The long trip home

The long bad Friday

This was written last night...

Today was a mistake, from start to finish. I'd toyed with the idea of going straight home from Prague or of going back to Austria and coming back via the Alps. Somehow I decided that going to Amsterdam for a night, via Northern Germany, would be a good idea as it would mean I'd done a loop (of sorts). But the drive was terrible. I left Toni at 08:30 this morning and rode Over 900km through crappy traffic, dead ends (the GPS didn't know that some roads haven't yet been built), along brick-lined tracks, over a river on a ferry, and into the hell the is Amsterdam. I can't even remember why I thought this would be a good idea.

The river crossing!!!



(The silly GPS said 1.6 km to Ferry, which I presumed was a German town or village. But it actually was a ferry across a small river. The roads to and from the river were bascially dirt tracks with some bricks thrown on top. First gear all the way in the searing heat.. so BMW... if you're reading this, lend me a GS1200 Adventure for my next trip!).

It turns out that there was a national holiday on Thursday (in Holland, possibly around Europe), and subsequently every man and his dog is in Amsterdam for a long weekend. The only accommodation I could find was business class in a 5* hotel (the Hotel de L'Europe) in the center. The doorman walked up to me to ask me to move my bike, and then offered to help me out when I showed him my reservation. This place was so posh even the maids were scowling at me, although I was covered in sweat and wearing the same clothes I'd been wearing for the previous 3 weeks ;-)

This all sounds quite neat, but it goes completely against the essence of the trip. The adventure should be about discovery, and while there's nothing wrong with luxury it needs to be in the correct context. I've been to Amsterdam a few times before and it's great in the right context. In the same way that a stag do wouldn't really work in a quiet mountain hotel on the Polish/Czech border, a bike trip doesn't work by taking in Amsterdam.

But anyways, it was a good endurance day - it took around eleven and a half hours to get there, plus another hour to sort the hotel - very tiring!

Tomorrow I plan to eat breakfast, pack the bike, and go home - the place I wish I'd been tonight. It's a long ride but is split with the ferry crossing, and I can't wait. Then I'll have Sunday off to clean the bike and recuperate, and then I can start planning the next trip, sans Amsterdam!

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The ride home!


I'm back in Droitwich, England :-)

Today was another long slog but was made easy by knowing that I didn't have to find accommodation and prepare a trip for tomorrow. The day started with a buzz on the door - the maid was letting me know my copy of the Times was hanging in a bag on my door - but it's not the same when someone delivers to paper to you. I eat breakfast, packed the bike and set off - the GPS programmed for Calais.

Here's me this morning...



And as a comparison, here's me three weeks ago in Germany...




The beard has grown and, I think, I look a little more tired. On the way to Calais I decided to try the Eurotunnel, having not been on it with the bike. And so it was that 40 minutes after leaving France I was back in England. It took me roughly 8 hours to get from the hotel in Amsterdam to home - not a bad day's work.

On the Eurotunnel train...

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Final thoughts

Around 5 or 6 days or go I was asking Toni whether she'd fancy doing a longer trip - around the world, or to Africa or Russia or ex-Yugoslavia or Sweden/Norway. But it then occurred to me, and this may seem obvious, that to do such a trip requires a particular sort of desire. On Horizons Unlimited, amongst other traveler's web sites, you can read about people who work for a few years and then quit work, sell the house and car and dog, buy a couple of bikes and set off to travel the world. One or two years later, when they get back, they get jobs and a house and another dog and start saving and planning for the next trip. I don't believe that seeing the world is the primary objective. Rather, I think that traveling itself is the goal. Most people can take a nice holiday here and there and see many nice places, drink good wine, meet friendly people and experience difference cultures. But if that was all that was required for fulfillment then why not use a car, which will take more belongings, or do more 1-2 week holidays flying from place to place. No - I believe that traveling by motorcycle lies at the heart of the motivation. The particular destinations allow the traveler to set his objectives from day to day, to set goals to achieve and places to see. But on a motorcycle the journey is the adventure. There isn't really a final destination (in terms of a town, city or country).

So if was to travel further and longer why would I do it...? For the reasons mentioned above - because traveling is the adventure. It probably won't matter if I go to Scotland or more-Eastern Europe or Asia, etc. As long as there's a rough plan in place, a bike to take me, some good company, the possibility of an English newspaper, at least one beer per day, and plenty of fine, dry, smooth and twisty roads, I'll be up for it.

On that note, I'll say adieu, and leave you with my overall route map and travel stats.

Thanks for reading,

Jon.

• Total distance: 4,984 km (3,096 miles)
• Average speed: 92 kph (57 mph)
• Maximum speed: 168kph (104 mph) not too bad for for around 400kg of man and machine, and I wasn't trying to max it out!
• Hours spent in motion on the bike: 60.75.

