We’re greeted by the new day with many little rays of sun filtering in through the Italian-style rolling blinds. A fully charged TWIKE awaits us outside. With a deep blue sky, our Venetian villa looks even more grand than it did yesterday. We drive to the ferry port and are on the ferry within 10 minutes – happy to have not had to wait too long. It is a pity that we are unable to get on the smaller ferry to Edolo. It would have shaved off an hour of our trip today. As always we’re immediately surrounded […]
TDE2017 – Day3: Venice, always nice…with less people!
Hi there, we’re back posting. The last few days were a real test for us… internet-wise 🙂 In Switzerland we’ve gotten so used to CA’d-4G with (mobile) download speeds routinely exceeding 200Mbit and uploads around 40Mbit and FTTH slowly being the norm… until you leave the country, that is. The first three days in Italy really tested my patience with upload speeds in the low kbit region or just plain non-connectivity due to too many devices overloading consumer-grade WiFi equipment and grossly under-dimensioned internet links. Imagine waiting all night to upload 26 seconds of video! (Now in Slovenia, our Hotel […]
TDE2017 – Day2: One blue sky
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.
Hello 2017
Welcome 2017 – I haven’t been blogging for a while, there hasn’t been much to blog about anyway – having been rather busy with (international) travel and finally some well-deserved vacation, this entry is somewhat of a quick re-cap of the last few months. After my TWIKE-related accident it took surprisingly long to get rid of my crutches – I was getting worried I’d have to take them with me to Sri Lanka, a two-week escape to a warmer place, spicy food, beautiful landscapes, highest-quality tea and laid back beaches, beginning of December 16. Being back to Asia means that […]
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 […]