Day 12: Wednesday 16 July

Today we travelled back to Nürnberg. Officially our travel-times were

• depart Klagenfurt 09:42, arrive München 14:42
• depart München 14:56, arrive Nürnberg 15:59

Day 13: Thursday 17 July

My only records from today are a photo in Köln Hauptbahnhof, some screenshots of place-names that interested me and cyclemeter’s recording part of the journey (from Nürnberg to somewhere near Amsterdam). Our official travel-times were

• depart Nürnberg 10:58, arrive Frankfurt 13:04
• depart Frankfurt 13:27, arrive Amsterdam 17:52.

Day 14: Friday 18 July

We took a quick visit to the Amsterdam city archives, one of Elly’s favourite places in Amsterdam. The exposition about AFC Ajax didn’t enthral me – I don’t understand a word of spoken dutch (and almost no written dutch) but I love the time-lapse cartoons about the growth of Amsterdam. I still don’t understand why these appear to show the Amstel being damed just where it flows into the sea (the Damrak). Perhaps there were bridges rather than a full blockage.

Then we took the bus to IJmuiden, and started the ferry-journey back to the UK.

Day 15: Saturday 19 July

Apparently I didn’t take any photos today. We simply arrived in North Shields, encountered UK bureaucracy, took the bus to Newcastle and then the train back to Edinburgh.

Postscript

Readers might think the I didn’t enjoy this latest trip to the Muttiland, but that would be wrong. It’s true that I didn’t enjoy the pain that limited my walking, but it was lovely to get to understand a bit more about my maternal home-country, to enjoy long train-journeys ‘with my thumb up my bum and my mind in neutral’ (a phrase from a school history teacher), to achieve a conversation in German that enabled me to buy Guglhupf tins, to find excellent chocolates for my wonderful better half, to relax with her – and to see her relax. It’s just that the cantankerous old git in me often takes over the keyboard.

We went to the Strandbad today. I didn’t take any photos but I recall hiding from the sun because it was too hot, and going on the water slide several times. I think I slightly alarmed a staff-member because I got water up my nose when I landed, and so couldn’t immediately stagger out of the landing area.

Cyclemeter tells me we walked through Klagenfurt and then travelled by bus back to our hotel.

Today was our travel-to-another-town-in-Kärnten day. The 7-theme museum in Sankt Veit an der Glan (you just know how I want to write that word!) appealed, not least because there were good train connections from Klagenfurt. So a relatively early meander to Klagenfurt West station, followed by the S1 train to Sankt Veit. According to ‘the internet’ the museum was closed between 12 and 2, and we had arrived around 11:30, so we meandered from the station to the centre of town.

I wimped out twice today: (1) I couldn’t bring myself to go move from the Pyramidenkogel tower‘s central lift area; (2) I didn’t dare the slide. Here are cyclemeters of today’s journeys: hotel to Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt to Keutschach, Keutschch to the Pyramidenkogel, the Pyramdenkogel to Reifnitz, and Reifnitz to Klagenfurt Strandbad. We walked back through the Strandbad park to our hotel, where I wanted to take photos of Elly on our balcony. They’re probably not very good because as soon as Elly started to go to our room, my bladder started complaining. For me, that’s physical proof that I can’t be without her.

We took a boat-trip on the Wörtersee to Velden and back. (Here are the outward and return cyclemeters.). My notes remind me that we tried to buy individual Guglhupf tins in a local supermarket, and as I write this I recall having coffee and Pommes in a lake-shore café.

I have an ambivalent relationship with borders. That is, I like borders that say ‘these people provide public services in this area, while those people provide them in that area’ but I dislike just about all other meanings. I hate borders that say ‘this area is only for this ethic, linguistic or religious group’, especially those that carry the meaning of everyone else being untermensch. We are all human and hence very fallible, so there is no logical basis for this type of border. Perhaps because of this relationship, I like to visit border triple-points. The triple-point between Austria, Slovenia and Italy is uphill from the village of Arnoldstein.

We started today with coffees in the hotel bar, and amazement that a hotel this posh couldn’t provide a soya latte. As I write this (31 August), I seem to recall that Elly was more upset than me about this, which is surprising because generally I’m the cantankerous old git.

My German wasn’t good enough to understand more than the gist of a newspaper article about Kärnten’s debt-explosion. (I’m now taking lessons via Lingoda: it initially assessed me at A1·2 mostly because I can’t decline articles. I like to think my vocabulary is much better.)

Today was our first opportunity to explore Klagenfurt, Kärnten’s state capital. Our hotel was a couple of miles from Klagenfurt city centre, so we bussed into the city centre and made like tourists. Perhaps the most memorable sight was the Lindworm fountain. Klagenfurt felt quite modern and friendly, with good public transport. Coffees seem to come with the option of pancreas-destroying amounts of sugar. Because I have the memory of a stomped-on slug, and didn’t write any notes until much later, everything else about today is an indelible blank apart from our first of many visits to Burger Boutique. This is in the university area, only 800m from our hotel. My legs appreciated this much – they hurt if I walk more than a couple of hundred metres.