Our Last Day Together in Prague

Toni

Hi again! Well, this is our last day together in Prague and it feels very strange indeed! We got up (late!) this morning and had a leisurely breakfast. That was odd in itself because we had no running around to do - no packing up the panniers and running around the room to find where Jon had flung everything the night before, trying to make sure we hadn't left anything behind!!
So here it was, a whole day stretched out before us without a specific plan of action. Consequently today has felt weird! We had a few things we had thought about doing, such as a couple of tiny (sorry!!) gifts that I could manage to fit in my hand-luggage. Then Jon wanted to go and see the Prague Communist Museum. That was quite incredible. We were both still amazed that again we had glimpsed a life situation so far removed from our experiences that actually happened within our life time.

I am sitting here (with a beer, of course!) and writing this blog and although this seems perfectly natural to me now, we have begun to appreciate how very lucky we have been to undertake this trip. Compared to other travel stories that you may read about, this has been quite a small adventure to some, but for us it has been quite a big thing. Although we have had a plan of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see, we have also had the freedom to choose and change the plans as we saw fit. For the most part, we have started the day with an idea of where we were going, but never been certain where we will end up and how it will work out! That has been the greatest and most fabulous part of this journey.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this adventure, and I am sure that it will only lead to even bigger and better ones!! It has helped to have shared this with Jon, someone who is so laid back even when things get a little 'stressy' for me!! We have shared the experience of the journey together and I think we have both got so much out of it.

So, goodbye from me from 'Praha', and hope to see you all soon!! xxx

P.S Have a look at the following picture - I too can do an Iron- Butt!!! (1781 km.... !!!!)



Jon

The bike is parked about 3 meters from the entrance to the hotel. This is always one of my pre-occupations... where will be be able to leave the bike? But it generally seems to pan out ok - we haven't managed to drive it into the foyer of a hotel (yet) but we've come pretty close.

I've started reading a book on the history of the Gulag camps (Gulag, a History by Anne Applebaum) which won the Pulitzer prize in 2004 - already the introduction fills me with sadness. As Toni mentioned, we went to the Communist Museum in the centre a couple of hours ago and this also made me sad. I sat there wondering what I would have done if I'd found myself in Wenceslas square as the tanks and troops rolled in. I'd like to think that I'd have got out my camera and tried to document it... perhaps too passive a role, or perhaps too brave given the conditions. In my lifetime, in my country, I've never come close to anything like that - perhaps I never will...?

Tomorrow I'm going to drive to Amsterdam - this will be interesting for two reasons. First, it's around 900km (around 560 miles), and secondly I haven't found digs yet. On their own neither is a problem - but put together it will be another challenge as I'll be quite tired and shaky by the time I get there. (I sometimes get shaky after a long haul on the bike, probably due to the road/engine vibration, noise and fatigue). But then I'll give myself a day off on Saturday and hit the road for the return journey to Droitwich (another 750km, or 470 miles). The ferry will make a welcome break.

I think this trip has shown us both that we can be as resourceful as we want. The idea of just turning up in a foreign town (and country) without accommodation or local knowledge holds no fear for us (not that it really did, but it's easy to say something will be easy without having actually done it). Language barriers can be broken down with a smile and ample use of mime. For example, asking an Austrian shop keeper if he had any Austrian country stickers for my pannier involved me saying... "Haben Sie eine Schticker fur meine Motorrad mit Osteriech?" and miming the act of peeling back a sticker and placing it on my helmet, then trying to mime that it's not for my helmet but for my bike. After a couple of seconds he said, "Ja, hier, I think this is vot you are looking vor." As usual, even the people that haven't formally learnt English still speak it. It makes the English foreign language education policy look especially embarrassing.

So that's all for the joint trip folks... hopefully I'll post something tomorrow or on Saturday, and then a final entry on Sunday when I return to bonnie England.

Thanks for reading, take it easy,
Jon & Toni.

PS.. here's a couple of piccies from today...

Street life in Prague:




Toni performing the daily newspaper ritual:




Scene from the communist museum:

Back in Prague (via Austria)

Hallo - we're now back in a posh (for us) hotel smack bang in the center of Prague. Yesterday we drove from Bratislava to a place called Krems an der Donau, in Lower Austria. There wasn't much to photograph or write about the journey - the roads we very good, fairly twisty, and surrounded by vineyards and fields of crops. Krems was nice - very typical of a lot of Europeans towns with an old town (the Alter Stadt) in the center hidden away from the view of the traffic.

