Day 14 - Udine, Italy, Feldkirch, Austria - 3815 miles

A pleasant surprise after waking was by far the best breakfast of the trip so far which was included in the room rate and seemed to include anything any European might expect for breakfast including bacon and egg. So we filled our boots and lingered over breakfast for longer than we ought to have. In discussing our route to Feldkirch we both decided to opt for the quickest route thinking we would avoid tolls in Austria because I had bought a vignette that was still valid. The initial stretch of the road became progressively more beautiful as the alps approached. With the sat nav set to the fastest route the road took us on a big loop southwards before heading north again. We started to see signs for Verona and the obvious stopping place. We couldn't afford the time to actually drive into Verona but it was plainly obvious that it would have been the better stopping place and taken a couple of hours off today's drive. We stopped at a motorway services on the edge of the town to sing our song for Italy.'English Boys Are Melancholy' was chosen by Kit because of the line celebrating the beauty of Italian girls on scooters with the wind in their hair. The line dates from a trip to Genoa many years before and lives in my memory as one of the most beautiful sights of my life. Who needs a crash helmet when you look good?

After Verona we headed for the famous Brenner Pass. I had no idea that it was famous for its traffic jam. Somehow my pre-trip research had missed this detail but we lost an hour at the border. At some point after Verona we had been stung by a toll which I found highly irritating but little did we know there was much more to come. After we crossed the border into Austria we were almost immediately stung by another and very expensive toll. I protested that I had already paid for a vignette only to be told the road we were on was excluded from the vignette system. I felt like I'd been robbed by both the Italians and especially by the Austrians. I thought that would be the end of it but there were two further tolls to pay and the road from Udine to Feldkirch ended up costing me more than the cost of a tank of petrol. The road passed through some beautiful scenery but also a series of traffic jams and progress was slow. In addition there was a monotonous series of tunnels and the scenery started to disappear from view. It was early evening by the time we arrived in Feldkirch but arrival felt like a relief.

Our hotel was a youth hostel but nearly empty and we were given a dorm all to ourselves. The ancient building was half timbered and the site of a previous leper colony. Even though we were tired after the most arduous drive of the trip we were also quite eager to stretch our legs and mindful that there were only a couple of hours of daylight left.


Feldkirch lies at the very end of Austria just across the border from Liechtenstein and became a stopping place along the road simply because Vaduz, the Leichtenstein capital, is horrendously expensive. Nevertheless, it is a lovely town and we enjoyed our walk around. Feldkirch dates back to medieval times and retains some unspoilt ancient buildings. We arrived in the main shopping area as the shops were closing and I was disappointed to find a CD shop I could only look through the window of.


To my delight we also discovered a brew pub that as well as having great beer served some great traditional food and Kit and I rounded of the day with one of the best meals of the trip. The pub was in a modern building with great big glass windows and a separate restaurant area. I love fresh asparagus and the pub was celebrating the beginning of it being in season with various specials. Kit started with asparagus soup and I had an asparagus salad. Both dishes were delicious. Kit had schnitzel for his main course and I had a really tasty liver dish called 'liver like your grandma used to make' or something to that effect.
We made our way back to the hostel and spent a little while catching up with Facebook and I posted some of the blog but we had to pay to use a PC. We liked Feldkirch a lot but today's driving was an ordeal. Maybe the Gods of the road will be kinder to us tomorrow.

Day 13 - Ljubljana, Slovenia, Udine, Italy - 3409 miles

Not surprisingly breakfast was poor, maybe even the worst of the trip so far. It was boring and dreary with watery juice and poor quality coffee. We had no wish to linger and headed out into the car park to sing our song for Slovenia before hitting the road for Italy. The car park was dour but we noticed a single tree in blossom and videoed the song beneath it. What the video doesn't translate about the surroundings is the smell of piss. The tree obviously being a favourite stopping off point for those unable to make the toilet.



