More →]]> I don’t know if I ever have or ever will be able to drive or ride past windy, high tided Garretstown without stopping to take some photos of wind or kite surfers. Maybe that’s the beginning of OCD. Beginning, yes.

A previous trip to Garretstown wasn’t quite so windy but I’m including the photo here as something of a technical exercise.

As you’ll have noticed from this blog, I’ve owned several cameras over the years. The smaller, more amateur of which all seem to now come with a built in panorama mode. Gone are the days of loading dozens of files into Photoshop to stitch together, hoping you’ve left enough overlap to allow PS to do a decent job. It took a little while to become accustomed to the various foibles with panorama mode in the Fuji X100 but I eventually got a usable result from it. Having said that, it still throws its toys out of the pram every now and then. I tried the above panorama of moving water, something that’d normally be a little tricky, but the Sony NEX 5N produced good results. The exposure looked a little wacky in places when reviewing the photo on the camera screen but as it looked OK on the mac, I’m inclined to put that down to auto brightness settings or some other witchcraft.

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It’s not really that often that I print anything, especially from my iphone. The photos don’t even usually make it as far as the computer at home. They either sit on the phone until such time as I break or sell the phone or they get uploaded to instagram, eyeem or any one of the numerous other photo sharing websites around these days. The whole instagram prints phenomenon pretty much passed me by. My opinion of the majority of the photos I post to instagram is quite low so I’d never usually consider them as candidates for printing. I came across some folks on twitter mentioning printic and thought I’d check it out. Seemed to tick all the boxes that I usually require. Low (or preferably no) effort, comes in phone app form and requires very little actual thought to get it going. However, the price. Being a hipster never did come cheap. Each of their fauxlaroids comes in at about 79c. Yes, thats euro cent, not dollar cent. I knew I was going to get a few prints, at least twenty, so I damn sure wasn’t paying nearly a euro a go for them.

So I went somewhere I hadn’t been for quite a number of years. Since 2009 in fact, going by my order history. Photobox. The first thing that struck me when opening the site is that they were running an ‘instagram print’ offer. Of course, an ‘instagram print’ to them is nothing but a 5×5 print, doesn’t really matter where it comes from. I bought some print credits to take advantage of the offer and ended up getting fifty prints for about 16 cent each. That doesn’t include postage of course.

From here on, this is probably going to sound like an advert for photobox. You’ll have to forgive me for any blatant shilling I appear to be doing. If only I was getting backhanders for this…

The redesigned photobox interface can now pull photos directly from dropbox, instagram and a few other places. I had the files ready to go on dropbox. Ordering was straightforward as it always was. The checkout process advised me that a few of the files weren’t really suitable for 5×5 prints (because of resolution, it wasn’t offering critique on my photography or anything) but I ignored the warnings and carried on.

One point that irked me slightly is the shipping charges. 1-49 prints is one price and for the sake of one extra print, I ended up being charged a couple of euro extra for shipping. Well, I really ended up initially being charged a hell of a lot more than the rate posted on their delivery info section, but after a quick chat with one of their support/customer service guys (via the handy in-checkout chat window I might add) I was offered the correct rate. Well, plus a little extra discount for my inconvenience. An annoying issue quickly solved. Hit the button and the prints were here about four days later. Not too bad really, seeing as some of the UK to Ireland post I’ve had lately has been ten days or more. That’s a whole other rant.

The prints are as you see above from my lazy attempt at photographing them. I went for matt, something I always seem to default to with photobox orders. It’s not great matt paper but I prefer it to the gloss option. Some of them are, as the checkout warned me, a little soft. I expected that and can’t fault them for it. Not too bad for 16 cent a print. Or eh, about 30 cent a print once you factor in postage.

Now to find something to do with them.

More →]]> I thought “I’ll post some photos of a recent trip to Fota Gardens, then link back to previous visits” but I can’t find any previous visits. Well, there’s one, but I would have imagined there should be far more than that on here. Maybe I’ve just been very selective about posting photos of the gardens on here. Yes, selective. That’s the word. Not lazy. Never lazy.

The car park at Fota, which I always kind of appreciated for it’s rough & ready feel, has been dragged into the age of health and safety. Gone are the pot holes, the tree branches that would poke you in the head as you fumbled around in your pockets for your car keys and the giant gaping muddy puddles that’d fill your shoes as you stepped out of the car. It’s a grand tarmacadam affair now, with an access road that leads right down to another well manicured car park only a swung cats distance from Fota House itself. Convenient but I’m still not sure about it. Probably mostly because I fear change.

Taking advantage of sunny days, as one must when they rarely occur, we took a drive to Fota during a weekend trip to Cork. Fota Gardens is one of those places that rarely disappoints. A trip to Fota (either the gardens or the wildlife park) has to meet some strict criteria before it’s counted as a write off. Two main headings are ‘full of noisy tourists’ and ‘full of noisy children’. Thankfully on this day it was neither of the above.

As you might expect, the gardens were still very much in a state of reawakening when we visited, thank the long winter for that I suppose.

Nowt more to say on the matter, just looking forward to a long weekend in Cork.

]]> http://glasseyalley.com/fota-gardens/feed/ 0 http://glasseyalley.com/break-out-the-stout/ http://glasseyalley.com/break-out-the-stout/#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:10:49 +0000 ryan http://glasseyalley.com/?p=2877

More →]]> After my first ever abandoned brew day the previous weekend (I had a cold and it was too windy for the propane burner to stay lit) I resolved to do whatever it took to get a brew on the following weekend. Which was last weekend. The cold had subsided somewhat and although the weather was still cold and windy, I made a go of it. See previous posts where I muse on the life of an outdoor brewer.

I was returning to where I feel most comfortable; Stout. I’d tried a pale ale and a dark ale since making the batch of coffee stout before Christmas last year and found them (the pale ale at least) lacking. The dark ale ‘bag-o-recipe’ I bought from The Homebrew Company was great. So great in fact I’ll be making it again in the summer. The ales have been something of a different experience though.

