Category: travel

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?

all’s well in Italy …

On By Rick McIn hiking, travel1 Comment

The Dolomite mountains in northern Italy are FANTASTIC.

Rick-in-the-Dolomites

Trip reports coming soon to my hiking blog.

Actually, I’m writing from Munich. En route to some great hiking in the Austrian Alps.

FINALLY found some free WiFi internet access.

why I can’t live in the Maritimes … or Italy

On By Rick McIn anti-smoking, health & fitness, hiking, travel1 Comment

Much as I like Halifax, living in the Maritimes is a non-starter for me. (Sorry Anne.)

smoker-and-childWhy?

Too many smokers.

It’s disgusting.

As I toured Nova Scotia, one Tim Hortons to the next, I had to push my way through nicotine addicts lurking at each entrance. Yeesh.

Why can’t those Maritimers go work their short-term Summer jobs as mandated by pogie?

I fled the second hand smoke for Italy.

Doh!

Italy is even WORSE. (Remind me not to travel to Cuba.)

And why am I even in Italy? I’m one of the few people you know who doesn’t want to travel in Italy. It’s the last place I wanted to go … last except for the land of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

My Mom reminded me of my only other trip to Italy, over 30yrs ago. I wrote her this on a postcard:

… “Italy is Great…too bad it is run by Italians” …

Italian men back in 1976 were totally irritating.

Happily I can report they’ve improved over the past few decades.

In fact, it seems the young Italian men have collectively opted into a 1980s George Michael look-alike contest. Pretty funny. I don’t speak Italian, but I’d estimate at least 6 million young men, so far, have voluntarily joined into this amusing competition.

george-michael

It’s great to see that those (formerly) arrogant pricks are now able to laugh at themselves.

The detested Italian machismo seems to be fading.

Of course I’m in Italy for hiking. It was a complete surprise to me. One minute I was searching the internet for cheap flights to Iceland. The next I’d bought a $100 ticket Gatwick to Venice.

Here I am in Bolzano, no guidebook. It’s like the blind leading … myself.

Fortunately 6 of my 10 words of Italian from the distant past have returned to me.

Oh, … I should add that there are only 2 good smokers in the World. And one of them is trying to quit.

shout out for Halifax

On By Rick McIn travelLeave a comment

I’ve always liked this city.

It’s a University hangout with Dalhousie right downtown. A party place. Great restaurants and bars.

I had a terrific $5 steak special at one busy restaurant as part of my Tattoo ticket package.

The impressive Citadel Hill cannot be missed.

But really it’s the harbour I like most.

My best photo, former prison camp, Georges Island.

Georges Island

Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo – a review

On By Rick McIn government, product endorsements, travel6 Comments

Excellent.

I was very happy I finally got the chance to see it. The original meaning of military tattoo is a military drum performance, but nowadays it sometimes means army displays more generally.

The themes: the military, police, fire, patriotism, Scottish heritage, international cooperation, tradition. Military music: drums and pipes.

Tattoo
Tattoo

It’s so unhip. So retro. So old fashioned … I found it very charming. It’s the anti-Cirque.

Happily the old men in charge laughed off any suggestion to pander with a reference to Michael Jackson. In fact, they don’t know who he was. … But they do know Abba.

Though I was born to parents both in the military, my upbringing was just the opposite. The formative book of my teen years was anti-war: Catch-22.

The first adult movie I saw was anti-war: Kelly’s Heros.

As a young adult I told Rich that I would rather be Red than Dead. (As a gymnastics coach, I might just have been better off under the Commies than under Trudeau.)

But I’ve always respected the military. They are clear on purpose. Announced loudly and clearly during the Tattoo:

There are no good wars. And there is nothing good about war.
(Nod to Benjamin Franklin.)

A strong military is all about preventing war. And minimizing the risk of war.

Our greatest danger in 2009 is the hazard that the wrong people in Pakistan might get their hands on nuclear weapons. (Not climate change. Please.) We need a strong military to do what we can to minimize the risk of nuclear war.

At MEC I happened to see a young female soldier shopping for a personal backpack for her upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. Very young. I could only think of how much braver she was than me. I’d hate to be going over there right now.

Kudos to everyone in police, fire prevention and the military. I salute you.

official website – Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo

Here is the 2009 promo video on YouTube. (The footage is from previous years. But you’ll get the idea.)

The Tattoo is too long and slow for kids. At least 3 were asleep near where I was sitting by half way through the performance. But I recommend you attend if ever you get the chance.

Leave a comment if you’ve seen a Tattoo.