Italian Efficiency

Back in April, during my trip to Italy, I got a parking ticket during in one of the towns I visited. (I'm not going to argue whether it was right or not, suffice to say that I believe it wasn't). When I got home, I saw that the ticket could only be paid by a transfer from an Italian bank account, so I had no way of paying the ticket. So, I went to see some of the Italians at work to see if I could give them some money to pay the ticket for me. After I said ticket and before I got to the could you pay for me part, each of them immediately blurted out "Don't pay!" Being the good law abiding person I am, I was a bit unsure of that approach. Still, they all said the only thing to do is to ignore it. They said you don't have to pay until they send the bill to you in the mail. They stressed the importance of following the system. They also stressed that, because it was Italy, probably the system wouldn't work. Most likely, they said, the town would forget the ticket and fail to send it to me in the mail. If they did send the ticket, it would go to the rental car company. The said that surely the rental car company would either ignore it or forget to send my address to the police. They said that even if somehow the police did get my address from the rental car company, they would probably forget to forward the bill to me. Or, they might see that I had given a US address and would give up. I was assured by all the Italians at work that it would be impossible for everything to work correctly and for me to get the ticket in the mail.

Fast forwarding to September, a letter came in September saying the rental car company was sending my details to the police. Now, a registered letter arrived at my US address containing the official ticket from the police in the little town I was in. I brought this in to show all my Italian colleagues and find out what went wrong. All were absolutely amazed. They couldn't believe it was possible. They said I must be the unluckiest person in the world. And, they also all said, "Don't pay." They advocated ignoring it until the second notice arrives (if it ever arrives) or else appealing to the regional authority (who probably would have no time to look at it, thus cancelling it by default). This time, however, it came with information on how to pay it from outside Italy (though it still would have been very difficult to do from the US) and so I paid it. The process, while very slow, did work in the end. My impression of Italy is shattered.

Bavaria and Austria Rainout

Flew down to Munich to spend a week seeing parts of Bavaria and Austria with the parents. The plan was to see a lot of scenery before the weather started getting colder. This did not quite work out. What happened was the snowiest October in 35 years and eight consecutive days of rain or snow. Yuck. That meant we had to scramble as best as possible to find alternative indoor activities.

In Munich, it was finally going to the BMW Museum and later to the Deutsche Museum (no pictures). The museum is a very cool-looking modern building.

From BMW Museum

Once you are inside, the first thing you come to is a display made up of lots of balls connected to thin wires that move them up and down to make different shapes.

From BMW Museum

I stayed and watched that for quite a while. Then, of course, there were plenty of cars and motorcycles. If anyone is wondering what to get me for Christmas this year, may I suggest:

From BMW Museum

The Deutsche Museum was also very good, but a bit like 30 museums in one. It is a very large and comprehensive technology museum. The exhibits are are very detailed. When you leave, you almost believe that you could build your own steam engine or make your own steel, if you had to. The only criticisms I have are that some topics are covered very well and other topics are just rooms full of stuff, and only some of the exhibits have english text with them.

After Munich, it was off to snow Salzburg. The old center of Salzburg is very compact

From Salzburg

which is great, because it was raining so much. Visited the castle and walked the town as much as we could stand. The next days were almost entirely seeing a couple small museums and driving around trying to find dry weather.

The last stop (for me anyway) was Franconia. We stayed in the town we used to live in an undisclosed number of years ago in the ancient past. The town is still small, but it has changed quite a bit. Visited the open air museum in town, the pictures of which I think benefitted from the dreary weather.

From Frankisches Feilandmuseum

From Frankisches Feilandmuseum

From Frankisches Feilandmuseum

The last stop was Nurnburg, which again was too rainy to do much of aside from the castle.

From Nurnburg

Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

This edition of the blog is being published while riding on the Thalys at close to 300km/h. I've done this mostly for novelty value, but you have to admit that it is pretty cool. Below you can see my location and velocity.

Also, as you will see later, this is the first entry to include fully geotagged, gps-ified pictures. I picked up a GPS logger that allows me to tag all my pictures with their exact locations. I'm still working out the system (especially the ability to process the GPS from the road), but I'm hoping that it will be a valuable enhancement to the pictures.

Of course, neither of those are the reason for making an entry. The reason for the entry is trip over the weekend in Colorado. I went out with a friend and his new jeep to try it out on some 4wd roads. It was a great weekend to be out. The weather was perfect and the Aspens were at their peak. I've missed fall colors in europe, so I was really happy to see some spectacular colors over weekend.

From Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

The trip started by driving to St. Elmo and then heading up through the national forest to Hancock Pass and down the other side. The route was rated as a strong medium in the guidebook, but more importantly it offered a great variety of scenery.

From Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

Along the way there were old abandoned mines

From Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

and probably the world's smallest ghost town. Only part of one building was left. Of course, there was lots of great views of the mountains.

From Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

After passing Hancock Pass, we descended down the other side and drove over to Alpine Tunnel. The road there was a bit narrow in places.

From Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

Alpine Tunnel is exactly what it sounds like, an old abanonded railroad tunnel high in the mountains. There was a small station near the tunnel with a few ruins of buildings and a few reconstructed buildings.

From Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

From Hancock Pass & Alpine Tunnel

A nice, bit of beautiful desolation in the middle of nowhere. I really enjoy finding these old ruins and trying to learn a little about their history. After that, it was back to the main road for the long drive back to Colorado Springs.