I don’t know if I’m getting off flavours when cooling (or lack of rapid cooling more specifically), if it’s something wrong I’m doing in the boil, if it’s water chemistry or if there’s something going arseways during fermentation. Too many variables. One thing I hadn’t realised until I read it somewhere online recently is that the stuff that forms around the edge of fermenter during primary fermentation is quite bitter. My practice of carrying the full fermenter from the spare bedroom into the kitchen to rack the beer into a keg will undoubtedly have mixed some of this rubbish back into the fermented beer, possibly making it the bitter, off flavoured pint to swallow that it so often is.

Taking that into consideration, I’m curious if various different malts are more immune to this fermentation waste mixing in with the beer and causing unwanted bitterness. The bitterness of the dark ale I made recently was pretty much spot on and any stouts I’ve done in the past ranged from passable to wonderful. Do dark malts hide excess bitterness better than light ones? I don’t know. I need to go back to reading my books I suppose.

It’s also the first time I used pellet hops. Mostly out of curiosity and somewhat because the alpha acids matched up a lot better with the recipe I was attempting to follow. After using them for one brew, I see what people mean about boil overs. I didn’t get one, just narrowly avoided it.

But back to the brew at hand. I was trying to follow a milk/sweet stout recipe that I’d spotted on the beersmith recipes website some months previously. The wort that resulted from the mashed grain bill was beautifully roasty and dark with a heavy mouthfeel that, if it translates through to the finished product, will be great. Little bit apprehensive about chucking in the lactose during the boil but we’ll see what happens in the coming days. The hour long boil was a comedy of errors, the wind completely blew out my propane burner (which was running at full blast) at least twice. The wort took bloody ages to get up to a boil and once there, had real trouble staying there. I seemed to get about five separate hot breaks during the 60 minute process. I’m hoping stout is more forgiving than ale…

Now four days into the fermentation and the bubbling has slowed to a crawl. A day or so more and it’ll be into a keg. There are two more recipes on the immediate horizon. A high gravity porter which will be bottled for Christmas and my final attempt at a pale ale. If that one doesn’t work out, I’m parking the light, hoppy beers for now and concentrating on stouts, porters, dark ales and anything else above about 20 SRM.

 Update 17th April
So I kegged the stout a couple of days ago and it’s pretty much spot on with what I’d expect for a milk stout. A little bit of carbonation and then I’ll start taking ‘samples’. All in all, a good brew.

More →]]> That would unfortunately make this part three of a European motorcycling trilogy. We were back on the road, heading west toward our next Italian stop not too far from French border; Susa. From what I remember, or rather don’t remember, the road over was pretty uneventful. We had more than our share of motorway miles where the group became disconnected and following anyone was a completely pointless exercise. We had some back roads then some more motorways and well, you get the idea. It was another transit day really. The relaxation of Lake Garda was over and done with and it was time to start thinking about heading north again. Not to worry though, the holiday isn’t quite done yet.

Susa is what I can only describe as a typical small central European town. Pick up the people and swap them for French people and it could have been any town in France. Or Spain.  Or in this case, Italy. Having dropped the bikes in the hotel (which, although cheap, cheerful and perfectly comfortable, looked like it might have been a juvenile detention center at some stage). The underground car park was deliciously cool and shaded though.

Having discovered the extent of the excitement available in Susa, we opted to take a walk around the small town to discover the various Roman ruins dotted about the place. There was an aqueduct, a  couple of towers and an amphitheater. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to perform a one man Monty Python show while seated in a completely deserted amphitheater.   Bloody Peoples Front of Judea! I had my fun and that’s all that matters.

A couple of cups of coffee were had before meeting up with an undecided bunch for dinner and eventually ending up somewhere really nice. Unexpected.

Being a typically Irish sort of mob, there’s nothing like a couple of pints after dinner to settle everything down a bit. Or, to put it another way, exactly the opposite of how mainland Europe seems to do it. Finding a drink is a tough proposition but we did eventually prevail.

I had the genius plan of tackling Col de Sommeiller (one of the highest roads in Europe, a good deal of which is unpaved) while we were in Susa but it never really materialised. I guess I’d need the day off the next day to recover from manhandling the bike around the rocky roads. Next time. To give you some idea of what I’m talking about, consider the below.

From the town of Bardonecchia, the road (marked in red) snakes its way around the mountains until it reaches the location at the inset picture. Two roads diverged. Left, to the car park and the end of the line. Right, further up the mountain. I’m no expert on Italian road signs (like much of the Italian  motorist population) but the sign on the right seems to indicate some kind of no vehicle entry. However, the barrier is up. I’m conflicted. Like most off-road motorcycling, the thing to do is feign ignorance until advised otherwise. “Well your honour, the barrier was up and there was nobody in the hut to tell me not to ride up there”.

Back up and somewhat bright eyed the next morning, a few of us headed off north into the hills. Then, after I realised the bike was running on fumes, I had to turn back and get petrol. No, still not really very awake. I made a curious decision, one that confounds me even now. Instead of just heading back down into Susa and finding a petrol station, I asked the GPS where the nearest one is. A fairly safe proposition one would imagine. Although I suspect the only people that would imagine that are people that have never actually owned or used a GPS before. It routed us onto a motorway via a batshit crazy series of on ramps and off ramps and then, typically enough, there was no way off that motorway for 28km. To add insult to injury, that stretch of motorway took us through one very long tunnel (which resulted in a fairly hefty toll on the other end) and then around something else of great importance (which resulted in another toll). Then, as the bike was almost coasting to a stop for lack of fuel, an Esso station appeared. I didn’t really care at this stage that the petrol was €1.93 a liter. Well, I did. I wasn’t about to ride past and look for somewhere cheaper though.

Col De L’Iseran on Vimeo.

We did eventually get back on plan and into France to ride Col de l’Iseran, one of the loneliest mountain roads I’ve ever been on. Miles and miles of lunar landscape only broken by the occasional car or cyclist passing. It was bloody cold too. The summer riding gear was great while at sea level but your worst enemy above 1000ft. Brr.

