Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

the long and winding road...

It's about 3000km from Vienna to Lisbon, a long way in a 7.5 tonne truck that can't go faster than 70 miles an hour with a following wind. We (the Nottingham correspondant and I) left with our cargo of toot enhanced by many inflatable Sigmund Freud cushions. These items were left on the seats at the Kunstlerhaus for the amusement and entertainment of the audience, I have a mind to create an installation with them when I get back to London. In the immediate short term, we gave ourselves a temporary travelling companion, he made it most of the way across Italy, Spain and into Portugal, before a sudden cross-wind sucked him out of the cab and left him forlornly bouncing down the road, to end up who knows where...












In Vienna we had been evicted from the wide open spaces behind the theatre, and had to park the truck out at the Prater, the fun fair and park celebrated in Carol Reeds film of The Third Man. This survives in a wired world with a combination of psychotic terror based rides, and a number of ancient and rather charming rides that are notable in the film.





























The route we took was through Graz, across Italy, France and Spain, stopping in a different country every night. The world of trucking is a different one, the other drivers are timid creatures when separated from their monster wagons, and cluster together for protection and mutual support in the coffee bars that feature in all the petrol stops.

In Italy we stayed overnight in Verona, and once we hit the centre, we were slightly mystified to find the area around the roman theatre was crowded with people and a vast amount of pseudo-egyptian scenery of great vulgarity. Ah, I thought, arena scale Aida, and indeed I was right, although the vast crowd was there to hear Roger Waters play (one time member of Pink Floyd). We sat and ate Pizza, drank slightly fizzy red wine and heard the whole concert, which sounded just like a CD.

When we got through Spain, stopping overnight in Zaragoza, the image that stuck in our minds were the Golden Eagles up in the mountains, and as we got down onto the plains, the vast number of Storks, which nest anywhere they can find. So you see them on all the mobile phone masts, power pylons and any convenient ruin, sometimes double stacked. My efforts to snatch a picture from what passes for a speeding truck were not entirely successful. Our hotel in Zaragoza was eccentric, both a truck stop; with a self-service cafeteria and wall to wall doughnuts, and a three star hotel with a pool and restaurant. We decided to try the restaurant, there was a distinctive tumbleweed feeling when we walked in, and we sat in hushed silence, listening to a tape of some easy-listening show tunes. The waiter turned out to have been one of the somewhat harrassed gents who had been attempting to maintain order in the school dinner like atmosphere of the truckers dining room, and struggled into a jacket and tie in order to inform us that most of the menu was off. As is often the best way, we told him to tell us what we were going to have to eat, and some form of lamb was presented, very good it was too, and the local wine had much to reccommend it.

posted by Lampy @ 6/09/2006 03:08:00 pm