René’s old blog

This site is some twenty-five years old, and it contains lots of ancient stuff, much of it utterly dated and useless.

Sorry about that.

If anything, I post very unevenly, and about whatever occupies me.

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Most recent posts

  • Change of plans

    Change of plans

    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 to Italy two weeks ago. I left Denmark early to guide a group of Danish…

  • Don’t hurry we’re already late

    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 people from Southern Europe has a different sense of time that people from Northern Europe.…

  • The Giudecca

    The Giudecca

    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 side of the Giudecca. Older, but nice looking houses in the Giudecca. Abandonded shipyard buildings…

  • Little surprises in the lagoon

    Little surprises in the lagoon

    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 first paddler ever in the lagoon, except of course Marco who always complains that nobody…

  • Life at the Lido

    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 have to stand the pathetic view across to the lagoon to Venice each and…

  • Camping San Nicolò

    Camping San Nicolò

    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 on the Lido of Venice. I’m staying at the Camping San Nicolò at the northern…

  • Skim in Venice

    Skim in Venice

    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 of the main canal at Murano. Paddling with Maria in the lagoon of Venice near…

  • Now bad weather too

    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 the weather would change. Right now I’m sitting in my underwear under a canopy at…

  • More bad omens

    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 with lose change, but apparently the close contact with coins has worn down the magnetic…