Back down to Italian sea level at La Thuile then north to the Swiss border. Switzerland, although a beautiful country, is a profoundly odd place. Swiss German is weird and wonderful language. I think the biggest pain in the arse of this day was knowing that once we crossed into Switzerland, we wouldn’t be just casually stopping to buy a can of coke or a sandwich. The reason; Swiss Francs. Lunch and/or dinner was going to have to be an orchestrated effort in aid to use credit and debit cards less (therefore avoiding being gouged with the exchange rate). It’s too easy to take the Euro for granted while on holidays. Just buying a bottle of water would mean visiting an ATM, getting out the smallest denomination possible, grimacing at the exchange rate then buying the water and grimacing further about how much everything costs in Switzerland. Yes, overly dramatic.

Switzerland also made me realise how important it is to be a good traveler. By that I mean having a basic grasp of the local language, enough to order food, pay your bill and say thanks to the staff (assuming they deserve it of course). I’d put not being fussy in with being a good traveler. Eating what the locals eat. Just because you have steak pie & colcannon at home, doesn’t mean you’re going to get it in a small town in Europe. That kind of thing.

The experience of attempting to communicate with the locals in Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland made me realise that in many ways, I am not a good traveler. By the end of our couple of days in Germany I was reciting “ein Weißbier bitte” like a local and while that seemed to carry over into Austria quite well I was lost for just about everything in Switzerland. To restore my confidence somewhat, even our German group member that joined us while we were passing through the Black Forest had massive trouble in Switzerland.

It did make me start learning German at the start of this year though. Basic German anyway. I’ll always be a staunch supporter of hand signals while attempting to speak foreign languages.

But I digress; Back to Switzerland. We were on our way north east-ish to stay in a small, cheap (for Switzerland) hotel in the middle of nowhere. Nearest city is Lucerne I think. There was a chunk of motorway in the way and I fancied neither getting on a motorway again nor being further gouged for a Swiss vignette. For those not accustomed to the ways of European motorways; In Ireland we have tolls. In France they have whopping great tolls. In a few other European countries they have vignettes. Basically, its a sticker you affix to your vehicle that permits you to use the motorway. If you don’t have one and you get stopped by the cops on the motorway, you’re screwed. The varying levels to which you’re screwed depend very much on the country. From what I heard before traveling, in Switzerland, you’re the most screwed. In Switzerland, you have to buy a vignette for a year. That’s €33. In other countries, you can buy one for a few days for a few quid. In summary, I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay €33 to spend maybe an hour on a motorway. Unsurprisingly, some other people were of the same opinion. Equally unsurprisingly, it was the members of the ‘Bold Children MC’. The decision allowed us to take in some local sights and have a relaxed lunch in a nice quiet spot.

So instead of the motorway, we took a few scenic back roads, took our time and then when we’d covered a suitable amount of ground, we began to look for options. Option 1, get on the motorway for the rest of the journey. That was almost certainly a non runner for reasons above. Option 2, get the ferry. Option 3, use th… wait a minute, get the ferry? Now unless I’m very much mistaken, we’re landlocked. Also, we’re in the middle of the mountains. Ferry? Curiosity, cat. The GPS was set for the ferry terminal and the five of us set off into the mountains again.

We rode through some amazing scenery in the now somewhat cooler late afternoon, the thought struck me on more than one occasion that I’d have paid to see this kind of stuff rather than paying a premium to use a long, flat, boring motorway. After several miles and some nervous exchanges between us, we reached this ‘ferry’. Ferry my arse.

After paying a few quid and waiting a few minutes, we were loaded onto a vehicle carrying train that appeared as if it last saw service during World War 2. It was like the Eurotunnel’s great grandfather. After riding around in the mountains all day and expecting to roll up on a ferry across a lake, it was a very surreal experience to be loaded into a train and stick your head out the window as it pulled off. The journey was only about 20/30 minutes or so but it brought us significantly closer to our destination for the evening and it was great to have a break from riding but still be moving. Getting off the train was a bit of an off-road style riding experience but we all managed it without any spills.

We were rewarded for our perseverance in finding the ferry train with a beautiful sunset against the mountains as we rode the final few miles to the guest house. Ironically, I’d have liked a longer ride in those conditions. The sun was just going down as we pulled in and the light was amazing. If I didn’t want my dinner so badly, I’d have been out with the camera. Oh and point of interest, this was the only day that we arrived last at the hotel. Just thought I should point that out.

Dinner was unremarkable. Apparently the idea with stopping in Switzerland was to have fondue. The majority of the table opted for a very less heartburn inducing meal of various meats and vegetables.

The next day we were up, out and on the way to France. Ever the intrepid explorers, we didn’t cross the border in the usual ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ motorway fashion. Roughly, it went as follows. We followed a back road, then another back road then turned onto a smaller back road. Realising we didn’t have a bloody notion where we were going, we consulted the most up to date GPS we had between the three bikes. A route decided and a leader elected, we were rolling again. Another back road, a dirt road, trees. Wait, were on a dirt road in a forest!?! Are we still in Switzerland? 200 yards later, the answer to that was no. We were still on the same dirt road in the same forest but the GPS was now telling me we were in France. We passed an elderly gentleman walking in the woods. He looked suitably confused that three Irish registered motorbikes, laden down with the trappings of holiday making were on his dirt road, in his French and/or Swiss forest. I’m sure as we passed he was thinking ‘bloody foreigners’ to himself in French and/or Swiss German.

But wait, we’re in France now. We can understand a larger proportion of what people are trying to say to us. We can read road signs. We know what we’re eating. Wonderful! The Route des Crêtes was waiting patiently in our path from our current position to our overnight stop in Verdun. But alas, the weather had other ideas. We were spoiled with beautiful sunshine on our tour around the Vosges the previous year. We wouldn’t get the same treatment this year.

It was still a great ride. Cool, dull, moody. Like myself. Well, apart from the cool bit. It was wonderful to be back in the Vosges, our first European mountain motorcycling experience. On the other hand, after riding all the other mountain passes in other countries, it made me realise how poorly surfaced French mountain roads are compared to those in other countries. Ah well, no real problem for the GS.

