I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by Snapping Twig »

Very nice indeed!

Please, more pics and stories from the road.
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

August 31st - Castrop-Raixel to Aseleben GE

This is gonna be brief since I just did a longish report and the damn browser hung and lost it.

This was our first real day on the road. We hustled out of the Dusseldorf area on the A-44 - the Autobahn running across the top part of Germany. This is a fairly new road, and in absolutely perfect condition. Our goal for the day was to get near Leipzig Germany, where we'd stay for the night, and head for Prague (Czech Republic) the next morning.

We stayed on the A-44 until about Kessel, midway across Germany. At Kessel we headed for backroads and secondary highways - planning on visiting the town that Klaus was born in and raised in, then stick to lesser traveled roads until we stopped for the night.

Our track for Aug 31st:
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Setting off in the AM (and there is stuff in the pockets of my Aerostich, which is why it's rather bulky around my waist..):
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The color of the bike was OK - but the red valve covers were just over the top. The rims were also painted red in the center with polished lips. Done in a nice dark gray/stone color they would have looked pretty neat. In red they were garish.

I could bore you with endless video of riding the Autobahn, but suffice it to say - it was a lot of fun, but the video is boring, since it's mostly just riding along quickly (about 130-140km/h was our max - being on a naked bike above that it gets hard to hold on - I did run it up to 150 once just to say I did..)

We stopped by the village where Klaus was born and raised, and took a photo outside his childhood home:
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We stopped at a number of small inns/B&B's to find they were closed for the season - apparently doing well during the vacation/holiday months of July and August.

No room at the inn:
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We found lodging for the night in a small village outside Leipzig called Aseleben at a hotel with an attached restaurant - that was still serving:
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Dinner was excellent:
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After dinner we settled in for the night, planning on a quick run to Prague in the morning where we planned on spending 2 nights..

More as I get to it.. it might not be until next week, I have another weekend motorcycle event to go to (tough job, but someone's gotta do it..)
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by dbrick »

Thanks for posting these, Don. I am enjoying the reading and viewing.
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

Sept 1st - Aseleben GE to Prague Czech Rep

Looking at the maps - it would seem a ride from the Leipzig area of Germany to Prague in the Czech Republic would be a simple no brainer. It would be - if you followed a map. Instead - we were following Doofus - the lady who lives in my Zumo 660 GPS.

Around the states - Doofus can get confused - but usually gets back on track rather quickly. In Europe, especially in Eastern Europe - Doofus suffered from brain-farts and just plain nervous breakdowns (where she simply showed nothing on the map screen and made no suggestions for turning..) The behavior was consistent between my Doofus and Herb's identical Doofus, right down to the nervous breakdowns.

We awoke at the crack of dawn, getting to the dining room in time for breakfast at 8:30AM (my standard time when travelling.)

A note on Euro breakfasts. If you're expecting a US style breakfast in Europe, you're going to be disappointed. There is no waffle machine. There is usually limited fruit available. There may be one or two dry cereals and some milk. There may be rolls or croissants. There is always "breakfast meats" - which are sliced coldcuts laid out on a tray, with some cheese. Apparently making a sandwich with them is considered the thing to do for breakfast. Real fruit juices are almost non-existent, instead it will be some pallid "Fruit-drink" which probably contains no fruit at all.

For sure it's different from a Comfort Inn in the US.. :rofl3:


Our hotel from the night before:
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After breakfast we packed up the bikes, paid our bills (funny thing in Europe - only one hotel required pre-payment, all the other ones we paid as we were leaving.. again not your Comfort Inn in the US) and headed sort of south-east toward the Czech Republic.

Our route:
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There are a few noticeable things about this route.. first is - we were on the Autobahn for most of the German leg except for the strange excursion where we suddenly jogged north-east. There was an actual reason for this jog.

The reason for the Jog:
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We went and rode through Eilenburg - which looked to be a fairly large and prosperous town. On the way we passed the BMW Leipzig plant somehow.. and eventually the Dinggolfing plant. It was a fairy direct detour, and gave us a break from the Autobahn.

We stopped for lunch in Germany in one of the last Autobahn rest areas.. which had two choices, Burger King or Axxe's. Wanting something other than a US lunch, we chose Axxes.

Axxe vs Burger King:
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Axxe had a do it yourself sort of menu. You picked out things and they cooked them while you stood in line. One of the things was a sausage wrapped up like a pretzel.