Last night we decided to go the Prague today, rather than stopping somewhere intermediate in the Czech Republic, because we wanted to have a chilled day on Thursday without traveling. So here we are - it was tiring today, not that many miles but a lot of road. Today was actually a typical of a travelling day...

• Get up - don't want to - still tired..!
• Have breakfast - bread, meat, coffee, maybe yogurt, always scrummy.
• Pack two side panniers, top box, a bundle of clothes for the top box, Toni's bag.
• Get bike gear on - start sweating almost immediately.
• Grab helmets, gloves, panniers, top box + bundle, pay for hotel, find bike, remove bike lock (if not, bike clunks after about 1 foot and sounds unhappy), fit panniers, top box and bundle.
• Program GPS, fit ear plugs, put on helmets, put on gloves, start bike, grin grin grin and we're off.
• Drive to destination - stopping at least once per hour.
• Get to destination - try to find cheap looking hotel or tourist info.
• Unpack - remove bike gear - very smelly now - shower - get on normal clothes.
• Go out - usually between 3 and 5 pm by now - start the daily hunt for the Independent (or Guardian/Times/Telegraph if necessary) - usually this takes around half an hour. Toni can get quite tired at this point, but is used to it.
  
• Having found newspaper, find beer place, and if not too late get something to munch on - best to do this in Germany or Austria.
• Sip beer, read paper, celebrate another cool day of travel.
• Go back to hotel - try to find some kind of Internet access for blog, etc.
• Copy photographs to computer - edit photographs - upload to Flickr, copy from Flickr to the blog, add some words to the blog.
• Figure out destination for the following day - use computer to program waypoints into GPS.
• Go out, find restaurant, eat food, drink too much, go back, sleep.

It's not a bad life :-)

So... for today we're just going to add a couple of piccies, and tomorrow we're going to add some more words about our thoughts on the trip (and maybe thoughts for the next one!!!).


Toni's route - Prague, around the Tatras, and back again...



The altitude profile of Toni's route...



The hotel last night in Krems...




Another handsome man stands in the hotel in Krems... :-)




On the route from Krems to the border... Toni spotted a castle and nice little river...




In our posh hotel in Prague... job done!

Trip to Vienna

Hallo from Bratislava! Today we decided to take a trip down the Danube to Vienna, home of Mozart. We found a place around 5 minutes walk from our apartment that had a hydrofoil service, taking around 75 minutes each way, for around £40 all together. So off we trod, and here are some piccies...

Here's the hydrofoil - coolio!






Bratislava castle...




Our first sighting of Vienna from the Danube...




Awesome architecture...




Vienna Dom - lens corrected in Photoshop!




Mozart, or at least his statue...




Monument square... very hot - 30 degrees today!!!




A handsome man stands by some cherubs...




A law student making some extra money - very good, great passion for Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart...




Inside the Dom...




More inside the Dom...




Ok - so when we got back to the Danube for the hydrofoil back we were told it had broken down - boo! So we were bussed home, and given a refund for the return journey - hooray!

Bratislava baby!

We are here, in Bratislava. No battery left on laptop so not much text... today's drive was great, lots of blue sky, hot sun and smooth roads. Off to Vienna tomorrow by hydrofoil!!!

More in the next few days...

Jon & Toni... xx

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Sat outside the apartment...



Just been up here...



And this is the view from up there!



And another one... the Blue Danube...



Here's me and Toni and the top..

Toni

Morning from Zakopane! Got up (reasonably) early to take this before we hit the road. Town was typically touristy, but you could forgive it because of the scenery!!




This is the road from Zakopane to the Slovakia border.... again beautiful countryside that we were driving through - we were stopping every 10 minutes or so, and in the end, Jon slung the camera around his neck to save having to get off!!





Great fun at the border crossing! We were approached by this old guy, (seen on the right in the picture) who wanted a light for his cigarette. He then proceeded to 'chat' for 10 minutes. Using a combination of Polish, German, English and sign language, it was very strange indeed!! At least the British are not the only ones who think that they have to shout to make themselves understood!!!!






Sat chillin' out on a log, approx 10 miles into Slovakia!!!



Stopping for a 'comfort break' (!!!!) even further down the same road....






Jon's photo did not do this Pension justice. This is without doubt the best hotel we have stopped in, and yet the rest of them have been fab! Just had a great meal in the restaurant with a very nice bottle of Slovak red wine! Again, we cannot get over the amazing prices. We are being charged virtually next to nothing in most places.
We though ourselves very lucky arriving at this place in the middle of nowhere but a few miles from a very run down industrial town. We weren't sure what we would do and then saw a sign for the 'Rendez-Vous' approx 5 Km away. Was the best decision (hotel wise) we have made!!




