Venice – Stainz, Austria (400km)
Well, Day 7 started with a clear blue sky just as has been the case for nearly the entire time we have been on the road. However, the one dark side to Day 7 is that it is the day Chris heads back to the USA and I head home to Budapest.
We all met for breakfast and a final goodbye before checking out of the hotel. I then left Vera in the lobby sitting on her luggage while I ran Chris to the airport for a final goodbye following the best time we have spent together in probably 25 years.
While Chris was facing 14 hours in flights and layovers, Vera and I still had 750km in front of us before arriving back home in Budapest. Unfortunately, none of us saw the coming travels as offering the joys we had just experienced over the past 6 days but all good things must end at some point.
Chris and I said our goodbyes and agreed to look forward to our next trip which will take place on his side of the pond - Route 66 from Chicago to L.A. The tentative plan is to do this in the fall of 2013 or spring of 2014. Timing will depend on when his 1978 Targa is ready to go as it is currently being completely disassembled and rebuilt from the ground up.
After dropping Chris and taking a deep breath as he stood at the curb, I headed back to the hotel to pick up Vera for the homeward bound leg of our journey. We packed up the car, cleaned the windows, pulled off the top, adjusted her pony tail and were underway.
We headed back to the motorway jumping on the A4 heading east toward Austria and Slovenia for about 80km before turning north. Once turning north we began to lose the heavy truck traffic and, although on a motorway, the drive started to became a bit more relaxing. We settled down to a steady run at about 130km/h for the next 110km stopping in Tarviso for an “ok” lunch.
Since we left the motorway at Tarviso, we had to re-enter but somehow ended up heading south instead of north. Faced with possibly driving 20km south before finding an exit, we were fortunate to come upon a group of Italian police chatting in the center median just before the toll booth.
Against Vera’s advice and at the chance of having them question my US registration, I decided to ask where we could possibly find our way back toward Austria without traveling another 20km. Fortunately they were clearly glad to see that I was interested in leaving their fine country and then stopped traffic directing me to make a 90o turn shooting from the center lane across to the right hand shoulder and then down a service road that ran under the motorway popping up on the other side.
So, after our little detour, we soon across the border into Austria after only a few minutes delay. We then began to veer eastward toward Klagenfurt and our eventual exit near Lannach. The run from Venice to Lannach was pleasant from a weather perspective and somewhat lighter in terms of traffic than what we had experienced around Venice.
The pleasant surprise was when we turned off the motorway. The Deutschlands-berg area south of Graz is probably one of Austria’s best kept secrets. The area is dotted with lovely hillside homes and vineyards, and honestly rivals scenery reminiscent of Tuscany. It was just stunning and some of the nicest country roads you could ever desire to cruise in a Targa with the top off on a beautiful sunny afternoon.
As we were both a bit tired, we headed for our hotel in Stainz with the goal of enjoying a nice dinner and a little local wine. After checking in and unloading the car, I went back down to put the car into the car park and the top on for the night. That was when everything went wrong. Mind you, by now I had taken the top on and off at least a dozen times during the trip without incident. Not so this time.
I carefully reorganized the car before pulling the top out of the boot and felt all was going well. Then came the rather routine process of unfolding the top and dropping it in place. Unfortunately as I was not paying much attention to how I was opening the top, the rear bar managed to pinch my middle finger in place when the bar snapped into place.
Needless to say, it hurt like hell and I quickly began worming around while screaming my head off while trying to extract my finger without leaving a piece behind. In the process, I managed to bang the top into the right front fender taking a chip out of the paint.
Somehow despite the damage to the car, I managed to extract my finger without leaving any pieces still attached to the top. However, I did end up with a nasty blood blister which burned like crazy for hours.
Despite the pain and as nothing appeared broken, we decided to eat at the hotel’s restaurant which proved a lovely choice. A few glasses of wine later and my finger was hardly noticed.
Vera’s response, “So, how does the targa top on a new Porsche work?” Obviously she knows that you simply push a button. How hard can that be? Arrgh!
Mike & Vera