Through all the mist and attempts at rain while climbing the various peaks, we passed quite a number of cyclists. Not entirely unusual, although worthy of mention given that most of them were being followed by Dutch registered vehicles. When taking photos at the above (usually scenic) stop, we got talking to one of the drivers. He told us that there was a big event on in the mountains that saw a couple of thousand (if I remember correctly) Dutch cyclists coming all the way over to cycle the mountain pass.

Sure enough, by the time we reached the top of Grand Ballon, we could hardly get parking for the bike with the number of Dutch cars, vans, buses and motor homes. For a few minutes, it was like being in Holland. Well, a very hilly version of Holland anyway.

With so little scenery visible and the threat of rain, there was little to compel us to spend extra time in the Vosges so we took off in the direction of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges and continued our route to our overnight stop in Verdun. We were keeping mostly to back roads. There wasn’t much point hitting the motorways given the relatively short distance and the abundance of time we had to do it. We didn’t really have any plans in Verdun. It was more or less a transit town for us. Others had plans to visit several military graveyards and other sights in the area but that wasn’t really our thing. Having said that…

In the pretty much ‘made up on the spot’ route I was following, I spotted a sign for an American military graveyard and in a moment of not knocking it until I’d tried it, I diverted off course. As expected, the graveyard is immense, in a very peaceful area away from everything else and kept in impeccable condition. There was a lone caretaker working the grounds when we arrived and the now light rain or remote location must have kept some people away because we were pretty much the only people there.

It’s as you may have seen TV, row after row of perfectly symmetric headstones, each inscribed with the details of a fallen soldier. It puts the scale of the wars into context when you are standing with fields of crosses laid out in front of you and remember that this is only one of many such graveyards.

We weren’t on the road again for too long before we reached Verdun. On reaching the hotel (Cloche D’or), one of the owners hurried out to us to instruct me where to park the bike. They turned out to be a friendly couple, which may only have been discernible if any potential visitors speak French. Neither of them appear to have any English whatsoever. After checking in, getting a demo on how to use the front door and being questioned on when the rest of the group would arrive, we retreated to the room to peel off the bike gear and change into civvies to explore the town.

Exploring was short lived. The sun had reappeared and we ended up making it as far as a river front bar for some wine and a Leffe. After some limited exploring, we found possibly the best newsagent in the world. In the front window, they advertised the usual magazines, newspapers, cigarettes and tourist trinkets. For the more than casual observer, they also had an extensive display case around the corner. This one was full of replica guns, swords, knives, machetes and various other ‘collectibles’ that were created with the intention of causing serious harm. I thought for a second how I might explain a machete strapped to the side of the bike to customs officials in the UK, then we moved on when I couldn’t come up with a suitable story. Neither “It’s for traffic” nor “Just in case” sounded very plausible when I said them out loud.

After sheltering from a short lived deluge of rain in the French equivalent of Michael Guineys, we returned to the hotel where we met up with the rest of the group, who were furiously drawing pictures of beds on scrap paper and making wild hand gestures in an attempt to check in.

A couple of beers were had and then a stroll down back into the town for the most poorly orchestrated meal I’ve ever had in my life. It wasn’t just us thankfully, other people that chose to eat at the seemingly popular ‘restaurant’ were also having trouble being served the correct food at a reasonably decent temperature. Sadly I can’t recall the name of the place but if you’re in Verdun, avoid the red fronted restaurant on Quai de Londres.

Thankfully it wasn’t too hard to forget awful service and questionable food considering we’d be in Belgium the next night. I think if we were going back to that area overnight in a kind of ‘transit day’ way, I’d be more inclined to return to Reims or give Epernay a try rather than staying in Verdun again. After all, there are lots more Champagne caves to visit!

I had Belgium (or at least Ypres) pretty adequately researched before we left Dublin. I was only too keen to return to Belgium after the couple of hours we spend in Brugge at the start of the holiday. This time we’d be staying in Ypres which was tantalisingly close to the home of Westvleteren, Abdij Sint-Sixtus. A hold was soon put on my excitement when I saw that the cafe across the road from the abbey was closed on the day we were in the area. So no samples of Westvleteren 12 for me. Bugger. It gives me something to do when we’re in Belgium next anyway.

We stayed at the superb Ariane Hotel, an ideal spot to shed the bike gear and take the short walk to Grote Markt, a place we were informed was the most lively part of the town. After some strolling, some photo taking and some beer purchasing (and generally lamenting about the price difference compared to Dublin), we had a superb dinner at one of the restaurants on Grote Markt. Faultless, apart from when a few of the noisiest Londoners on the planet turned up and sat opposite us. A swift table move before our meal had even begun sorted that problem. The move was aided greatly by a very accommodating waitress, although she did appear to see exactly what was going on and the reasons for the move.

And well, that really is the only issue with Ypres, like most cities I suppose. A small percentage of the  tourists do their best to ruin it for both other tourists and locals. If you can’t go somewhere and remain the least bit dignified and respectful, just stay at home and watch TV. Ok?

This would pretty much be the end of the holiday. I’m not writing about the trip back across the UK because it was a hell of a lot of motorway with a Premier Inn at the end of it. There could have been nicer ways to end the trip. Wales was nice. But then Wales is always nice. Until the next foreign jaunt…

More →]]> “Europe 2012; Part 2″ I suppose. Having dropped the bike at the hotel and received the ‘standard Italian warm welcome’, we retreated to the cool shade of our room. Before I go on, (and I may have brought this up in the last part) I’d never been to Italy before now. To be honest, with so much of France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland to see, I wasn’t really too bothered. Mostly due to (some of) the people. Call me a horrible racist or a xenophobe if you want. The ‘standard Italian warm welcome’ is something we all seemed to receive as we arrived at the hotel and something I’ve received outside Italy on a few occasions.  To me, it’s the sour faced look and general ‘what are you doing here and why are you bothering me?’ demeanor. Or, probably pretty much the same look I give people at work five days a week. Maybe I’m quarter Italian?!?

