Our latest guests

Another bus group has come and gone! And despite really very disappointing weather (apart from one day when proper Carinthian summer weather finally showed its face for them) they were a jolly lot who enjoyed everything and were very appreciative to us and the staff. A couple even said they were going straight back to book up for the September trip to see if the weather would be better for them then!

Our next arrivals are a group of Irish bikers who have travelled all the way from Dublin, including spending tonight on the car-rail service from Düsseldorf to Villach and so will be arriving for full English breakfast at 9.00a.m. tomorrow! The weather looks to be at least a little better for next week although the risk of thunderstorms continues across the whole of central Europe. Can't believe in Wimbledon fortnight the UK gets better weather than here!

I am definitely suffering Wimbledon withdrawal - this would be my year to go normally - so we are holding our own little event next weekend - showing both finals on the TV and offering guests strawberries and cream and champagne (or Guinness). If Andy Murray wins, we have agreed to give all those here at the time a free drink - will be worth it just to have a British winner after all these years!

Also next week the annual motorbike blessing at the dam. http://www.soisses.at/2009/06/27/motorradsegnung-auf-der-staumauer/#more-6235 We will have a couple from Grimsby here to represent the UK at that event. In fact Saturday night will be truly international with guests from Sweden, Turkey and Italy as well! That will be an interesting night.

Also looking forward to the arrival on Tuesday of our nephew Matt who is joining us for the summer. Hopefully plenty of work for him to do, plus a chance to experience a bit of a different environment before finally getting a proper job!

Sad Goodbyes

Our children have gone and our friends from Hungary have gone and the storms are back to reflect the mood! Its strange how you can become really good friends with people so quickly in this holiday atmosphere. The children were particularly touching, so many of them saying how they didn't want to go home. It appears they have been telling everyone they meet what a great place it is here and how much they like John's cooking and speaking English with us - much to the surprise of the locals according to the two teachers! The teachers, Inge & Traudee, also felt at home here, and we hope to meet up with them again later in the year.

John managed a short ride out with the 3 guys before the left this morning, which was a treat for him - they too have promised to recommend us to their friends and colleagues (especially the police motorbike clubs!) so we are really looking forward to meeting some more great fun people from Hungary and Spain.

We have a quiet weekend ahead we think - weather forecast is not favourable and the camping place is also not busy so not a lot of passing restaurant trade either. But Monday our next coach group arrives, so much preparation on the kitchen to keep us busy ahead. Sad about the weather as so many events are on this weekend in the region. Still we might get a chance to pop over to Mallnitz to see the newly arrived English residents, Katy & John - we hear they have brought some real ale with them!

Some great photos

But not ours! Still had to share with you some photos taken in the local area recently and posted to the web. Such clever stuff - all 360 Panoramas. Thanks to soisses.at for identifying the link.

http://www.panotopia.org/?m=200906

Had some great guests this week - 2 friends from the UK, a Dutch/Belgian couple who came to walk and climb, 3 Hungarian bikers (one of whom turned out to be Spanish - our first Spaniard!) and 17 delightful children (and their 2 equally delightful teachers) from a school in Salzburg who have just been a pleasure to have around. That's when this job is really good fun! Next week another bus group and then a group of bikers from Ireland. That should be a good craic!

John has had his bike tested to see if we can register it here finally. We have to change the headlight and - horror - he has to re-fit the standard exhaust. What will he do whe he can't make that noise when he pulls off? Turns out the cheapest way to get the European headlight is to have it imported from the UK. Seems they sell an awful lot to ex-pat bikers who can't afford mainland prices. Should arrive next week so hopefully on the road soon after!

Always nice to have a celebration!

One of our bikers had a birthday! Seemed a good excuse so we made a bit of a fuss and he seemed quite touched. We started out by having a free beer ready (and a rose in a glass) when they got back from their ride around 3 countries, but it turned out he didn't like beer and only drank wine. So we did it all again and put a candle in his Apple Strudel for good measure. The party went on till 2.00am!

