Vanniversary Edition

Organise street parties , dig the bunting out, and get ready to party like it’s 1945 , cos today’s the day.

We are officially celebrating 365 nights spent in the Basecamp since we acquired it in March 2018 . Depending how romantically you look at it, that represents

A) 3% of all the days since we met (in 1992)

Or

B) 700%+ longer than the shelf-life of a lettuce-like PM

What more fitting tribute than to take an international hike ?

We set off from a lake by the site of this year’s Olympic Biathlon competition. Despite the lack of snow, keen hopefuls were practising on roller blades.

I’m not entirely sure of the rules, but I think this is the event where people ski round in circles for a bit with a rifle strapped to their backs, then drop to the floor and take pot shots at fellow competitors to try and thin out the field.

We then nipped up a quiet forest track to find a view point over 2 lakes , one in Italy, the other in Austria. Or as locals would say , both in Tyrol.

The border is right next to the upper lake, and features a variable one way system where , once or twice an hour, the direction switches so that you can EITHER enter OR exit Italy. Or wait 30 mins for it to change. Pedestrians can wander about at will. So we did.

That’s Freedom of Movement. Right there.

Anyway, on the way up we passed an Alm that had definitely seen better days

No chance of a decent drink there, so back down to the campsite and celebrated over a bottle of Prosecco .

And nothing  dropped off.

Cheers,  Gentle Readers ! 🥂