But ignoring that; It was warm, sunny and there was a wonderfully refreshing breeze blowing in off the lake. Our room looked out onto the lake (as you can see below) which made for a lovely waking experience first thing in the morning. Decidedly different than looking out over Dublin 8.

Breakfast wasn’t too bad either, a bonus given that we were here for a couple of nights. Before arriving at Lake Garda, my intention was to spend our first full day back on the bike. We’d head up the coast toward Limone, a place I had been advised to visit by my family. All best laid plans went to hell once the bike gear was peeled off however. The bike had been safely deposited in the smallest underground car park I’ve ever seen (basically, a store room with a car lift) so the urge to hassle the hotel staff to operate the lift so I could get the bike back to ground level never really struck. Instead, my pasty white legs went on show around Sirmione, much to the entertainment and general gasps of horror from both the locals and the already tanned and leather skinned tourists.

It turned out that we were only a few minutes walk from Sirmione so instead of taking the boring option and eating at the hotel each night, we ventured into the tourist swarmed town to be gouged by the local restaurateurs. And gouged we were…

The holiday buzz was in full swing now. Eating outside in a packed courtyard, drinking overpriced sub-standard beer and winding it up with eating our own body weight in gelato. Twice, if I remember correctly. The evening walk around Sirmione was only cut short by a mosquito invasion, which ultimately saw us retreating back to the hotel for yet another overpriced sub-standard beer or two before retiring for the evening.

Fresh as a daisy the next morning. Or, a daisy made from molten lava anyway. The air conditioning in the room wasn’t very effective; Consider what would happen if you put an ice cube in an oven.

Breakfast was shared with dozens of tiny birds that dive bombed us for every loose crumb on the table. They could have the pastry crumbs but the coffee was mine damn it!

All notions of getting the bike out and riding to Limone were once again lost at the realisation of having to pile the all black bike gear back on. Another day in Sirmione it is! The rest of the group had opted to rent boats and go out on the lake for the day, but as neither of us are swimmers (or really wanted to spend the day on a small boat), we took the landlubber option. We did get out on the water though, courtesy of a local tour company that provided sufficiently lengthy trips around the peninsula.

We got to see the ancient villa, some famous persons house that something was named after, another view of the fort on the east side of the town and stopped directly above the hot spring that opens out into the lake. Yes, you can see I was paying full attention during the boat ride. I can’t even remember the guys name. All I really remember is that we were the only two people on the boat (aside from himself at the controls of course) and he was a very friendly mind of local information.

Interestingly enough, he was also dying in the heat and was telling us that 38 degrees wasn’t normal for the area at this time of year. Good to know in case we ever come back.

Back on dry land, we agonised for a few short minutes over where to eat lunch, then finally chose a lovely out of the way kind of spot and had a very long, very relaxed meal in the usual Italian style.

I climbed a tower that allowed the above and below photos, impressive views over a tightly packed in town. As I climbed to the highest point to take the photos, Julie opted to remain one level down in the shade. She may have seen what lay in store for me as I ascended the narrow stairs to the top. Outside in the sunshine on the top of the tower it was a general melee of bodies that would have sent any health & safety officer into a fevered panic. People were trying to push their way down the stairs while people were coming up, that kind of thing. In the end it took some forceful visitor (not me by the way) to orchestrate the whole thing, herd people like sheep and and get the whole mess moving. I wasn’t about to do it, I was on my holidays.

Honestly, I can’t remember much of the rest of the day. That’s a good thing. We wandered around for a bit taking photos, dipping our fingers & toes into the water and generally enjoying the sunshine, the relaxed atmosphere and most importantly, each others company.

Dinner was picked in a similar fashion to lunch and we ended up eating monstrous pizzas that cost pretty much nothing (compared to some of the other eateries anyway). We were back on the road tomorrow, a thought that hadn’t even entered our heads at this point. That dreaded ‘holiday half way point’ feeling hadn’t struck yet either thankfully. Both thoughts were drowned out with more gelato and some more aimless wandering around the town.

I’m not sure I’d make Lake Garda a ‘must visit’ destination for any future (two up) European biking holidays, it’s just too much of a haul to get there. I’d probably fly in then rent a bike for a few days if the urge struck. It’s a great spot with some great weather but too much lounging around in the sunshine never really was my thing. I think I hit my limit at two full days. I don’t think I could hang around in one spot for any longer. I’d have ended up going up to Limone to get a fresh take on the area and see some more sights.

Anyway, that wasn’t an issue. Pointing the bike roughly north west the next morning would get us to our next destination.

More →]]> Or “Europe 2012; Part 1″ if you prefer. Going over and trying to process the many gigabytes of video shot with my pair of drift HD cameras, I’ve entirely neglected the photos. It took me a couple of days to get into the habit of taking photos during our holiday last August and as a result I’ve come away with significantly less photos than the previous years holiday in France. I think a lot of it was down to the long, big mileage days required to actually get to the destination, or at least that’s what I began referring to it as in my head while we counted off mile after mile of Belgian and German motorway.

We left Dublin in the early morning after joining with the rest of our 15 or so strong touring group. Interestingly enough, despite all my years in motorcycling, this was my first time touring in a group. We got the ferry to Holyhead and began making our way to the other side of the country. Hull to be precise. There we’d catch our overnight ferry to Zeebruge in Belgium. The cross country run was almost entirely unremarkable. Join motorway at point A, leave motorway at point B. A couple of hours of time to kill afforded us the opportunity to leave the motorway just after Manchester and ride through the Peak District, pretty much following one of the routes I’d taken when I went to the UK for a long weekend the previous year. The Peak District is wonderful. I still can’t decide which I prefer, the Peaks or the Yorkshire Dales. I’ll just do both every time to save the argument.

After the above sunset, a decent nights sleep (thanks to a few beers and the perfectly calm sea) was had and I awoke the next day to a bit of a double take as I looked out the cabin window.

1. Open curtains
2. See wind turbine
3. Close curtains
4. Think to myself “what the hell, was that a wind turbine?!?”
5. Go to step 1.