Sadly they had to go home this morning (I hate that part!) but they all said they would be back soon and we have our Hungarian bikers to look forward to plus my friend Charlotte and her husband AND a Dutch couple later today and 18 schoolchildren and 2 teachers tomorrow! Other bookings coming in thick and fast from Booking.com (today Swedes and Belgians) as well PLUS its 30 degrees again. Much cheerier!

More and more bikes

Excellent barbie evening last night - 4 more bikers saw us and joined in and the weather stayed warm enough for the party to carry on outside until quite late. Except for the whisky tasters that is, who came inside to deal with the very serious issue of getting through a whistle stop tour of Scottish single malt production! This was all after they had introduced us to a little tradition in their club - when one of them needs to do some work on their bike the others have to sit and watch, offering both (occasionally) useful advice and other less helpful comments to their more industrious colleague! Hence for a short while there were more chairs on our car park than on our terrace! Today they have borrowed our Sat Nav and gone off on our 3 countries tour. Good job we tested that one a couple of weeks ago then!

After the group left this morning John and took advantage of another interesting activity - open morning at the local hairdressers. Free beer and prosecco plus nibbles, haircut for him and hand massage or eye make up for her - English hairdressers take note, the place was packed! But the staff did a good job on John's unruly mop and my hand massage was a welcome 10 minutes of relaxation. Plus they seemed genuinely happy to see us and I have €5 off my next appointment! The only downside was the 15 minute rant from the stylists's husband about all Italians being mafiosi - obviously someone from across the border had upset him somewhere but the generalisation is sadly all too typical. No wonder our Italian guests (and others) so often complain of a poor reception in this area. All the better for those of us who try hard to be nice to everyone then!

Religious Festivals et al

Once again Malta has come up with a religious festival that is steeped in tradition and history in which the Gasthof Hochalmspitze has to play its long-established part (despite the clear atheist convictions of its current management!) Here they call it Fronleichnam, in Holland it is apparently Sacrementdag and in the UK, I am reliably informed by those who know, it is Corpus Christi. As is always the case in Kärnten, the band, the choir and the local children were all involved and we have lots of photos showing the costumes and the ceremony which you can find at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/johnlgowers/Fronleichnam2009?feat=directlink but here are a view to begin with! I think this is the first time that the local priest has been confronted with a Guinness poster when he approached the altar though! The highlight of the whole thing was definitely the ladies choir who sang both the religious elements of the service plus, as you can see in the photos, a rather wonderful gospel number. They sounded as good as they looked!

On another note, our 15 German bikers have arrived and already started on a mission to drink us dry! We will NOT be defeated! Tonight they are having a barbecue - sun has been out ALL day - followed by a whisky tasting session. Not an early night then! We were sorry to have to say goodbye to our Hungarian couple this morning, but how lovely that they decide to write on our blog directly (assuming it says something nice!). Hope to catch up with the both in Budapest later in the year.

Kedvezö tapasztalatok

Sziasztok ismeretlen magyar motorosok!

Ez a szälläs lenyegesen többnek bizonyult szämunkra, mint egy hely, ahol eszünk es alszunk. A häziak ugy tudtak kedvesek lenni, hogy közben egyältalän nem voltak tolakodoak, egyszerüen "csak" figyelmesek. A häzigazda kisebb technikai segitseget is adott nekünk, nem volt nehez, mert 30 evig szerelökent dolgozott.
A szoba "k." hideg volt , de aludni tökeletesen megfelelt. az ellätäs a helyi viszonyoknak megfelelo, de egyeni igenyekre, neha a ki nem mondottakra is pozitivan reagältak. pl. elmondtuk, hogy szeretjük az olasz konyhät es mäsnap este a föetel es az edesseg olasz volt.
Egyaltalan nem lebecsülendö az a karintia kärtya, amit kaptunk. Sok helyen ingyen järtunk vele es a Glocknerre is kaptunk egy vouchert ami (ezt pontosan nem sikerült a gyatra nemettel megallapitani) lehet hogy meg toväbbi 10 napra szolo jegyet jelentett kedvezmenyes äron. Azt sejtjük, hogy ha jobb a nemet nyelvismeretünk es több idönk is van, akkor sokkal jobban ki tudtuk volna hasznälni.
Az idöjäräs nekünk nem kedvezett, de minden mäs, amit a häziaktol kaptunk, ellensulyozta azt.

Jo szivvel ajänlom mindenkinek ezt a helyet.

Malta, 2009. junius 8-12.


Szeles utat kivän Nektek

Spitzer Läszlo
UCM 220


Ui.: Az jo lenne, ha a sajat tapasztalataitokkal kiegeszitenetek az ältalam irottakat.

I have no idea what this says - but I trust these two to have said something nice. (Fingers crossed!). Ros

From the sublime....

Who says direct marketing is not effective? We have been delighted this week with the outcome of our targeted marketing aimed at attracting more bikers to our place. Meet our two new friends (above) Lazslo and Czilla from Budapest who have been with us since Monday - such lovely people with whom we really hope to keep in touch. Then last night 2 amazing trikes turn up (Rent-A-Trike, Austria would you believe?). We just about got both in the garage! Tonight 13 more bikes from Germany and then on Monday 3 more from Hungary. John is in 7th heaven! Thankfully the weather looks to be improving - 30 degrees again forecast by the end of the weekend, so they should all leave happy. And currently we are getting more hits on the website from the UKGS website than almost any other, so hopefully some British bikers will be on their way soon (already have bookings next month from Ireland and Grimsby!) Even Adolf is impressed.

Newsflash - John fails to take photos of a single 'train'

  

                                   

Wednesday June 3rd - John, Ros and Andrea, as guests of the Tourismus Verbund - the tourist arm of the hydro-electric power generation company that owns the dams and power stations locally - visit the Reißeck Mountain Railway - and John takes no pictures at all of the vehicles - a real shock for all who know him. So you will just have to visit their website to see them. http://www.tauerntouristik.at/de/reisseck/index.php.

Having said that we did take plenty of photos of the scenary, our companions on the tour (a very 

international group consisting of us, Andrea (Hungarian) 2 young dutch people and one Kärntnerin!)

Andrea in true Hungarian style had the head of the tourist company dancing inside 10 minutes of their meeting.

Having not expected the 'short guided tour' we had been promised to include hiking across as yet unmelted snow,

we were a little unprepared, but in true Brit style, we did the tour in open sandals (Ros) and T shirt (John)

much to the guide's amazement and chagrin, thus confirming their view of us as totally mad! Our guide. Günter,

spoke perfect English (and Italian) - working for a private company they all have to! - and thus enabled us to have a really

interesting visit and tour. Plus we felt we had earned our goulash soup at the end of it!

We are converts and will recommend this trip to all our guests - using the National park card they all get, its even free!

Other photos on http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/johnlgowers/ReiEckBergbahnTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCL-P-t-W9MmmCA&feat=directlink

All this getting out and about!

As May turns into June, we know our days of getting out and about are numbered now. So we had one last long trip to Slovenia yesterday, following our '3 countries' tour route and sorting out the bugs. The route took us through the Triglavski National park - a place of breathtaking beauty - and over no less than 4 mountain passes, the first (Würzenpass) from Austria into Slovenia, next in the National Park itself the Vrsic Pass, on over the Predil Pass (Slovenia into Italy, ending in the wonderful Predil Lake) and finally the Nassfeld (or Pramolo) Pass from Italy back to Austria. Even for the dedicated biker that's a five hour plus ride and for us stopping and taking photos it was over 8 hours. On the way we made a new contact, Milan Crnigoj, who owns a great little hostelry in Slovenia, speaks 5 languages (including excellent English, having studied in the UK and previously been married to an Englishwoman) and loves bikers. So we can heartily recommend his place as a lunch stop! Hopefully some of the photos will do it all justice.

Also forgot to mention this week we helped our friend Andrea celebrate her birthday - I promised she would go onto the blog, so here she is! Thanks to her our Hungarian bookings are increasing each week, so we are glad we found her!