a very
small town up a extremely steep hill off the main road called Panzano which had an great view looking
down into the valley filled with vineyards.
About 2 hours later we turned off the SR 222 and thinking
our hotel was just a few km down the road decided to stop at a winery for a
glass or two before we made our final journey. It was a more modern and artsy
winery with a delicious chianti merlot mix. We enjoyed the views and relaxing
for a while before we got back in the saddle again.
Sadly for us, our hotel was definitely not just around the
corner and another 15 km later, up hill we found ourself in Raada in Chianti
and praying that our hotel was close! We were relieved when we were told it was
just around the corner. It was just approaching 5pm when we arrived to check
in. Nick had made the reservation and told them it was my birthday (a day early
though) in hopes of an upgrade and well it only kind of worked. There was an
upgrade waiting for us, which was great, but it was for the next night and we
were only staying at this hotel for one night. Nick had booke the room for the
wrong night! Thankfully, they had 1 very small, corner room overlooking the
road. So it wasn’t as perfect as it could have been, ie opening the windows of
our upgraded suite to the expansive vineyard views below, but it was going to
have to do. Our hotel was awesome, traditional tuscan style on the side of a hill
with great views and a pool.
The next morning I got up early to lay by the pool before we
set sail again, Nick wanted to sleep a bit more, I didn’t mind I was just
waiting for a “Happy Birthday” from him! He eventually got down the pool, then
we had breakfast, then we went up to sit on the terrace when it finally clicked
at about 9:30 that it was my birthday! Okay, so he felt pretty bad and had ran
upstairs to get the card (he did have a card already)! Around 11am my birthday
ride began and we thankfully the next 4 hour ride seemed to have a few more
dowhills. The scenery just seemed to get better and better as we continued all
the way to Siena, our next stop.
Siena is beautiful old city that is still surrounded by a
wall dating back to medieval times. We stayed a cute hotel just outside the
city gates and enjoyed the views on the terrace with some wine before we went
out for a birthday dinner. We really liked Siena and had the best meal we’ve
had in Italy so far. We were recommended a few places by our hotel and chose
this Tavern that was looked like an old wine cellar. We actually got a table
considering we didn’t make a reservation and they were full, we told them we’d
eat in less than an hour, which for Italian standard is pretty atypical, but was
okay for us. Nick had a filet wrapped in filo pastry, which was good, but
didn’t compare to my chocolate pasta with a wild boar sauce. Yes, who knew this
combination would work, but it did and it was wonderful. They even sang happy
birthday and brought us desert while everyone in the small restaurant clapped
and sang along. Not a bad birthday at all!
The next morning was our final day of riding. We were told
that we MUST go to San Gimgiano then we could easily ride back to Certaldo and
catch the train to Florence. Our legs were already tired from 2 days of riding,
but we powered on and besides I still hadn’t seen my sunflowers! I really
really wanted to see those sunflowers fields that you see in postcards and
didn’t think my trip would be complete if I didn’t. Everyone kept saying they
are everywhere, but up until this point we still had yet to see a single
sunflower, nevermind a entire field of them. Now I had decreased my
expectations after some research finding out that we perhaps were a bit late in
the season to see the sunflowers in full bloom, but I still had hope.
We left Siena just after breakfast and headed outside of the
city back North. About 45 minutes into our ride we were heading down hill and
tadah I could seem them in the distance thousands and thousands of sunflowers!
I started flying down the hill only to get to the bottom and find that they
were all dead, well except for one lone one that had somehow survived. Oh well,
at least we saw them.
For the next 2 hours we would pass by field after field
after field, of dead sunflowers that is. What a magnificent sight this would be
if we came just 2 weeks earlier! We rode through a few small towns surrounded
by walls perched up high in the hills and eventually saw signs for San
Gimigiano. With only 5 km to go we were getting excited, but realized that this
would be the hardest climb yet. 5km straight uphill. We were told at the
beginning of the trip by the bike shop that you really earn your views when you
cycle Tuscany and boy was she right. This was the hardest climb the whole time,
but well worth it at the top. We had lunch in San Gimgiano and took in again
the amazing scenery and then it was on to the train station.
Just outside of San Gimgiano we turned a corner and there
they were maybe not thousands, but a couple hundred sunflowers still alive! We
were probably up so high that they were still in bloom, super excited! This
last part of the ride got even better because for the next 14 km we descended
down hill the whole entire way until we got to the train station. We relaxed as
we flew down the road taking in the final glimpses of the Tuscan countryside.
We’ll definitely be back someday.
Vienna, Austria
Cruising around Vienna
Biggest and best Schnitzel ever
St. Stephen's Cathedral at night
at the Parliament building
Museum Quarter
Stresa, Italy
We’ve had a lot of rain in Switzerland since we arrived. Not exactly what we expected since last year when we visited we had nothing but sunshine and warm temps. Thankfully, we have Eurail pass and in just 2 shorts hours from Thun by train we were in sunny and warm Italy! We took our iSUPs with us for a paddle day trip to Stresa, Italy. We had seen Stresa from the train when we came back from Venice, located right on Lake Maggiore, it looked beautiful and a great place paddle. There are 3 islands off the coast that you can take a ferry to or for us, paddle to and so we spent the day exploring the islands, it was absolutely gorgeous! We were back in Thun by 8:00, definitely beat sitting inside waiting for the rain to stop! Check out the video on You Tube too here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF_VTIuv2Ec
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