It was early, I may have still been asleep. I took a photo through the dirty window to check back on later to see if I really did imagine a wind farm in the middle of the sea.

The truly horrific location on the ship that the P&O deck hands had forced me put my bike in on the previous evening allowed us to leave the boat before the rest of our group. Well, after descending about 4 car decks, finding an access hatch to the freight level, then climbing down a 50 foot ladder, pitched at about 75 degrees. Dear P&O, I’m sticking with Brittany Ferries.

Off the boat into sunny and toasty Zeebrugge. As we were so quick getting off the boat, we selfishly opted not to wait for the rest of the group. It turned out that was a smart move, they were still on the boat an hour later and lost a few more hours at the port due to one of the group falling ill overnight.

We parked up almost exactly in the center of Brugge, making it into the parking spot only a few minutes before roads were closed for some parade, festival, market or something. Brugge is wonderful. I should begin by saying this was my first time in Belgium. Maybe Belgium as a whole is wonderful. More on that later. It’s a kind of ‘chocolate box’ city, or at least the part we saw is. Packed to the gills with tourists, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

We strolled around and took a few photos. Or at least Julie did. I opened up my camera case to find a dead X100. Not a great start. That explains the complete lack of Brugge photos. So to forget the demise of my camera on day 1 of the 15 day holiday, we got a very large hot waffle with cream and chocolate. I ended up wearing 80% of both. I think I was still licking Nutella off my hands three days later. At least I hope it was Nutella…

I also figured out what was wrong with my camera. Turns out it helps if you put the battery in the right way. Silly camera manufacturers, stop making batteries that go in the wrong way! Full of waffle and faces covered in creamy chocolate, we headed back to the bike but with the joint agreement that we’d be back to Brugge. Even just for a night as part of a future tour.

Back on the bike and south toward our first overnight stop in the south of Belgium. The first few nights were going to be what I lovingly refer to as ‘transit days’. Days you don’t really do anything fun, you just get moving. You cover ground. Heading all the way down to Italy as we were, that was a hell of a lot of ground to cover. Sadly, motorways were the best (and sometimes only) way to do just that. The 1150GS Adventure isn’t made for motorway travel. I don’t think I am either. Both of us are a little too heavy, a little too wide in all the wrong places and neither of us are very happy with a 70mph wind in our faces for hours on end.

We got to our hotel. Several hours later, we left our hotel. There was a bed and a shower. Transit days.

Crossing into Luxembourg was a head scratcher. Road signs changed language about 8 times with no consistency. I feared any minute we’d come upon a ‘Welcome to Tajikistan’ sign and forced to produce papers we didn’t have. Our second night was in a hotel in Luxembourg. Same fare; Shower, dinner, bed.

But aha! Here we go! Into Germany and the Black Forest. Yes, where’s the gateaux? As we crossed the Rhine from France into Germany, I got a sense that transit days were behind us. For a little while anyway. We were on the way to a hotel in Baden-Baden, more or less the start of the famous/infamous Black Forest road; the B500. The hotel (Gasthaus Auerhahn) was wonderful. We arrived about an hour before the rest of the group (this was to become a recurring theme), had a shower and clad in shorts and a t-shirt, I retreated to a table outdoors and ordered up my first of the evenings weizens.

Sitting at the table at our roadside hotel, I began to get an appreciation of the number of bikers that travel long distances to ride the B500. The number of bikes that passed me in any hour long period greatly outnumbered the cars, buses, trucks and those lovely people in their camper vans. This could only be a good thing.

Riding the road the next morning, I felt it was a little more sedate than I had been led to believe. Yes, it’s a wonderful road and there are some moments where ones cheeks will grip the saddle but it’s not really the ‘balls to the wall’ thrill ride I had been led to expect. Or maybe that’s because I was essentially riding a tractor. 2 up. With luggage. It’s worth returning to for the scenery alone though. Not much time for photography here, what with keeping up with the group and wanting to get some decent momentum into every sweeping corner.

We made a stop in Triberg, which as some of you may know is the home of the cuckoo clock. No doubt. The place is full of them. Big ones, small ones, fancy ones, plain ones. I can only imagine the din at noon. Aside from the clocks, we were there to see the waterfall. Julie had spotted this some months previous on a Google trawl of the area. Turns out the rest of the group wanted to stop and see it too.

It was a welcome pit stop as even when dressed in my summer finest (biking gear), it was still damn hot. We had arrived into Belgium only a few days previous to temperatures in the high 30′s to low 40′s. I was caught napping, as the saying goes. I hadn’t yet acclimatised to the heat so getting into the shade and within a few feet of a cool waterfall was just the ticket. There was the climb though, practically all the way to the top. Spoiler alert; Once you schlep your weary carcass all the way to the top, you can’t really see anything further than 50 feet in front of you. Trees. Lots of trees. They don’t call it the Black Forest for nothing.

Some miles later and after some indecision and being split up from the majority of the group, we stopped off at a roadside restaurant that appeared to be popular with bikers (but given the area, I’m assuming everywhere is popular with the bikers). Two very tasty mountains of food later we waddled back to the bike and contentedly finished the B500. Or at least finished the part of it we could realistically do without going miles out of our way.

 We got lost. I can’t remember where we were when I took the above but I think my mind wandered from religiously following the GPS for a few minutes and we ended up on a back road. We were on the outskirts of a village whose name I can’t recall but it was basically 5 houses and a barn. We do getting lost very well. We always seem to find the nicest spots to stop, get our bearings, have a drink and a nibble of whatever we’ve got stashed in the luggage and continue on to find our way back to the predetermined route. Julie did a far better job of documenting this location than I did, as usual.

Seemingly all too soon we were back on the motorway, passing Lake Constance on our way to Kempten, where we’d be spending our second and final night in Germany. We stayed in Hotel Fuerstenhof, a great central location in what seemed to be a pretty quiet city. There were legends of a great bar nearby with hundreds of different beers but that never got explored. Have to leave something for the next time I suppose.