Pretzel/sausage:
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Axxe also seems to like fiberglas sculptures.. They were scattered around inside and outside.
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We crossed into the Czech Republic on the Autobahn, and it took a while to realize it. While the Czech high-speed road is a tagged-toll-road (meaning you need a sticker in your windshield), motorcycles are exempt from paying, so we didn't bother stopping to get the sticker. We were uncertain exactly when we crossed the border since there was no sign, or checkpoint, or customs station, or really anything, except the background colors on some of the road signs changed, and the names of towns all had very few vowels in them (lots of K's and U's though..)

Now the other oddity in the days track - the funky stuff shortly after we crossed..
Here it is in detail:
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Apparently telling Doofus "no toll roads" in routing preferences wasn't such a hot idea in the Czech Republic.. even though we weren't paying any tolls, Doofus knew the main highway WAS a toll road, and was going to do her damnedest to keep us off it. So - she detoured us onto local roads. Sometimes VERY local roads - unpaved local roads. We were going up one road that was a series of very sharp switchbacks when first a cop-SUV almost ran into me, and then a tour-bus was taking up an entire curve on a switchback. The cop we could sort of understand being on the road - but a tour bus? I'm guessing the tour bus had it's own Doofus handling the navigation.

Part of the Doofus route:
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Another part of Doofus route - a small Czech village:
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Finally I turned Doofus's routing OFF, and just zoomed out looking for a main road.. then we headed in that direction. We got back on the highway.. and eventually ended up at the Golden-City Hotel (Garni) in district 3 of Praha.. where we ended up with absurdly large rooms for very little money.

Sidenote: Europe's city's abound with cobblestone streets. In the cobblestone roads are often found trolley or tram tracks. For some reason the cobblestones are generally wet whenever we were on them. For some reason we were often on them at rush-hour. I hate cobblestone streets. Prague is such a city.

Hotel lobby:
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And we took our afternoon naps - then headed off for dinner:Image

Dinner in the Czech Republic, actually ANY meal, includes dumplings. These are balls of some sinew and doughy stuff cooked in grease with the consistency of plumbers putty. It's also about as heavy (on the fork and in the stomach) as plumber's putty. I knew to simply leave them since my wife's father was a 1st generation Czech/Slovak. I didn't warn Herb or Klaus - but Klaus should have known better, dumplings are not unknown in Germany.

Dessert and coffee:
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Hey Kids! Can you guess how many Czech Khrona this entire meal cost? (The Republic kept their own currency despite being part of the EU.. you get LOTS of them for a Euro or dollar..)

Then a walk back to the hotel and off to bed..
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by Catchina »

I'll guess 325 Czech Khrona

Did doofus have the map preloaded or was it looking for a cell connection to work?
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

Catchina wrote:I'll guess 325 Czech Khrona

Did doofus have the map preloaded or was it looking for a cell connection to work?
Too low.. a Czech Koruna (Crown) is worth about $0.05.. Total for all 3 dinners was roughly $35/US.. so.. about 700CK.

Doofus is an old fashioned GPS - and I had to buy the euro maps from Garmin ($99).. they are loaded on a memory card in the GPS. I had the most recent ones available.

This wasn't the only problem with the Euro GPS data - the POI data is woefully out of date. In France 3 out of 4 gas stations that it sent us to were out of business. Some for a considerable time - grass growing out of the pavement sort of time. When you really NEED gas this isn't a good thing at all.

A GPS that downloaded maps on the fly via a cell data connection would be fiscally impractical. Roaming data from Verizon was $25 for 1 MB. Absolutely insane roaming prices. I turned my phone to "airplane" mode when I got on the plane and didn't switch that off until I got off the plane coming home to Newark. I could still access WiFi and BlueToof - but I didn't want the phone to decide it would be a good idea to hook up to a roaming network connection. This also created a problem in deciding where to stay, eat, stop, etc - which on trips in the US I rely on Google for. In Europe with no cell wireless data link, I couldn't use Google unless I could hook into some WiFi, which wasn't as easy as it's cracked up to be in Europe. I found very few "free" WiFi connection points, it appears the profit factor has taken over there as well as here.
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by dbrick »

deilenberger wrote:I turned my phone to "airplane" mode when I got on the plane and didn't switch that off until I got off the plane coming home to Newark. I could still access WiFi and BlueToof - but I didn't want the phone to decide it would be a good idea to hook up to a roaming network connection.
What phone were you carrying? When I turn mine (iPhone 4S) to airplane mode, it kills all the radios so wifi and BT don't work - although wifi and BT can be manually re-enabled while in airplane mode. I would be twitchy about data and roaming data charges too. Did you consider a local SIM, or were you in too many countries too quickly to make that worthwhile?
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

