Walking through Athens and what do you see? A dozen masked maniacs throwing chunks of marble at 6,000 armoured doughnut-munchers with shields. Yes, it's one year on from the start of the Greek riots of '08 and some people decided that the anniversary of a boy's death was a good time to chuck some marble, petrol bombs and, most devastatingly, oranges at policemen.

Read more...click below.

and we're off again...

What do you do when a problem is bigger than you can handle? Do you play it like most people and just give up? It would seem the logical thing to do, the reasoning being somewhat straightforward. 'Well, no matter how much I do I can't really make an impact, so I won't bother'. Sound familiar? Here's a little story. A woman looks after stray cats, loves having them around. Late one morning a cat of hers starts giving birth. She hurriedly prepares a space for it, tends to the birth, looks after mother and kittens and then she throws every non-black kitten in a plastic bag and gasses them.

For more murdering of innocent kittens please follow the link, add manic laugh as appropriate.

It's been a while since my last post. That's not been because there's been little to talk about. For one reason or another life has taken over. I was first tempted to say 'gotten in the way', but that would imply that the desired state is writing lots of blog posts all the time and what actually happened – having a really enjoyable and interesting time – is a somehow less fulfilling enterprise. No matter. Life has afforded a break and I'm here now.

More after the break...

Our host test fires his burners in front of passengers and ground crew.

Last time around I mentioned that our host was a hot-air-balloonist. Well, a couple of days ago I had my first taste of this most serene of past-times. It wasn't from the gondola (this is the balloonist word for 'basket') but from the ground. There was a flight going up in the morning and I asked if I could tag along and take some photographs. Yes, I volunteered to get up at half-four and watch people mess around a bit with balloons. Those of you that know me well will be as amazed as I was that come 4.45am I was in the shower whistling.

Read on for lots of photos for a change...

So, we're off travelling again! It's a new plan for the rest of the summer after my ankle injury. Gone for now is the walk down Italy, although we've kept the mark in the right page and we still mean to read the book (and it's not just one of those optimistic bookmarks littering millions of copies of 'Das Capital' halfway through the introduction or stuffed with disappointment at page 17 of Lord Jim).

Click below to see the rest and read to the end twice or you'll die the next time you look in a mirror...

Thursday the 4th of June: 11am
On a hot summer's day made for falling in love on a morning's gentle skip downhill from the Jaufenpass we hit our first flat road for the past two days. It was a bit of a relief. “Crunch!” I heard, collapsing suddenly to the floor. I had sprained my left ankle on a hole in the road. Screaming in a rather disturbing way I told Julia “It's over, we're going home!”. I was on my back for two days, and I'm still limping today, or I would be...

Thursday the 11th of June: 11am
Carefully manoeuvring down from our first camp site since starting up again after the injury, coming down through a steep sun-bathed grassy vale, “Crunch!” I heard, collapsing suddenly to the floor, now cradling my right ankle in pain. Keeping very quiet and hoping my camera was still working I saw Julia come up to me, throw her pack off and say “That's it, we're going home!”

Click somewhere above or below here to read on...

After getting back to Italy, the following few days were spent in a limbo between work and play...Julia had some work to finish and to find a power socket we were forced to trek into the library every day. It was a strange modern building that was a bit like an elongated greenhouse filled with odd overgrown plants and trees and had been built as a complex with the town theatre, but the most interesting thing about this library (I wonder if anyone's personal interest has sustained them this far) was the (wait for it) books.

If it was, click below or above or here to read on...

Been spending a lot of time working on the blog over the past day or two...don't quite have the commitment of this guy though...forget the worst theme song in the world at the start, it does get funny...but mostly it's just plain wrong.

It's the same guys that made Obama girl, nice to know they're still at it!

Enjoy!

Sitting in the lee of a motorway for lunch, easily our least pleasant location to date, we looked at the map in horror. We had grossly mistaken the amount of time it would take us to reach our next target, Sterzing-Vipiteno. We had estimated about a week – we now realized that it'd be a stretch to say two days.

click 'read more' or the title above to read more...

The Sattelberg Alm website

Bear with me on this, but when I first saw the Sattelberg Alm, I almost cried with disappointment. I had gone ahead to make sure we could get a bed or two and as I bounded up to the door I saw the sign that had become so familiar back in Steinach. It amounted to “Closed until summer.”

Please click here to read more...