Western Europe

I’ll admit that I didn’t love Vienna. After falling hard for Ljubljana earlier in the week, the size, cost and weather of the Austrian capital just didn’t work so well for me. It wasn’t terrible or anything, but it just didn’t excite me as much as I thought it might.

What did excite me, however, was the discovery of several hundred metres of street art literally on the banks of the Danube. I love street art no matter where I find it – I used to spend hours checking it out while living in Melbourne, and happily do the same anywhere else in the world. Vienna was one place that I didn’t expect it, however – the city just seemed a bit too buttoned down and cleaned up.

While out looking for bars on the river (which we never did find…), we decided to turn right instead of left at a random bridge and climb down to water level.

This was the result.

Getting to Piazzaga is not particularly easy.

I stayed for a few days in this tiny village in the hills above Lake Como, and while the place has several wonderful aspects, ease of accessibility isn’t necessarily one of them.

With a four-wheel drive vehicle and nerves of steel, the drive up the narrow, winding dirt road takes about ten minutes from the lakeside town of Torno. Inches to spare on each side, steep inclines and plenty of blind corners make the ride loads of fun. Especially in the dark.

If it’s a sunny day and you’re headed for what is (in my entirely biased opinion) the best restaurant in Lake Como, though, leave the car behind and find a pair of sturdy shoes. It’s time to go for a walk.

Beautiful scenery.

Crowds of well-heeled tourists.

George Clooney.

If you’d asked me about Lake Como a week ago, that’s about all I could have told you.

I knew it was a pretty blue lake in northern Italy, close to the Swiss border with several small towns perched on the surrounding hills. I also knew it could be damn expensive, with the rich and famous being spotted on a regular basis. And, like everyone else, I knew that George Clooney owned a place there, so I presumed we’d probably meet up for a coffee at some point.

While lazily wandering around the Castillo de Santa Cruz, a medieval castle perched on a hill high above the Basque city of San Sebastian, I came across this shiny motorcycle parked in the grounds outside.

Presumably belonging to one of the staff that worked at the small museum inside the castle, it was an incongruous find amongst the weathered rocks and mossy cobblestones that surrounded it.

“Have you been to San Sebastian? It’s amazing!”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a variation on that, I would be rich. This small city in the Basque country of northern Spain seems to be a perennial favourite amongst anyone that had ever been there, so when I noticed that it was only a few hundred kilometres from where I was in La Coruña the decision wasn’t hard to make. I was going to San Sebastian.