tesla – Travels and Trades

Jul 29 – Travels

We’re back in Arona, Italy. Where we will spend most of the remaining parts of the road trip. After that we’ll be ending the trip with a Norwegian Fjord cruise and then we’re back in the Cayman Islands.

We’ve put on about 8k km with our Tesla driving all across Europe and we’ve paid zero for gas. It’s a pretty epic road trip especially in an electric car. It hasn’t gotten much attention despite Tesla tweeting about the smallest road trips (I think one was someone going from UK to Amsterdam). Really? That’s like one leg of 30 on my trip. I thought it’d have been interesting taking an electric car from Malta all the way up to Sweden.

Here are some pictures of Arona.

Travel Update

Been a while. We were in Copenhagen for 7 days followed by Stockholm for 8. We’re now making our way to Hamburg with a 2 day stop in Roskilde, Denmark. We decided against driving through Norway and opted for a Norwegian Fjord cruise on Holland America to end this whole thing in August. We booked which what we were told was the last room and it was an obstructed ocean view and somehow got lucky with an upgrade opportunity to the Neptune suite (booking cancellation?). Before that though, we are going to go back to where we started which was the Lake Como/Arona. It’s our favourite region in Europe. We’ll stay there for 9 days and then head up and stay in Strasbourg and then Bruge before going to UK to board our cruise.

The rest of the itinerary looks like this:

Roskilde, Denmark

Hamburg, Germany

Lake Como/Arona, Italy

Strasbourg, France

Bruges, Belgium

All of Norway by cruise

Cayman Islands (Home)

Jul 7 – Travels

We’ve made it to Copenhagen.

Like the city and its vibe quite a bit but its damn expensive. Seriously.

Berlin was a very bizarre city. I really have no idea how to quantify it or my experience there. I really don’t. We happened to stay in a vegan neighbourhood which was awesome! That was a total fluke as well. Glad we stayed in that part of town, it happened to be the best part, super artsy, lively and kid friendly. At first it was intimidating, the characters there are bizarre and it looked like we were in gangland with all the spray paint. After a day, you realize it’s harmless. Overall, I can’t see myself ever returning to Berlin. It was not a favorite.

I had the unfortunate experience of watching a man die. It was really messed up. We were walking to our segway tour and a man was on the ground with a worker outfit getting CPR, his legs were twitching and stopped and they seemed to give up on the CPR with shrugs and looks of hopelessness. Very eery. The thing I remember most is all of the bystanders faces. Just blank. I don’t know what happened but I’d guess maybe electrocution or heart attack.

We toured the Berlin wall, saw the holocaust memorial museum which was the most impactful of its genre. I’ve been to a concentration camp and other sites but this one was next level with its presentations of individual cases/experiences. Very impactful. Highly recommended everyone sees that some day. What an atrocity.

We drove and ferried from Berlin to Copenhagen and arrived in good time.

More to come

Jun 29 – Travels

We’ve arrived in Berlin, our first official “big city” stay. We’ll be here until the 6th at which point we’ll depart for Copenhagen. A week after that will be Stockholm and a week after that will be Helsinki.

I’ve got a shit-ton of updating to do tomorrow on this blog. I’ve been busy with catch-up of all sorts in business that has put a big limiter on free time outside of the obvious traveling/experiencing.

Pictures from Wurzburg and Nuremberg below:

Emma lost a tooth in Nuremberg

Standard pic. Nuremberg

Beach bar (summer in the city) Nuremberg. Super cool and extensive

Just a pic of the three weirdos that I call my family

The lead weirdo

Nuremberg nazi rally grounds

A paddle boat excursion near the rally grounds

A Wurzburg castle stroll

A night out in Wurzburg

A night out in Wurzburg #2

A night out in Wurzburg #3

Fun in the backyard (Wurzburg)

Germany (Pictures)

Ravensburg (Where they make those puzzles!)

Landsberg am Lech locks

Landsberg Am Lech during a hike

Andech Monastery beers! Kingston is admiring them.

landsberg Am lech

U-boat revealed

Ravensburg poseMunich (Marienplatz) The start of the beer hall Putsch

U-boat control room

Landsberg Am Lech guard tower

Landsberg am Lech Umbrella crew

Landsberg Am Lech log pose #1

A beer in Turkheim

Trying on hats in Ravensburg museum

Marienplatz, Munich

Ravensburg

There we go. Nice Hat

Deutches Museum, Munich (Awesome!)

