August 15^th, 2003

Now that the heat wave has broken and Europe gets back to its normal weather pattern of showery days interspersed with warm humid days, the continent takes a look back to the effects the unusually hot few weeks have had. Fires have devastated large areas, burning in Portugal, Spain, and the Southern coast of France. Authorities are now saying that the French fires on the Cote d’Azure are arson fires, set by developers hoping to pick up some cheap land to develop when the government sells land once covered with trees. An unreal figure of 10,000 people are purported to have lost their lives to heat related causes, mostly elderly people, and the French government is also under fire for not doing enough during the crisis.

On a positive note, the German winemakers are ecstatic. Testing the amount of sugar accumulating in the grape tells the vintner when the grapes are ready to harvest, and this year’s heat enabled the German harvest to begin almost a month early. Never before have they had such an early harvest and are saying that this years wine will especially good. Something to remember next year when the wines are ready to drink.

Now that it’s cooler, we were back into dodging showers of rain as we headed south. We had spent a few days visiting with my parents in Hamburg where they had come for a visit. Compared to Berlin, with its anarchic feel, grafitti’d walls, its bands of young street people, pierced and dressed in rags and the generally run-down state of the city, Hamburg feels more like a sedate but elegant matron. We had a nice visit and did some sightseeing, including a trip to Wilkomm Höft, set on the banks of the Elbe river. We had lunch at the restaurant there, sitting outside on the large open terrace overlooking the river where we could watch the ships passing up and down. A lookout tower also watches the river, and as a ship passes, a loudspeaker plays the national anthem of the ship, a brief message of welcome to the ship and then gives statistics of each ship such as size, year it was built and where, and cargo capacity. Since it was Sunday, there wasn’t much traffic, but we did see a few container ships pass…

From Hamburg, we headed south into Austria. We were thinking about the beautiful lake of Wolfgang See in Austria that we had stumbled on last year, and we thought we would go there and stay a few days in the hotel we had stayed in last year. Evidently, we forgot to look at the calendar! On a weekend, in mid-August, the grassy edges of the lake were crowded with people sunning or going for a swim. Even more people were walking in the town. Needless to say, we decided to push on, since there were few rooms available.

Following some twisty roads through wide valleys and over mountain passes, we enjoyed some of the most stunning views (I think!) in Europe. The valleys were covered with grass, intensely green and bordered with jagged grey mountains, some tall enough to be topped with glaciers. We found a nice pension in one of these archetypical valleys, with a kitchen and a balcony that looked out on pastureland dotted with cows and the grey teeth of a mountain called Dachstein. A very rural small town, called Gosau, spread up the road, a cluster of  traditional Austrian style buildings with flower-filled balconies. The town was just big enough to support a post office, a grocery, a bakery and a general store where one could buy odds and ends. There are a few restaurants where Mike could get Jägerschnitzel, which he had been dreaming about. A thin piece of pork meat, breaded and fried like Wiener Schnitzel, but with a cream sauce with mushrooms poured over the top. I had Käse Spätzle, a local specialty, which was small twists of pasta dough, sautéed with onions and melted cheese over the top. Not exactly a light meal, but it was delicious all the same…

I spent the morning writing and by lunchtime, Mike was getting cabin fever, so I took a break and hopped on the bike with Mike. We went up the road a bit towards Dachstein through a couple of small villages, not much more than a couple dozen buildings strung along the road. As we climbed up in altitude, we saw a few lakes, part of a chain of lakes dammed to make hydroelectric power. At the end of the road, a beautiful lake sat at the foot of the craggy mountain peak which was reflected in the water. A restaurant served food, so we got some lunch then walked partway around the lake where hikers were descending paths that led up into the hills.

Later that evening, we ventured out of our apartment again, to go to the grocery store to get some picnic food for our departure in the morning, but by the time we got there, the store had closed, just a few minutes earlier. We hung around for a few minutes watching a string of tourists and locals scream into the parking lot, then watched their shoulders slump when confronted with the locked door. One of the passersby was a young Indian from Calcutta, oddly out of place here. He told us he was studying to be a chef and had gotten a summer job here to cook for one of the hotels. Without a vehicle, he felt trapped because the bus service, run by the Austrian postal system, also shut down at 7 p.m. His mother, out of a misguided sense of trying to protect him, had taken his drivers license before he left India. After several months, unable to get to the “big city” to dance at a disco or find other entertainment for his free time, his term of employment was feeling like imprisonment.

