On The Road Again

I will shortly be off on my travels. I recently took early retirement from my real job. To mark the break between a full-time working life and discovering retirement, I have decided to disappear from view for several weeks.

No tropical beaches for me, though. No polar bears either, come to that. Broadly speaking, my plan is to travel out via western France, to Switzerland, through one corner of Austria, and northern Italy, to the Italian seaside at Lignano. Lignano is playing host to the second European Masters Games in mid September. Although I was the M50 100m and 200m gold medalist at the last EMG in Malmo, Sweden in 2008, I am only going to be running in the 200m this time. Reason is that I didn’t really want to spend a whole ten days in Lignano. Seaside’s not my scene.

I should add that this trip has the full agreement of my wife, who will be flying out to spend about week with me in Venice as soon as EMG is over. I’ll then be moving on to the Dolomites, a place I very much regard as my spiritual home. I am, of course, going to be travelling by motorbike.

My big, ostentatious BMW K1200LT needs a regular run out like this every now and again. I am very much trying not to over-plan the trip. I’ll be away for the best part of six weeks, if it all works out. I’ll be calling in on friends and acquaintances I’ve not seen for a few years in some cases, but very little has really been booked in advance. That will help to keep the trip spontaneous and allow me to follow the weather.

My plan while in the Dolomites is to start work on a big project I began thinking about several years ago. I have an original set of photos shot there in around 1911. The aim is to create a 2011 equivalent set and post the results on a web site. For this, I have the approval of the family of the original photographer. There are 36 shots to be taken, but the location for every one of them needs to be researched and located. Having done that, all I then need is good weather, conditions similar to the originals, etc. Nothing to it, eh? I’m not actually expecting to get everything photographed on this trip. I’ve got to leave reasons to go back, of course. Oh, and did I mention that I am shooting it all on film, on a 6×7 medium format camera?

I will be using this blog to record my journey every few days. I might even add some photos. I’ll be taking a digital camera for backup etc. I might even take some video of parts of it.

I’ve got a few details to tie up first. My mother sadly died a few days ago, and we have her funeral coming up. I was wondering what she would have made of the trip, but can already hear her saying “You only have this life”. Wish me luck!

Tom

I'm going too!