Digging For Happy is about my estrangement from my father and one of my saddest songs and while most people have heard me singing the slow version it does exist in a faster more angry version which Kit had a go at before we set off. His reference at the end of the video to a Polish guy refers to an abusive homophobic post on our video in Gdansk on Youtube that I've since deleted. Some idiot thinks we are a gay couple and that is a reason to abuse us. I hate prejudice in all its forms but to abuse love whatever its form has to be the narrowest thought of all.



The road to Udine was something of a dreary slog and began in a dull drizzle but after we crossed the border into Italy the sun returned and the day gradually became warmer. We stopped along the road this time for an ice cream rather than the usual chocolate and stumbled across the largest collection of international car stickers I've ever seen. This meant we could buy car stickers for most of the countries we have visited so far and add them to the guitar case, which now looks spectacularly beautiful.It may have been a beautiful day but it was the second in a row with something of a negative vibe to it. I had originally fancied going to Verona but we changed today's destination to Udine at the suggestion of a musician contact of mine. He told a DJ contact of his about our trip and we were invited to Udine to sing our song for Italy live on local radio. All through this trip we have expected a phone call from Italy to make arrangements but none arrived and the longer this situation has gone on the more obvious it has been that no call is going to arrive. I hate broken promises but I especially hate people who break promises to my children. So we arrived in Udine not particularly wanting to be here and wondering if we would have had a better time in Verona.

Hotels in Udine were expensive and I went for the cheapest option which was a Holiday Inn situated on the edge of the city. The accommodation was what you would expect for an international brand but a welcome change after the last two and we had a lovely view of the distant alps. Once in our room Kit realised he no longer had the battery charger for his camera. This means when the camera runs out of charge we will no longer be able to make any videos. We dumped our luggage and drove into Udine to look for a battery charger. I parked the car on the edge of town. I'd expected difficulty parking but it was easy and cheap.
I really have no idea why we wasted time looking for a battery charger but we did. It was a stupid, hopeless waste of time and the day became hot and sweaty as we wandered around aimlessly. We were given a few suggestions of places to go but there was never the slightest possibility that any electrical hardware store or photgraphy specialist in Udine was going to stock a battery charger for a camera bought in England. Gradually this realisation dawned on us and we gave up. At the very point of giving up we were standing outside a pizza bar and had the most delicious and inexpensive lunch. This revived my brain power and we headed back to the hotel next to which was located a hypermarket where we bought a new camera. Some might view this as a further waste of time but without Kit's camera we would have to stop making videos and neither of wanted to.

When we finally headed back into Udine to have a proper look around evening was approaching and because we had expected to meet people we had nothing planned. We again walked around in a fairly aimless manner but this time we were much more relaxed and began to enjoy Udine. I've never been to an Italian city I didn't like and Udine was lovely with a relaxed array of piazzas, attractive buildings and statues.




It was a lovely warm evening although every Italian was wearing a jacket or coat and Kit and I were the exceptions in our t-shirts. We hadn't eaten much today but had worked up quite an appetite and inevitabley our thought turned to food. We had a good look around Piazza San Giacomo which has an array of bars and cafes but to be perfectly frank everything was horrendously expensive. I have a strong aversion to paying silly money for food and have never eaten anything in an Italian restaurant that I couldn't cook as well myself so began to suggest we head back to the hypermarket and eat at our hotel although we both felt we deserved a treat after having more or less wasted the day.

On our way back to the car we passed a decent looking restaurant and decided to take a chance. It was a disappointment. As we considered the menu the waiter hassled us in an effort to make us choose the most expensive items on the menu but we in the end, much to his disappointment, we decided on what we considered were mid-price options. We both started with poor insipid soups and plumped for pasta second courses. I had a really poor seafood pasta that contained pickled rather than fresh seafood and was so obviously a pale imitation of the dish I had in the Italian restaurant in Poland for half the price. Kit decided to have one of Italy's signature dishes in Italy and went for his second Carbonara of the trip resulting in a similar experience to mine.

We headed back to the hotel after a disappointing day and opted for an early night. Tomorrow is the second longest drive of the trip. We decided not to sing a song for the city who didn't bother to call us back and instead opted to sing our song for Italy on the road tomorrow.