dbrick wrote:
deilenberger wrote:I turned my phone to "airplane" mode when I got on the plane and didn't switch that off until I got off the plane coming home to Newark. I could still access WiFi and BlueToof - but I didn't want the phone to decide it would be a good idea to hook up to a roaming network connection.
What phone were you carrying? When I turn mine (iPhone 4S) to airplane mode, it kills all the radios so wifi and BT don't work - although wifi and BT can be manually re-enabled while in airplane mode. I would be twitchy about data and roaming data charges too. Did you consider a local SIM, or were you in too many countries too quickly to make that worthwhile?
Galaxy 4S - and yes - I had to turn WiFi and BT on.. but I shut them off when riding so they wouldn't kill the battery. I bought a German SIM card - which came with German directions and went to a German (only) website to turn the card on. None of this worked - I never got it setup, and my phone was having charging problems right around then (bad cable) so I didn't want to muck with it too much. If anyone wants a German 10Euro SIM card (with 200mb of data and 10E worth of phone) let me know..
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by Shakey »

Hi Don,

I'm really glad you enjoyed your trip to Europe. As you say, in Holland, Germany, France and Austria, car drivers are much more pro bike and bike aware. I recall a time when a group of us drove around 20km on a motorway that was gridlocked because of an accident - the two lines of cars parted like the red sea and we rode up the middle :D

If you think French road surfaces are bad then I suspect you may have been close to the Belgian border where they lay tarmac with an ice cream scoop. Their roads verge on being hazardous for two wheelers!

Riding up through Lichtenstein (A small valley filled with tax free exhaust fumes IMHO) you missed out on doing the Grosglockner pass a little further west into Austria. One for your list next time ;)

I would support what you said about languages although it goes without saying that we native english speakers should not brashly expect our hosts to be able to speak our language but should humbly request if they can do it. Shakey's formula is to learn the appropriate phrases for "Do you perhaps speak English?", "Please" and "Thanks you". That'll generally get you a good response in return.

I'm of to the Hartz mountains and then the czech republic in a week or so but this time we're going in the car :(
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

DAMN. I hate web interfaces. Had another post ready to go - went to delete/substitute a word and it deleted the damn post. This is gonna be shorter than I intended originally..
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sept 2nd - Prague, Czech Republic..

This is a "tourist" report. If you're not interested in this sort of stuff - I'd skip it..

We were asked many times what we were going to see - and aside from planned tourist activity in Prague, Munich and Barcelona - our answer was "nothing - we're here to ride.." There were three days where I planned to be off the bikes for a day, staying in one place for 2 nights. They were the aforementioned cities.

Why Prague?

Prague is famous for being unspoiled - and is considered one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. The reasons it's that way: It was never invaded or attacked in any wars, so architecture survived, where other European cities were basically destroyed and rebuilt after the World Wars; It was ruled by the Communists for 50+ years after WW-II, and they didn't have enough money to take down the old buildings and build modern ones. Due to this - the architecture is much like what you'd have seen if you visited Prague at the end of the 19th century, with a few later additions.

I also was a big Kafka fan growing up - and the book "The Castle" fascinated me. It's the story of one man's attempt to deal with bureaucracy - and his failure to do so. The bureaucracy was centered in a Castle that overlooked the village the man lived in. There was a later movie called "Kafka" (I highly recommend it) based on the book, and shot in Prague (it stars Jeremy Irons - who is also a BMW rider...) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102181/ Check Netflix - I'm certain they have it on tap..

We ended up taking a tour - that started at the center of the "new city"* of Prague - Wenceslas Square. The Square has almost anything one might want, from street performers to brothels to restaurants and hotels that surround it. It's really the heart of Prague. At one end is the "National Museum" - but the Czech's realized it was falling down, so they removed all the museum exhibits and have a long term plan to rebuild it. It likely won't be a museum again in my lifetime - Czech's don't move too fast on projects like this.

Our tour was supposed to be minimal walking. Turned out to be about 4 miles of walking, a tad more than minimal, but it included a boat ride and drinks on the Vltava River, lunch at a Czech restaurant (which included dumplings), tours of the old city and the Old Town Square, the Jewish quarter, and finally a tour of the Castle. It was a lot to absorb in a day.. but we did it.

