Just come back from an interesting couple of weeks in Austria.

Day 1: flew to München, took the train to Imst/Pitztal via Wörgl and Innsbrück (our train disappeared, nobody knew anything, all good), then the bus down to Tieflehn where we stayed overnight.

Day 2: walked around Mandarfen for the morning, met the rest of the course and walked up to Taschachhaus, which is more of a small hotel than a mountain hut (salad bar!). Talk in the evening to introduce everybody.

Day 3: Walked to Vorderes Köpfle, practising movement on rock, lowered off (!) and walked back down. In the evening, practised some ropework.

Day 4: On the Glacier practising movement on ice across all slopes and techniques.

Day 5: Sexegertenspitze (3350m), glacial approach up to ~40° with a very little rock right at the end. Spent an hour in the sun on the summit! Unfortunately, I’d missed a bit of my chin with the sunscreen… Practising ice-axe braking and buried-axe belays on the descent.

Day 6: Back on the glacier, pitched ice climbing, crevasse rescue practice.

Day 7: Had a go at Wildspitze, didn’t make it. I wasn’t well, so I turned around before the morraine slope, Andrea carried on, but the weather wasn’t good enough – they summited Petersenspitze instead.

Day 8: walked back down to the Valley, got a lift to Oetztal bahnhof, from where we took the bus to Sölden. The weather forecast was grim, so we decided to stay in the valley for a couple of days. Some shopping and pizza :-)

Day 9: Bus to Vent, checked into a B&B, and climbed Wildes Mannle (3000m), but taking the Sesselbahn out of Vent!

Day 10: Walked to Hochjochhospitz (2413m), stayed in a lager of 6 people.

Day 11: Walked to Brandenburger Haus (3277m) in fog over the glacier. Smelled the woodsmoke before we could see the Haus. Stayed in a 4-bed room.

Day 12: Walked via Fluchtkogel (3500m) and the Joch to Breslauer Hütte (2844m). The walk from Vernagthütte to Breslauer Hütte was dull and long. Put up with a room full of tourists with no idea what an early start meant. Everything was very funny at 2330, but considerably less so at 0400 the next morning!

Day 13: The plan was to have another go at Wildspitze, the weather was perfect. Unfortunately, this time Andrea was ill, so we abandoned it before we got to the Mittelberg Joch. Spent the day sitting in the sunshine and drinking Apfelscholer. Got moved into a 2-bed room, and caught up on sleep.

Day 14: two people were helicoptered off from the Joch in the morning, one seriously injured. We walked down to Vent and took the bus to Sölden, where we stayed the night.

Day 15: train to München, flew home.

Just back from two weeks travelling around the Fjord region of Norway, including a session on Jostedalsbreen, with a spot of ice climbing. All good :-)

Can you guess where we went today?

This is a Roland statue, in Rīga. Before arranging this trip, I hadn’t realized that both Tallinn and Rīga were Hansestädte – and the influence is clear throughout both of them.

There’s a relatively limited amount of junkfood chains in Tallinn and Rīga – the token McDonalds, and the local (and unappealing) equivalent called Hessburger.

Part of the reason for this is the availability of tasty local junkfood, such as the Estonian pancakes served up in Kompressor. This is a studenty place in the old town, where £2 will get you a plate full of stuffed pancake.

So. Tallinn. We went the week after the native Russians had been rioting about the government moving a Soviet-era war memorial from the city centre to a military cemetary – the full story is here

I hadn’t really appreciated just how these countries had suffered under Stalin, and the latter Soviet regime. Is it any wonder that they are not mad-keen on having reminders of their occupation and repression prominantly displayed?

I’m left with little sympathy for the “oppressed” Russian minority in Estonia, who were migrant workers sent there by the USSR, with the intent of dissipating the national identity of the native population, and were previously favoured in all aspects of life. Sucks to have the boot on the other foot, huh?

I’ve just returned from a week in Tallinn and Rīga – really excellent. More posts will follow, with some photos. But in the mean time, I saw a grafitto of this image in Rīga, and was curious if it was widespread. I find it amusing that an image commenting on the use of images is now a widely-propagated image in its own right.

Haweswater. We were walking up to High Street, from The Rigg, and back down via Small Water. Very nice walk. We were planning to walk on up Harter Fell, but decided to get back down to Ambleside for a spot of shopping.

These are Printen – chocolately sweets which are regional to Aachen. The original ones are very hard (caramelized), but we had some soft ones which are rather more chewable.

Aachen is a destination for pilgrimage, which is undertaken every seven years, and it is traditional to give the pilgrims some Printen.

I spent new year in Germany again this year, stayed in Aachen with Andrea’s brother for a week, and then went down to Saarbrücken for a few days. Had a chance to see some of the sights around the Rhineland, which was pretty interesting.

This photo is the Rhein, in Köln. We spent a day there, doing touristy things. If you want to go shopping, Köln is the place, with an enormous pedestrian area and a massive range of shops.