Bonvoyage - Erding Stellplatz Munich

All good things must come to an end! Today we put Jade and Cole on their flight home to Mom and Gammels who they both cant wait to see!

How proud am I as a Dad of two champion snowboarders! My daughter and young son are almost as good as their dad on a board now and I gotta start watching my back for them both on the slopes.

They were simply awesome to have over and pulled their weight and then some in the camper van - thanks you guys!

Frohe Weihnachten

To All Our Friends & Family

Timm and I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas filled with love, laughter & joy. 

May 2016 bring you happiness, health and blessings!

Liebe Freunde

Wir wünschen Euch eine wunderschöne frohe Weihnachtszeit

und alles Glück auf Erden für das kommende Jahr,

Alles Liebe, Timm und Melina

Snowboard Holiday

Campsite: Schluga Camping, Hermagor, Austria

Wow, how time flies. It's Christmas Eve today and we've been in Austria for just over 10 days having a whale of a time with Jade & Cole.

Arrival
As some of you may already know, the arrival of Jade and Cole was tainted by the mismanagement of Air France. We had booked an Unaccompanied Minor service for their flights but when finally landing in Munich (with 5 hours delay), the Children were waved good bye by the ground staff at the airplane door and had to find their own way out. No supervision, no signing over to the receiving person. It was an absolute disgrace and we are still in discussions with them....

But anyways, we hit the road with a stopover just over the border into Austria before arriving in Hermagor the following day.
Hermagor is literally on the Italian Border, in fact, one of our ski runs goes into Italy...





Campsite
Our Campsite is absolutely fantastic with lovely ablution facilities, places to store / dry your ski clothing and boots, washing machines and an Indoor Pool / Spa Facilities.
The staff are very friendly and helpful and of course, there is the great view onto the Mountains!

One downside of the Campsite is it's location 8km away from Nassfeld (our Ski Resort) and requires the use of the Ski Bus which (unfortunately) doesn't go very often and as such we are quite limited with regards to coming & going.

Waiting at the bus stop while deciding what route to take today... 

Snow
Well, to put it simply - there is none. None in the valley and none on the mountain. It is all fantastically green, the sun is shining, the ski lifts are going but no snow....
Thankfully, Nassfeld prides itself in being "Schneesicher" and as such they have been creating artificial snow for the last 6 weeks in preparation for the season's opening. And here I must give the Ski Resort a big thumbs up - the piste's are well prepared and great to snowboard on. Quite a feat I must say considering that if you leave your tracks you end up on grass - I have grass stains to prove it!

The Snowboarding has been really great - for the first time I am not terrified going a bit faster or down steeper slopes which has resulted in me really enjoying myself and more effortless boarding!

"Teen-anese" - one has to look cool on the mountain!

Jade is pushing her boundaries (she snowboards better than I do) and loves chasing her father down the mountain - luckily no major injuries yet although Timm's knee is giving a bit of trouble.

Hot Chocolate with Cream - the family favourite...

Cole has also decided to switch onto a Snowboard this year and he did a three-day course at the beginning. We then tried to all board together for a few days, but it just ended up in all of us being frustrated.
So back to school he went, this time, he's in a group with similar aged kids and he's absolutely loving it. At lunchtime, we all come together, have lunch and then head back down the mountain

Other Activities
The other day we headed round the corner to the "Weissensee" to try our hand at Ice Skating. What an experience that was - the first time I've skated on a natural lake!

Sliding down a frozen snow heap - what a thrill

Getting into the Christmas Mood
Of course we've had to visit various Christmas Markets - from big to small and everything in between :-)

We even have our own Christmas Tree inside Felix!

Getting Ready For The Kids

Stellplatz:
Camper Area Tamaro; Monteceneri, Switzerland (6 December 2015)
Stellplatz Hochgratblick; Oberstaufen Germany (7 December 2015)
Der Freistaat; Munich, Germany (8 December 2015)
Therme Erding; Munich, Germany (9 and 10 December 2015)

Slowly we made our way back to Munich where the Kids were due to arrive on Friday.

Driving through Switzerland we also encountered our first snow but this soon disappeared again :-(

Once in Munich we ran a few errands (toilet chemicals, some ski clothes for the kids etc etc) as well as dealing with the work crisis. Not fun!

But anyways, we are ready for the rats :-)


The view and some snow at our Stellplatz in Oberstaufen

Gold Digging in Italy

Stellplatz: generally town squares with zero facilities

After having left Merano, Timm and I made our direction Milan, where we picked up Paul, Timm's Brother. He was going to spend the weekend with us as it was Timm's Birthday (4th of Dec).

Unfortunately, I have to say that I didn't see much (in fact nothing at all) of northern Italy, simply due to the fact that there was permanent mist, and I'm talking 50m visibility Mist. Absolutely incredible to have that density over a time span of 4 days and a good 300km!

Anyways, after picking up Paul, we drove down towards Ovada, a town which was recommended to us by Rolf Goldstrom, our gold panning contact in Sweden. He had given us contact details for Giovanni, who apparently was "Mr. Gold" in Italy - unfortunately, he was not contactable....

But undeterred the three of us panned various locations and we did find Gold. Not much, but enough for Paul to take home and show his kids :-)

One interesting aspect of this part of the trip was the complete absence of Stellplatze / Campsites. Nothing, nada, zilch. Those that were marked were nothing more than town parking lots with dubious facilities - to the point where we literally were told to dump our chemical toilet into a grate in the parking lot!

It was absolutely great having Paul over (despite leaving poor Jacky alone with the kids at home) but once we had dropped him off at the airport, Timm and I were more than ready to leave Italy behind!

Paul deserves a gold medal for digging these holes!

Hard at work

Is it Gold?

Christmas Market in Merano

Well I have been suffering with a back spasm for a few days so my caring wife decided to research a place of healing for me - Merano Terme - for those of you not well versed in the tough realities of European life - a Terme is a place where you can go and have a Kur when you are feeling down and life has you beat, and the State Pays!!!!!

What the 🙈 is that about!

So we went and had a lovely swim in warm pools with the outside temperature a chilly 9 degrees - it worked!

Then on to Cmas markets, first stop is Gluwein for Mel, she is a very cheap date and after two small mugs is ready for bed ... Home .... Sleep - you know what I mean!

Then it was always going to be me vs this Pretzel ..... But it won!

There was even an Ice Rink .....

OK competition time - who can tell me what this is?