So - a few pictures:

The National Museum (closed):
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Wenceslas Square:
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BurgerKing in the square.. at least it's a bit more interesting then in the US:
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Damn things are a hazard.. especially in the hands of tourists..
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I have no idea why I took this one..
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The old Town Square - with the astronomical clock - dating back to 1400 sometime..
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More on the Old Town Square: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Square_(Prague)

Detail of the clock
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Up on the hill overlooking all this is - some cathedral
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Our boat ride
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Almost any excuse was suitable for drinking in the Czech Republic. Beer is consumed like water is in the US.

The Castle seen from the river:
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The Charles Bridge from the water - the 2nd most popular tourist spot in Prague:
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The bridge was built around 1400 or so I think, and has a bunch of statues on it. The deal is - if you rub the right statue and make a wish the wish will come true. It was pretty easy to spot the right statue - it was shiny from all the people rubbing it.

I believe this might be a rental lady.. which is entirely legal in the Czech Republic..
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Race Machine..
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Advertising.. (which is entirely legal in the Czech Republic..)
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Actually - part of the Thai Massage consisted of putting your feet in a fishtank filled with tiny fish that eat the dead skin off your feet. Supposedly they draw no blood - but I don't think they change the water for every set of feet..

Finally we got to The Castle
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Our guide had quite a bit to say about the Czech government. Apparently having 10-12 political parties, and weak executive officer positions leads to total inertia of government, it tends to stay at rest. Getting a bill through the legislature can take a decade or more, ample time for people to forget about it if it isn't a good idea. Sounded sort of familiar. The big scandal in the government is the current President (or Prime Minister - I forget which) has as his official state car an Audi A5. The scandal is that he doesn't have a ŠKODA ie - a Czech built car. It all sounded as if not much had changed since Kafka wrote "The Castle."

A big-ass Cathedral is part of The Castle complex:
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The head cheese's car - note the lack of a procession like in the US.. but it doesn't look like an Audi to me..
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Entrance to the government part of the complex.. which you could pretty much just wander into..
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That's it - the first tourist posting. We got back to our hotel via mass-transit and had dinner then collapsed - getting ready to leave in the morning heading for Munich.

More to come..

* = The "New City" of Prague was established in 1348. New is obviously a relative term.
Last edited by deilenberger on Mon Oct 13, 2014 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by peels »

great story, love the pics.

but, tell us more about these fish that eat my callouses...

wait, no don't. :lol:
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

Back to traveling for a day..

Sept 3rd. Prague CZ to Munich GE

In which we get out of Prague and head for Germany again and the mothership in Munich.

Dinner the night before:
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Dinner of course included the obligatory dumpling with gravy. I once again avoided it since I didn't know if the ESA suspension on the bike could handle it.

...............

Our Prague hotel was really quite the deal. For about $45/night (each) we had an apartment for each of us (big bath, big kitchen and a huge bedroom/office) and underground parking for the bikes. We were only charged for one parking space in the underground garage since we squeezed all 3 bikes into it.

In the lobby of the hotel:
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There was this odd photo - autographed.
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I can't imagine John Kerry coming to Prague and staying at the Golden City Hotel - Garni - but there it was, and who was I to question it. I'd imagine he'd stayed in the same room I did - #1 - since it was the only room on the ground floor and closest to the exit in case he had to make a mad dash for it. Go figure - a brush with greatness. BTW - in the brochure rack in the lobby were several brochures for ummm... personal services of various types. The offerings were quite diverse (something for anyone) and quite explicit. I've never seen that in any US hotel/motel I've been in, but perhaps I've lead a sheltered life.

Getting the bike out of the underground garage was a bit of excitement. The ramp from the underground parking was about a 30% grade of not well finished concrete - which at the top opened up on the cobblestone sidewalk. There was no way to stop once you started up the grade (rolling backwards for me would have been impossible - when I reached the point where the grade met the garage floor my legs would have been about 1 foot short of reaching the ground), so - I asked Herb to ride the bike up, and I'd stand watch at the top to prevent him running into a pedestrian. This was compounded a bit by the automatic door of the garage which had a propensity to just start closing on it's own. We finally managed to get all 3 bikes up on the cobblestone street, loaded up and ready to leave Dodge (aka Prague.) I also left wondering how cars with normal height suspension managed to make the two transitions on the ramp.. which might explain why there appeared to be several abandoned cars in the garage (which only had space for 9 cars to begin with.)

We headed off following Doofus the GPS on what should have been a simple ride to Munich - estimated to be about 3.5 hours away..

