René's old blog

René's old blog

Whatever I feel like posting, whenever

This site goes back some twenty-five years, so it is bound to be full of stale links and irrelevant information. It is, at best, updated irregularly.

  • As I’m sitting here at Bar Maleti on the Gran Viale of the Lido di Venezia, the place is suddenly invaded. The two little ladies with their newspapers and espresso didn’t create much of a fuss, but the wedding party…

  • Any adventure involves coping with the unexpected and the unforeseen. Unfortunately, I have had a solid dose of unexpected and unforeseen even before the start of our journey, as I lost all my personal and vehicle documents on the way…

  • Maybe I’m getting more italianised that I had ever imagined, but I actually managed to write the above sentence in an email to Wendy lately. I meant it and I still do. No mistake there. It is well known that…

  • Today’s paddle me took to the Giudecca of Venice. It used to be an industrial area with housing for working class families, there’s quite a bit of run down houses and abandoned factories and shipyards. New houses on the south…

  • Today’s paddle became rather special, for a number of reasons. I started in the afternoon after a morning’s hard work at the internet café. Their coffee is appallingly good, but paddling need to be done. First thing, I encountered the…

  • So today I’ve spent most of the time sitting at Café Maleti on the Gran Viale of the Lido, updating blogs and doing email. Life is hard, but they do make good coffee and food, and absolutely great icecream. Then…

  • I’m still stuck in Venice waiting for documents and credit cards so I can continue my journey. Naturally, it’s a downer being stuck somewhere when you expected to be somewhere else, but there are worse places to be stuck than…

  • Here are some photos of the new Skim Distance in Venice and surroundings. The Skim Distance parked besides a very busy inner city canal. Paddling in front of the city just east of St. Mark’s Square. Parked on the side…

  • When the last participants from Kajakhotellet’s tour to Venice left yesterday, most were complaining about returning to the gloomy weather of the cold North. We had brilliant weather all week, sunshine and temperatures of 25-30º C. Had they known how…

  • On my way down here I managed to lose just about every important document I have. I only had one credit card left. Incredibly I have managed to lose that as well. I kept it in a small plastic bag…