Entering Marienplatz

Roar
More U-boat cut outs

Jun 23 – Rammingen (near Munich)

We’ve been in Rammingen for the past 3 days and are staying in a fantastic airbnb that I’d recommend to anyone. The drive took a bit longer than expected (8 hrs) and probably will be our longest of the trip. It was relatively uneventful though fun to drive 160+ on the autobahn. We stopped to charge in Ljubljana, Villach and just outside Munich.

The following day we checked out landberg am Lech and an the Andech monastery for some much looked forward to Monk beer. The day after that we checked out Ravensburg and visited a museum there and bought some memory match games from the Ravensburger museum store. Ravensburg is a small town in Germany where all those puzzles/games you see at book stores are made (IE Camana Bays). The day after that we went into Munich and visited the Deutches museum which was awesome. They had a u-boat cut in half and that alone made the museum worth while to me. The kids loved it.

Jun 19 – About Koper

Koper is a little town about 25 mins from where we were staying. It was located at the bottom of the mountain that had really windy roads. For the most part we had no problem driving the Tesla up and down these roads. There were a few spots that were really thin and if there was another car coming we’d have to pull to the side but that only happened a few times.

Koper itself was a beautiful little town. We parked our car in the parking lot down by the port and it only cost us a few euro for a couple of hours parking. The port area is where a lot of the restaurants, bars, market and parks were located. They have 3 parks along the waterfront for children and, for the most part, the whole area is closed off to cars so we didn’t have to worry about our kids scootering around.

I was amazed at how clean the city was. There were garbage bins everywhere and I dont remember seeing a single piece of trash on the ground. Walking along the waterfront we came to a beach area. There were quite a few people there with their children just hanging out on the grass, playing in the playground or sandbox and a few brave ones were swimming in the cordoned off swimming area. It was a rocky beach with no sand but that might be normal for this area. Coming from Cayman Islands, this wasn’t really our type of beach 🙂

As always, we looked at Trip Advisor to see where we should eat lunch. There were about 70 restaurants listed in Koper and we were happy to see that two of the top ten places to eat where vegetarian! We headed to a little tiny place called Hisa De Rin. It had 3 (tiny) tables and it was packed. All the tables were taken and there were about 5 people ahead of us in line. The selection of food was quite small but the special of the day, or the Workmens meal as they call it, was Vegan. We ordered the special all around and it was a Vegan Moussaka. It was delicious! The portion size was huge and it only cost 5 euros. We visited that restaurant 2 times during or stay.

The old city part of Koper was quite small with one walkway through it that was lined with little cafes, shops and a few bars. We stopped at one of the cafes for a coffee and were happy that they had Rice milk. We saw that they had quite a few craft beers so we decided that we would head back there at some point for a beer. Oh yah, for the beer drinkers out there, there is a cool app called Untappd which lets you track your beers, cheers friends, and find the coolest beers in whatever location you’re in.

Koper is quite a small little town but its definitely a nice one and, if driving by it, one should stop to check it out. The people are friendly, the waterfront is beautiful and you can get a great Vegan meal there too!

We rented a place on airbnb and it was located up a smaller mountain in a little town called Kostabona, just outside of Koper. The town only has about 50 homes, one restaurant and two churches. Our navigation stopped working as we went further up the mountain and we did get a little lost. Funny enough, after driving up a really tiny road, we turned around in a driveway and went back down the hill. It turned out, the driveway we turned around in was the place we were staying in.

The views from the house were pretty nice. Being out in the countryside meant there were a lot of bugs. For the most part we weren’t bothered by this but the girls weren’t too happy about the 3 scorpions that we came across. We all survived and all managed to get away, sting free.

Jun 18 – Last Day in Slovenia

This is our last day in Slovenia. This country was a huge surprise for us as we didn’t know much about it. Koper and Ljubljana (pronounced L-yoo-ub-lee-anna) were some of the top small cities I’ve seen in Europe in my life this far. I am a pretty well traveled dude (I think) but this has made me realize I know very little I know even about European countries/cities. We went out in Koper last night and I was in awe at just how well put together and just how nice it was. It was so clean, developed and “fine”. Who would have thunk that Slovenia was like this? I didn’t. Pure ignorance. Ljubljana was the same way, perfectly clean, pastel, serene and beautiful. We will definitely return to Slovenia.

We’ve got a lot of the itinerary complete now for Leg 2

1. Rammingen (Near Munich)

2. Wurzburg, Germany

3. Neudstadt, Germany

4. Cologne, Germany

5. Berlin, Germany

6. Copenhagen, Denmark

7. Stockholm, Sweden

8. Gothenburg, Sweden

9. Bergen, Norway

After that, it’s back down into mainland Europe and over towards UK/France. We depart back to Cayman on Aug 31.