My first real trip to Germany was fantastic yet fleeting. I don’t count working trips where you  arrive into airport X and take a taxi to location Y as seeing a place. If you counted those, you could almost call me well traveled. We’ll certainly be back to the Black Forest as part of a future short haul holiday.

Waking up in Kempten the following morning was almost like waking up in Luxembourg a couple of days earlier. We were finally getting to the mountains. Proper mountains, not just hills  or grassy lumps we’d called mountains up to now. The previous evening, Julie had spotted the tip of an Alp from our bedroom window. That kick started the excitement in a big way. Loading up the bike was performed with military precision and at tremendous speed. We took off from the hotel with a few splitters (hereafter to be referred to as “The Bold Children MC”) and followed our routes back onto the motorway and toward the mountains.

Only a few miles later, we came around a long sweeping corner and suddenly, Alps! I fumbled with the video camera stuck to the side of my helmet. The video may have picked up the high pitched whine my face was making from the semi-permanent grin I was wearing since I saw the mountains at the start of the day. The air cooled noticeably, something I was delighted about and hoped for more as we left the motorway and rode into the valley.

No doubt about it, we were in Austria. Perfectly surfaced, narrow, winding roads. So this is where they’ve been hiding the roads that people write songs about. We snaked through the valley, following someone apparently taking a driving lesson, until we reached Plansee. Basically, a big lake.

The cool water and the sun beating down on us could only lead to one outcome. I don’t think I even had time to remove my sunglasses and helmet before the others in our group had stripped off and were heading toward the lake with intent.

To Landeck on Vimeo (in HD).

I made do with taking my jacket, boots and socks off and strolled around on the grass before coming upon the idea of dipping my toes into the water. No, I’m not a swimmer. I ended up a little over knee deep in the lake and immediately understood the benefit of summer riding gear. It’s basically a mesh construction with a few strategically placed pieces of armour. However, when you get it wet it stays cool for quite a while. Heavenly. It appears that the members of the  Bold Children MC are the right crowd of ne’er do wells to hang about with.

Our destination was Hotel Mozart in Landeck, a family run hotel in what is quite clearly a skiing town. In fact I think pretty much every town we passed through was a skiing town. Then, rain. Followed by sleet. What the hell was this? Landeck is sitting in a valley and we were treated to daily (well, nightly) thunder and lightning. It was quite entertaining to sit out on the balcony of our room and watch it all unfolding. As we were spending a few nights in Landeck, the cases & all extra weight was hastily removed from the bike to enhance the mountain pass riding experience.

Mountain passes abound! We set off, armed with a picnic and a rough idea of where we were going. But where to have that picnic? Surely there must be a reasonably decent spot around here somewhere?

As I ate my sandwich and tried to take in even a small percentage of the above view, I believe I made some cheesy comment about days like today being the reason I bought a motorbike. The perfect road, the perfect weather and most importantly, the perfect company.

Speaking of that company, she was off taking photos of the dozen or so bunnies a few yards away. Yes folks, this hotel car park had it all. The day on the bike went by quickly and before we knew it, we were back at the hotel eating dinner and sharing stories about what we’d gotten up to that day. 

Some of our splinter group had opted to take the day off the bike, an understandable decision given the length of the days we’d shared to get as far from home as we currently were. We followed a similar line the next morning, opting to get the train to Innsbruck to see what the city had to offer. Truth be told, I was a little apprehensive. I mean, we were in the Alps. There were roads to be ridden. Mountains to be crossed. But then they’ve been there for a few years now and they’ll likely be there for a few more years. In the end I was glad to have a day away from concentrating on the road and reading the GPS directions.

I’m still undecided about Innsbruck. I got the same feeling here that I did when I was spending a long weekend in Amsterdam and opted to go to Rotterdam for the day. It’s a nice city and all, there just didn’t appear to be much going on.

Plenty of opportunity to get reacquainted with the camera though. And eat lots of tasty stuff. I believe I also had a couple of beers. During the day! The joys of public transport. You’ve probably guessed by now, Julie did a better job with the city than I did.

When we arrived at the hotel in Landeck, three nights seemed an eternity. Up to now we’ve been arriving in hotels late in the afternoon or early evening with just enough time to unpack the clothes needed for that evening, get cleaned up, eat and sleep. Transit days were behind us. But eternity ended and the following morning we were packing up again on the way to Italy via one of the best known roads in Europe.

The Stelvio pass. 40 something hairpin turns would be challenging on a heavy, fully loaded bike with two people on it. Turns out it wasn’t really too bad, even though the glut of Italian bikers on their shiny crotch rockets attempted to make it a more difficult task by displaying their unique riding style at every given opportunity. Translation; Assholes.

Riding up the north side of the pass wasn’t a whole barrel of fun if I’m honest. The hairpin turns came in quick succession with no real distance between them to get up any kind of speed. On reaching the top, I treated myself to what I believe are ‘famous’ Stelvio hot dogs and took the now almost clichéd photo looking back down over the road just traveled.

Riding down the south side of the pass was entirely more enjoyable. The road had long straight stretches that turned into long bends and swooped through amazing scenery all the way down into Bormio. There were still quite a number of hairpins but they were mostly much wider and spread out. It wasn’t so much like trying to ride a motorbike on a circular staircase anymore.  If I was doing Stelvio again, I’d ride up the south side, stop at the top for a hot dog then turn around and ride back down the south side. It was that much more enjoyable.

Stelvio Pass on Vimeo (in HD).

Always a fan of technically challenging roads and near death experiences, I didn’t yet realise that the best was yet to come. From Bormio we headed south toward Lake Garda, where we would be spending a further two nights. The route chosen was via ‘Passo Gavia’, not your average mountain pass for damn sure. There was video taken as you’ll see below. There weren’t many photos taken, possibly because I didn’t manage to prise Julie’s fingers out of my back until we returned to sea level.

It was narrow, poorly surfaced in places, full of car drivers with no notion of how to let traffic pass and around every corner you’d inevitably find a cyclist in the middle of the road. It was amazing. A road that was made for the GS. I’d ride the road again tomorrow. Or later this evening. It was a great intro to Italy, another country I’d never been to before.

