After sleeping fitfully with the window wide open at -1C and us breathing lots of very fresh air, we are greeted with a magnificent view from our hotel balcony: Some healthy breakfast options later, we leave our hotel and check our overnight charging station. It’s this cozy EV feeling that when you get to your car it is fully charged that makes you like starting your trip 🙂 With us pulling around 13kWh throughout the night, we’re at a charge rate that requires a second thought regarding the plug-type to choose, especially if we’re working with consumer-grade […]
TDE2017 – Day 1: Well, this was nice…
Welcome to the first entry of this year’s TWIKE adventure, TDE2017! Both my daughter and I have been looking forward to this trip very much, since – at least for the first part – is a re-run of the trip we embarked on last year (TDIN2016) and had to abandon because of some problems. So here we are, this morning, bright and early, ready to leave! Our trip today will take us to Livigno, Italy, via the Graubünden Alps and most of northeastern Switzerland. Since I’ve driven this direction already many, many times, it’s getting increasingly difficult to put […]
Getting ready for TDE2017
Wow! Time flies when you’re busy! Just 3 days left before we set off on our trip! During the last two weeks, I’ve been busy adding new features to emissionless.ch and preparing TW560 for its upcoming yearly adventure TDE2017. Last week, whilst I was in London on a business trip, JC took TW560 to Switzerland’s newest service center, ksenotek. It always pays off to treat your vehicle to a pre-trip check-up instead of breaking down somewhere far away. No problems were found and all the important nuts and bolts got tightened by Andreas Martin from Ksenotek. The GPS tracking page […]
TDE2017 – 5 weeks to go!
Very happy to announce TDE2017, TW560‘s first long-distance adventure this year. My youngest daughter and I will be driving eastwards – hence the name TDE: Tour de l’est. It’s a longer version of last year’s trip which was cut short due to a TWIKE-related injury. Just 5 weeks to go – we’re looking forward to this trip very much! Read more about TDE2017 here.
TDIN2016 – Day4: Process Excellence & Good News
After not sleeping much for another night, we pack and get ready to be picked up by a medical transport arriving directly from Switzerland. I was expecting them to arrive with Swiss precision at 11am sharp…Which they didn’t because of heavy traffic around Milan that morning – my insurance called me around 9am and apologized profusely for the delay and inconvenience caused 🙂 This delay wasn’t an inconvenience at all – Felice insisted on making me a quick-fix Italian favourite: Spaghetti all’Amatriciana since it would be unacceptable for me to drive to Switzerland and arrive famished. When the medical transport […]
TDIN2016 – Day3: Ticking off my bucket list
After not sleeping much during the night, with a swollen leg and pain levels still high, early morning I decide it’s indeed time to go to the hospital. Felice takes me there and we enter the typical chaos of an Italian hospital. I cannot imagine how someone could get any treatment at all here without being able to speak Italian. Some of the nurses and doctors even go as far as complimenting my Italian and say that they wouldn’t have known how to communicate with me if we would have had to get by in English. That morning, none of […]
TDIN2016 – Day2: “How bad is it?”
I haven’t been updating TDIN20160’s travel-log on a daily basis as usual – in this entry, find out why! But first, back to Day2 of my much-anticipated trip to Austria, via Italy and Slovenia with my youngest daughter. We sleep very well with fresh alpine air and the cozy smell of all the wood in our chalet room. Madesimo is between Seasons, we’re the only ones at our Bed & Breakfast and seemingly the only ones in the village – no-one else was to be seen as we leave the village. Today, we’re going to travel to Brescia, a […]
TDIN2016 – Day1: 14.7kWh to Italy
Today’s the day: My youngest daughter and I are on our way to Styria via Italy and Slovenia. After a very normal hectic last day at work spent making sure everybody knew what needs to be done during my absence, I meet my daughter outside my office at 4.30pm. We leave Zürich and hit heavy traffic on Switzerland’s motorways – Zürich’s schools close for a two-week autumn holiday period today and we’re not the only ones with the brilliant idea to drive towards Italy 🙂 As usual, here comes the traditional TWIKE-team picture: There isn’t too much to […]
Update: TDIN2016 – one week to go
Quick update on TDIN2016: The final version of our route is ready. My youngest daughter and I will be leaving from Zurich late Friday afternoon and drive to Italy for our first overnight stay just across the border in Sondrio Province. TW560 will be crossing the Splugen pass for the second time this year. We’re also going to be visiting some Italian friends in northern Italy on the way. Both me and my daughter are very much looking forward to this trip. The trip we’ve planned has some stunning stretches of road in store for us – see for yourself: […]
TDIN2016 – TW560’s second 9-day 2016 adventure
As you might already know, the Austrian part of my family meets up once a year in Styria for a few days of catching-up, eating good food and drinking Styria’s very drinkable white wine. We from Switzerland have been taking part for over a decade now and wouldn’t want to miss this event for nothing in the world. (Teenage daughters insisting on coming is a good sign 😉 ) TW560 has also been to Styria a few times and it has always been a very memorable trip. This year, my youngest daughter and I will make our way to Styria […]