Jon

Awesome, amazing, exhilarating, twisty and scenic roads today. The bike is, I'm sure, loving it as much as I am. Today's riding was very much a continuation of yesterday's, this time crossing the Tatra mountains over into Slovakia. From the border, through Stary Smokovec, and onto Liptovsky Trnovek - all great roads.

Tomorrow we'll much more miles as we blast over to Bratislava. From there we may dip into Hungary and/or Austria before heading back for Prague on Thursday... we'll keep y'all posted.

Jon & Toni

Krakow, Auschwitz & Zakopane

10/05/2007

Toni

Greetings (Part II) from Kracow!! Today we got off to a great start in our centrally located apartment. The reception girl had asked us what time we wanted breakfast and we found it in the kitchen outside our room at just the right time. We had a bag full of bread rolls, cheese, pate, yoghurts and a yummy brioche-type roll with an almond paste filling. MMMmmm!!!

Feeling very contented, we set off for a morning walk, only getting as far as the Internet Cafe! Well, otherwise we would never get this blog sent!! We then headed for The Jewish Quarter. I was really looking forward to seeing this area. I read the book (and subsequently saw the film, The Pianist) based on the true story of of a musician by the name of Spilzman. I was fascinated by his story of survival in the Jewish walled ghetto in Kracow. It was very interesting to see the history in the architecture of this area of the city and impossible to understand the persecution and danger they faced. Unfortunately, if anything remains of the walls that the Nazis' built to separate the Jewish community, we did not find any sign of it.

We then dashed back to the other side of the city to pick up the bus for our trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau. The camps are situated approx 60 Km from the centre of Kracow, just outside of a town called Oscwiecim. I find it difficult to describe the museum. They have done a very good job in preserving what was left of the camps over the last 60 years. Of course, now all that is left is technically a tourist attraction, all the buildings are intact as they originally were, and a feeling of sadness seems to permeate the whole place. The staff, including the guides seemed genuinely determined to be as reverent as possible, advising the tourists to remain silent in some areas as a mark of respect. Upon visiting the Birkenau camp, some 3 Km away, it is impossible to describe the sheer size of the place and the operation that took place there. The remains of the destroyed barracks in which the prisoners were housed stretches for as far as the eye can see. Much of it was razed by the camp commanders to try to obliterate evidence of their crimes. I left with mixed feelings; glad that I had gone to see it and yet incredible that horrors such as had occurred there happened a mere 60 years ago. How could so much have gone on without more done to stop it in a civilized world?

I know everyone will experience this place in an entirely different way, and for some it will have a more personal and direct connection, but I really feel that it is something that everyone visiting this part of the world should see, without question.

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11/05/2007

Jon

Kraokow - the new Prague. The English photographer we met said so, and judging by the reasonable amount of English groups we saw last night it is probably true. That said, it seems a little more authentic than Prague, with Wroclaw even more so. We've both decided that we would like to visit again for several days. The Jewish quarter would best be understood and appreciated with some prior research and reading and there are so many beautiful buildings that we barely had time to see.

Auschwitz was, in retrospect, about what I expected. When you turn up to a museum car park full of coaches and tourists with cameras (like me) you know that the chances of an empathetic experience are low. The guide was good and did add to the captions of the photographs on the walls inside the buildings, but there wasn't much tangible sense of suffering. I can image reading a good book on Auschwitz (or the soviet oppression in the Gulag camps, or the Muslim killings in Bosnia, or the suffering in Iraq, etc) and then going back without a guide and making the association between the buildings and locations and railway lines and the people involved. Perhaps next time.

Anyhows, time to hit the road... we're off to Zakopane, the Tatras, and the border with Slovakia - not a bad life.

(Later that day...!)

We're in Zakopane - we had a crappy start getting out of Krakow (around 1 hour to to 9 km) but once we escaped the roads got better and better. We'd programmed the GPS to take us on a detour before hitting Zakopane - and it was so worth it. After coming around one particular hairpin we suddenly saw the Tatras in the distance, still covered in snow. It reminded me of Austria, but also of the Malverns. (When you approach the Malverns you can usually see the entire range with one sweep of the eye. The same applies to the Tratras, being around 60km long by 15km wide. Not very big but apparently still classified as Alpine).

Tonight we escaped another thunderstorm, as seems to be usual on this trip, and found an excellent restaurant - full of meat! After eating and downing a couple of three beers we started talking about the plan for the second half. (Zakopane is really the end of the first half of the trip, and the only stretch we'd had given much consideration to). We talked about Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. So now Toni is sat on the hotel Internet computer (hotel - pension, Ł20 for both of us for the night - marvelous!) and is researching hotels and things to do in Budapest. I have a feeling we'll be in Hungary on Sunday - coolio!

Take it easy all,

Jon & Toni.