August 26

August 26th (sunny and very warm)
We said our goodbyes to the family from Israel next to us and packed up from a wonderful stay in Klagenfurt. We chose to take the small roads around the Worthersee this morning and head off into the mountain passes towards Italy. We stopped many times along the way to take in the spectacular scenery as well as stopping for our lunch at an equestrian demonstration. Again, we could not resist the bratwurst and potato salad that was being served. The restaurant hospitality industry in all of Europe is going full bore.
This corner of Austria reminds us again of “Heidi” land with the gorgeous flower-box displays and the Bavarian-style homes. We entered into Italy through the Alps and many ski resorts and then chose to take one of their “super toll” highways as we wanted to reach Venezia before the heavy weekend traffic. Then, it happened again. The temperature gauge was madly blinking away making us both very nervous. We stopped in a rest area options. I reminded Georg of what the first mechanic had said to us regarding the water temperature gauge – “if it blinks, but the temperature gauge does not rise, then it is probably an electrical malfunction”. He had sort of forgotten that.
After getting Susi cooled down a bit, Georg was a bit skeptical about continuing and asked me “What do you want to do?” I thought about it and immediately answered “Let’s continue!” That meant revising the computer again. The balance of the day towards Venice was uneventful other than the temperature reached about 38 degrees. About 20 kms from our freeway exit, the traffic started to back up and it never abated for the next two hours. Guess what it was? In Italy, they built these super toll highways so that you can drive from point A to B in rapid time. However, at the end they have toll booths with unmarked holding areas where people over a 500-meter range try to cross over eleven lanes. Utter chaos! We would have got here sooner had we taken a donkey over the mountain passes.
Finally arrived in a very large, youth-filled campground. Georg and I looked at each other and said, “Yahoo – we are in Venice again!” We spent the evening finding ways to cool down, sat by the pool, chatted with people and Georg called Bubi to let him know that we will not be in Nurnberg on Monday as we are continuing on with our tour as planned. Bubi mentioned that he has some reservations about purchasing the vehicle because of its age and the new laws coming down in Germany which doubled the insurance on vehicles of this type. We agreed to make contact beginning of October. Georg’s suggestion was that we forego the sale to him and take it straight back to Utrecht.