Jun 11 (Verona)

We’ve now settled in the hilltops overlooking Verona. We sadly left Arona after having an awesome visit at the farm. Ash and I both said we’ll likely return there every year. The people that run the B&B are some of the best people I’ve ever met. I highly recommend it (www.incocco.com).

On the 8th, Ash and I made were lucky enough to be treated like VIPs at the Last Supper painting. We got up to the receptionist who pretty much was super rude to us but when we dropped the name, everyone stopped and apologized profusely and ushered a man from the back to take us in. It was wild, people were moved out of the way and we were given a completely private tour of the painting and its history. All I could think about when looking at it was one of my best friends that always calls his dinner–> supper. Drives me mad. Anyways, will remember that forever. Definitely was special.

The drive to Verona was uneventful, we left at about 12:30 and arrived at the Verona Supercharger at about 2:45pm. We charged and made our way up to the hill. The roads on the way there were super skinny and we’re avoiding using the car until we leave. The bus stops 3 min away from the house anyways.

We paid 27 EURO to go into the arena, and I think I’ve never been so ripped off in my life. It was 2 hallways filled with KISS band equipment. That’s it. Oh yeah, Kiss is playing there tonight, the entire Verona city centre is KISS fans.

On Saturday we leave for Slovenia which I am really excited about, it’ll be a longer stop (5 days) and the location looks super serene. We’ve decided that we might actually go more west on this trip (towards France/Belgium/Netherlands) and cut out time from Scandinavia. Maybe Brittany? Anyone that has recommendations please post in the comments 🙂

This is where we are parked (house is just above)

The arena, we payed 27 EUR to see! What a crock.

Emma watching me write the blog 🙂

Jun 6 – Trip Report

From Malta to the Laplands and everywhere in-between (in a Tesla S)

The Start

Waking up at 4am, we showered and got into the car, ready for a very long and exhausting day dealing with language difficulties and stressful driving conditions. We had prudently packed the car the night before, fitting in 3 suitcases, an iMac, and several smaller items. Most of it fit in the Frunk (front trunk in electric cars) though our biggest computer and suitcase fit in the back seat along with Irina. We arrived to the Malta ferry at about 5am and though we were supposed to board, the attendant informed us that we have to pay extra for our car as it is so long. So that took up some time and annoyance. Once aboard, the 1.5 hr ferry ride was smooth, we said good bye to Malta and I got in a quick nap in preparation for the drive through Sicily.

Arrival in Sicily

Once we arrived in Sicily we had about 350km range. We made our way to the Ikea in Catania which was perfectly positioned right off the highway. Southern italy city driving in the Tesla (a very large and wide car) is a dangerous affair and one I try to avoid at all costs. We got there with about 180 km range and we topped up to about 350km. We spent about 2-3 hours in Ikea while the kids played in the play area and the Tesla charged. Charge completed at about 1pm. We left towards another charge point in Palermo. Then the S-show started. It wasn’t a public charger but rather a private one in the ENEL (think Hydro) building. It took Ash like 30 minutes re language difficulties to have the security guard open the gates and let us charge, that was no easy feat. Pulling in the car was even tougher, the maniacal parking near the gate gave us maybe 1 inch wiggle room and that required us backing up and adjusting several times (into insane traffic) all the while hoping the gate didn’t close on us. Once in, we finagled our huge car in-between some of the smallest spots and we topped it up to about 240km which was more than enough to get us to the Dorno supercharger after departing from Genoa upon arrival.

The Ferry

The ferry is an absolute hell hole. Pretty much the worst thing you can experience on a “paid for” ship experience. Our 3 bed suite was basically a queen size bet with a small couch. The smell on the ship was body odour combined with stale smoke. The condition of the ship was gross, we had a 13 inch CRT tv from the 80s in our room. The lines/waits for getting on and off were bad as well. We got there early and were first on which meant most bottom garage (i.e. last out) So we were first in and last out. We had to exit our cabin at 5pm and wait till about 8:30pm in the hallway beside the garage enjoying the wonderful smells as mentioned before.

The Drive to Arona

What a beautiful drive! We drove up to the Dorno supercharger and had a bite to eat. It took about 20min to get a charge and we departed towards Arona. The autostrada was so smooth and a great drive. The speed limit is 130 and we set the cruise at 140 and made it to the B&B at 11:15pm. The trip starts here: