Category: travel

Rick McHaggis arrives in Scotland

On By Rick McIn travel3 Comments

Flew into fantastic Edinburgh, Scotland yesterday. My first visit to one of my ancestral homelands.

It’s already my favourite city in Europe !!

Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle

Actually, what I like about the city is how weird, dark and gritty it is. Very unique. Very interesting.

Edinburgh
Edinburgh

The food offerings are especially great. Every restaurant is different. … I found the choices so limited in the Alps and Dolomites.

Great food in the U.K. … Who’d a thunk it?

Off to the most popular hike for the next 5 days or so. Will be offline.

But I’m booked in for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Aug. 27-30.

is Switzerland expensive?

On By Rick McIn travel1 Comment

Let’s check the Big Mac index:

Five most expensive (as of 4 February 2009)

Norway – USD 5.79
Switzerland – USD 5.60
Denmark – USD 5.07
Sweden – USD 4.58
Eurozone – USD 4.38

If, as a traveller, you have some crappy currency, let’s say Canadian loonies, Switzerland is very expensive. … If you want to buy a crappy burger.

However, if you live and work in the country, here are the easiest places to earn a Big Mac:

Tokyo, Japan – 10 minutes
Los Angeles, United States – 11 minutes
Chicago, Illinois United States – 12 minutes
Miami, Florida United States – 12 minutes
New York City, New York United States – 13 minutes
Auckland, New Zealand – 14 minutes
Sydney, Australia – 14 minutes
Toronto, Canada – 14 minutes
Zürich, Switzerland – 15 minutes
Dublin, Ireland – 15 minutes

Actually, I spent very few Swiss francs over a couple of weeks there. I’ll soon post: Europe on the Cheap.

Off to Geneva tomorrow, one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Geneva

P.S.

Worst McDonalds in the World? … Chamonix, France. It’s hilarious how the French can ruin a service company as finely tuned as Rotten Ronnie’s.

Massacre of Cermis – US pilot kills 20 in Italy

On By Rick McIn bad news, travel2 Comments

In European mountains this summer I’ve taken a lot of cable cars.

Cablecar.zelllamsee.500pix

Each and every time I’ve cursed the U.S. military for an incident in 1998 the Italians call the Massacre of Cermis.

The Cavalese cable car disaster of 1998 (as distinct from the similarly named disaster of 1976), occurred on 3 February 1998 near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort located in the Dolomites, some 40 km north-east of Trento. The disaster, which led to the death of 20 people, occurred when a U.S. military plane cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway. …

The pilot of that military jet, Captain Richard J. Ashby, was only found guilty of “obstruction of justice” and “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” for having destroyed a videotape recorded from the plane.

He was dismissed from the Marines as was navigator, Captain Joseph Schweitzer.

Flying at 500 MPH in the busy Dolomites. I’d shoot Ashby myself if I got the chance.

… The restrictions in effect at the time required a minimum flying height of 2,000 feet (610 m); the pilot said he thought they were 1,000 feet (300 m). The cable was cut at a height of 360 feet (110 m). …

Bloody American military!

The worst cable car accident ever was not the Massacre of Cermis. But it was at that same ski resort in Italy, in 1976.

… 42 people including 15 children died when the steel cable of their cable car broke. … The cabin fell some 700 feet (200 m) down a mountainside, and then a heavy overhead carriage assembly fell on top of it. Only one passenger survived, a 14 year old girl. …

All Experts

survived the High Route in the Alps …

On By Rick McIn hiking, travelLeave a comment

Just arrived back to civilization, Chamonix, France, after 7 days, 7 nights up with the glaciers.

FANTASTIC hike. Chamonix to Zermatt: The Walker’s Haute Route

Trip report and photos coming soon …

lingering in Bad Gastein, Austria

On By Rick McIn internet, photos, travelLeave a comment

If you’re as fluent oaf Deutsch as I am, you can translate the name of this mountain town:

Bad Gastein = Bad Gas Town

… Not exactly great marketing to attract tourists.

But I love weird & unique Bad Gastein. I stayed over a week.

Catching up on the internet. Day hiking the Austrian Alps. And biking when I needed a change of pace.

Austria is very inexpensive this Summer due to the recession. Tourism is way down. I paid US$22.50 / day for a private room. With breakfast. (I can drink $20 worth of coffee in the morning.)

You could stay in the dorm for US$10 day. And get a complimentary mountain bike. It just might be the least expensive hostel in Western Europe.

The townscape is characterised by historic multi-storey hotel buildings erected on … steep slopes.

It surrounds a series of waterfalls, in fact.

empty-hotels

The spas of Bad Gastein are a fashionable resort, visited by European monarchs as well as the rich and famous. … Well, they were in the 1860s.

Since the 1960s imposing and massive hotels mostly sit empty.

Somerset Maugham could have used this town as a setting for one of his short stories about eccentric expat recluses running out the clock.

The good people of the Rathaus have made an effort. To rejuvenate the resort, Bad Gastein renovated the hot springs and added an ultra modern (in 1970) Convention Centre.

convention-centre

The Casino is a little more appealing.

Casino

I’d love to shoot a movie here. In one scene an engrossed young couple, deep in conversation in the foreground, wouldn’t notice as a despondent hotel owner throws himself off the balcony into the waterfall.

hotel-waterfall

Soccer balls, as well as the corpses of suicide victims, get washed downstream, eventually finding an eddy.

soccer-ball

more bad Bad Gastein photos

I’m aus. En route to the Swiss Alps.

The Sound of Music

On By Rick McIn music, travel1 Comment

Traveling in Austria, it’s impossible to avoid Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, the 1965 musical. I saw it the other day at a hostel.

The film won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Wise) and Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Julie Andrews).

Well deserved.

Click PLAY or watch the original trailer on YouTube.

Christopher Plummer as Captain Baron von Trapp is commanding. A great and believable performance. I’d forgotten how good he was.

The plot, acting and even the music hold up really well. Even in 2009.

Fact is it’s the third on the list of all-time inflation-adjusted box office hits, behind Gone with the Wind and Star Wars.

The movie is virtually unknown in Germany and Austria. Those Austrians that have seen it, think it’s bunk. Brits playing Austrians? What’s next? Sacha Baron Cohen playing an Austrian?