Leaving Gosau, we headed west across much of Austria, towards Switzerland. We had stopped for gas and found a brochure for some motorcycle hotels in the area. The hotels all featured cool stuff like bikes to rent, motorcycle garages with a workshop for working on your bike with tools, chain lube and a lift, dry-rooms, boot dryers (!), road books with cool rides to take in the area, etc. We had to check it out so we headed to a small ski-town called Serfaus, in a western corner of Austria near the border of  Switzerland and Italy. The hotel, as you might guess, was full but there was an information center with a list of hotels so we went back to choose another place to stay.

Mike stayed by the bike while I went in to the information center to check it out, not bothering to take my helmet off. I pulled the door open to see a small boy standing on the doorstep inside. He looked up at me with wide eyes, gave a violent shudder then ran screaming to his parents in fright at the moon man who had unexpectedly appeared in front of him. He slowly calmed down after I took my helmet off and his parents explained to him while trying to keep from laughing, that I was a nice lady, not a space man. I guess he’d never seen a biker before…

The next morning nice and early, we crossed over the Reschen pass into a strange corner of Italy with bilingual signs, looking a bit Austria but with a difference that was hard to define. This alpine area has a language and culture all its own. from there, we tackled Stelvio pass (photo at left), a hair-raising series of tight switchbacks on a narrow road shared with other vehicles including many bicyclists straining up the hills. Some of the switchbacks were so narrow that our motorcycle had trouble getting around them and it seemed as if they went on forever. At last we were at the top, where crowds of bikers were parked, relieved to be at the top. We went over a few more passes before settling for the night in a small town in Switzerland.

The next day, we crossed the rest of Switzerland, riding one pass after another; Oberalppass, Sustenpass, Grimselpass. It’s the weekend again and there are lots of bikes out, riding the endless switchbacks and congregating at the top of the passes. Although the sun is shining, the air is cool at this altitude. At the top of Grimselpass beside a small alpine lake, we met a young couple living in Switzerland; she is American, from N. Carolina, and he is French, each on their own bikes.  We got an e-mail from them a few weeks later, with a photo attached. Taken just 2 months earlier in June, the photo showed the same lake we were standing next to, but full of large chunks of ice, snow covering the ground. There isn't much growing at this altitude, aside from sparse grass and moss, and a neon green lichen covering the rocks. I wandered off to get a better view of the valley and encountered a small flock of mountain sheep; long curly fleece like a mop, flat brown faces and ears framed by small horns curving up out of the long hair...

This time of year, the mountain passes are barren, and the sparse vegetation growing in the gritty grey soil are mostly a rusty green color. The alpine meadows are full of sharp rocks, and the mountain tops are jagged. Some of the mountains have glaciers, melting into a lake colored a milky grey-green color from all the glacial rock dust suspended in its water. I had not spent much time riding in Switzerland before this, and I have to confess that I was surprised that the country does not look more like Austria.  The road wound through village after village of small wooden cabins, stained a dark color and boards warped with age or larger stone houses and hotels clustered around a church with a tall pointed steeple.

One last pass for the day, the pass of the Grand Saint Bernard and we were once again in the northern Italian alps. Passing an attractive house built of stone on the road just before Aosta, we stopped and turned around when we noticed the sign “Bed and Breakfast Les Fleurs”. A tall iron fence enclosed a yard with flowery terraces leading up the side of the hill, even more flowers spilling from pots and windowsills. The proprietress showed us a lovely room for €50 including breakfast, and had us park the motorcycle inside a tall iron fence for safe-keeping. Although we didn’t have a language in common, we managed to understand each other; she would speak to me in French and to Mike in Italian!

Since we were still about 10 kilometers away from Aosta, the restaurant choices for dinner within walking distance were limited. There was only one restaurant/bar nearby, in fact! It was a little early for dinner, but we were starving so we headed down the hill at about 7pm after a quick shower and change of clothes. “Yes, you can get food but not until 8:30”, the woman at the restaurant said. Not even a snack, a piece of bread? “You cannot get food until 8:30”, she repeated, a little more firmly this time. We settled down, with a bottle of sparkling water, to wait until we would be allowed to order food.

Mike ordered the local specialty, just simply “soup” on the menu. It turned out to be a large bowl of bread, soaked in a small amount of broth, with melted aromatic cheese, cooked cabbage and small bits of ham. Not too interesting to look at, but the soup turned out to be surprisingly tasty, a good hearty meal for a winter in the alps.

Previous Page              Next Page