Passo Gavia on Vimeo (in HD).

As we progressed further south toward Lake Garda, we left the cool mountain air behind us and it began to get oppressively hot. It was back up to around 40 degrees, which in black bike gear and a helmet isn’t a whole lot of fun. Thankfully however I was finally starting to acclimatise to the drastic change in weather since we left home. We’d be spending two nights in Hotel Aurora at Lake Garda, which presented an ideal opportunity to leave the bike in the car park and explore on foot.

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Brew Day on Vimeo.

I think I can call this the first brew day of 2013, given that my last brew day was New Years Eve 2012. I decided to try a bit of time lapse video with this one. Nothing too well planned as you can probably tell. Just stuck up a few cameras and took it as an experiment to see what I came up with.

As you’ll notice from my furious re-positioning of cameras and tripods, I also shot some video on my Nex but haven’t dared go near that yet. More scripting and story boarding required on that venture for the next brew I think.

This was a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone, about 5.1% abv and in around the 40 IBU mark if I remember correctly. The original brew day plan was to brew up a batch of high abv porter to bottle for Christmas (I never said the ‘C word’ by the way) but as I’d stupidly forgot to buy any chocolate malt on my last trip to the home brew supplier, the SNPA clone would have to fulfill my need to brew something for now.

It’s a little over a week since it went into the fermenter and now sitting pretty at 1.010, down from 1.049. It’ll be transferred to secondary tonight and be treated to some Amarillo hops for about another 5 days.

In related news, this is one of those rare occasions that I appear in content posted on my own blog. I’m not going to be making a thing of it, don’t worry. If you should feel the need to view the video bigger and in HD, head over to the Vimeo link posted under the video.

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Kegerator – noun (keg-er-a-tor)

1. A device which was one a common refrigerator  but is now something entirely different and wonderful.
2. A place to cool kegs of beer in order to serve them (to yourself)

Right after I made the decision to get in on the beer keg bulk buy (corny kegs for anyone that wants specifics), I began to think about a kegerator. After all, if you’ve got close to 20 liters of beer in a keg, you’re presumably going to need to drink it cold. Imagine, warm beer. The humanity!

“Aha” I thought, “I know what I’ll do”. Christmas 2012 was approaching at a lumbering speed and I had the two kegs sitting there, unloved and unused. On a trip out to Mountmellick to buy some grain (and all that other brewing stuff) I picked up the first of the ‘keg bits’ I was going to need. Some time later I bought a used pub Co2 cylinder and a basic Co2 regulator. I finally got the cylinder filled before Christmas and we were all ready to drink the first batch of draught beer. That is of course, ‘the royal we’.

I was looking forward to a fine cold winter, keg of suitably coffee’d up stout sitting on the balcony, chilling it’s little heart out. Except, well, the fine cold winter never really happened. It got a bit cold, possibly cellar cold. The snow I thought my keg would be sitting in by New Years Eve never really arrived. So I ended up drinking some odd mish-mash hybrid of draught and cask stout. But it was draught, served from my very own corny keg. That was a win in itself.

The stout wasn’t bad now, don’t get me wrong. Every brew I do, I’m seeing the errors. I’m taking that as a good sign too. I now know what the taste of bad mashing temperature is. The body of the beer is a little light for a stout and as a result, I think it’s taken a lot of the kick out of the ohh, 250grams of espresso beans I cold brewed, filtered and dumped into the secondary fermentation. But enough about that…

My New Years Eve brew day left me with a ruby coloured ale. Not hugely hoppy, more caramel flavours. Think a bit like Old Hooky and you’re getting there. But where to put it once the fermentation was complete? In a keg of course but I couldn’t very well dump that keg out onto the balcony with the now half keg of stout and expect it to get cold. A fridge was needed.

I spent a few weeks scouring adverts.ie and donedeal.ie looking for the perfect fridge. Something big but not too big, preferably a tall larder fridge. Fridges came and fridges went but the perfect one was an elusive beast. Then one evening, I got sick of waiting and just bought one.

A short, incoherent prayer was had and the fridge fit in the car with centimeters to spare. If not for the bizarre shape of my car’s boot lid, it wouldn’t have fit at all. Thanks for that Citroen. I got it home, pulled out most of the shelves and the door fittings and rejoiced at estimating that I’ll be able to fit three corny kegs and a large cylinder of Co2 in it.

The door came off to be reversed (as in, open the other way around) and 24 hours later, the kegerator was born when I plugged it into the mains.

So, what’s next on the agenda?

Well, taps I suppose. That’ll be part 2 I guess. It looks like you can get tap, hose & liquid disconnect for in & around the €50 mark. Depending on funds, I’ll either get them one by one and build as I go or get them all (three) in one go and do the entire remainder of the build at once. So, fit the taps in the newly drilled door, run the hose down to the kegs and attach the disconnects. Sounds pretty easy. As long as I don’t screw up the drilling part it should all be plain sailing. Beer identification & facilitation of general doodling is also well in hand as Julie got some blackboard vinyl from Amazon. There I was going to paint the door with blackboard paint. Now I don’t need to.

Part 3 will most likely end up being all about gas. I’ll need some way to split the output from one Co2 cylinder to two (or three) kegs. Then, if I’m going to get really fancy about it, I could have a separate regulator for each keg supply so I can serve at different pressures per keg. Or force carbonate one while serving another.

Part 4 will mostly be me, drinking all the beer. All of it.

More →]]> Sitting at home on a Sunday morning, needing to get out for a few hours despite the cold and the threat of rain. Wiclow? Kildare? Wait, we haven’t been to the Botanic Gardens in ages! Every time we go up there, I seem to get the great notion to try something new. “This time, I won’t take photos of any plants”. How very obscure I’m sure. After all, plants are so mainstream. Things like that.

This wasn’t much different, although as usual I did slip back into taking photos of plants by the time we got as far as the larger of the two greenhouses. No more commentary, just photos.