The Route:
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The interesting part of the route:
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About half way across the Czech Republic I got bored with highway and told Doofus to avoid them - so it did. We ended up going through the passes shown above - they were interesting. I'd heard the mountain area in that region was considered a prime motorcycle touring area and I now knew why. Leaves me with the desire to go spend a bit more time there.

We arrived in Munich - and found a hotel that Doofus recommended. I'd checked the hotels in Munich the night before, and this one was one of the more "reasonable" ones I found. It was about 150E/night/per-person. That works out to about $195 per night, and there was an additional 5E charge for WiFi service.. so figure with tax a bit more than $200 a night, plus an additional parking fee. That was a bargain. Hotel prices in NYC have nothing on Munich.

Our hotel:
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The rooms were comfortable, but small, and the bathrooms (en-suite) complete, but compact. The funny thing on the bed is the bed-covers. They are in a sack that you drape over you to sleep (at least that's what I did..) I'd guess it simplifies the work of the maids cleaning the rooms since they only have to change the bottom sheet and drape a clean one of these on the bed. This was done all over Europe.

The bedroom:
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And the en-suite:
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We headed down the street to dinner, then wandered back to the hotel and turned in fairly early - tomorrow was a visit to BMW's complex in Munich (which is much bigger than I expected.)

Dinner Menu:
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And dinner:
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And then off to sleep..

BTW- I know there should be more riding pics.. but I don't stop a lot when riding, so my pictures are mostly video from the GoPro.. and those require a lot of editing that I haven't gotten to yet. When I do I'll stop back and add them to the thread.
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by Steve H. »

Excellent pics Don!
"Europa"so called"the old bitch"-allways bleeding- at least in the past 2ooo years cosed by different wars bithwen nations,and inside of nations cosed by kings and Queens.Thinking-politicians-... :roll: Anyway,the food is diferent compared to American.It could be tasty-or not so good...vell it depend ...
Pictures and write-ups are just great!!!I hope you have had a grate time over there!
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by xprof »

Ganz gut!
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by Lost Rider »

That's awesome Don, quite a ride!
I certainly wish BMW Motorrad offered Euro delivery like they do with cars, but hope to do something like your trip someday.
Renting a R1200R seems like the perfect alternative.
Thanks for sharing and inspiring!
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

Thanks Joe - coming from you that's quite the compliment. And I can suggest a place to rent bikes from.. if you were doing it camping like you usually do the cost isn't outrageous...

But to continue..

Sept 4th. Munich GE - Visiting the Mothership..

View from our Munich hotel balcony..
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We had planned on this day being a no bike day - so the bikes remained parked in the hotel garage. If you're looking for bike stuff.. skip this. It's more about Munich and BMW in Munich and my bitching about BMW of North America, a bunch of dolts in NJ..

So far we'd seen several BMW plants around Germany. One of the biggest and original plants is located in the middle of downtown Munich. BMW is a very big deal in Munich - probably their leading corporate citizen. Besides the plant - the city is home to "BMW Welt" (aka BMW World) and the BMW Museum and the BMW office building for the corporate headquarters (the 4-Cylinder Building.)

If you plan to go - you can easily spend an entire day visiting the Welt and Museum. We spent most of a day.

We started out from our hotel via the subway (or underground in the UK), which had a station a very short distance from our hotel entrance. The subway charges by time and zone. You buy a ticket for an amount of time to travel within a certain radius of the center of the city. The zones are concentric - going outward to the suburbs. The charges appear to be set based on where you enter the system. We were in Zone#1 - and all of our travel in the city would be in Zone#1. If we'd wanted to go further out of the city center - we'd need a ticket for the zone that included where we wanted to go. Charges were quite reasonable - a few Euro for 10 hours ticket time.

Getting on the subway there is a machine in the car that stamps your ticket with the time you started travelling. There are no humans involved, and actually no checking that we could see, but supposedly if you were caught traveling without a ticket, or with an expired ticket, or out of the zone you bought for - the fines are hefty. Being Germany everyone seemed to just buy the ticket and stamp it when they got on their first train.

Interesting system that I can't see working anywhere in the US.

So - off we went.

The subway is of course - spotless:
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As you pop out of the subway - this is the view across the street:
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Entrance to BMW Welt:
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BMW Welt is all the stuff BMW makes now. All the cars, bikes, Rolls-Royce - it's all there and except for the rollers you can molest all of them. What I found interesting is there was only one car there that I had even the slightest lust for.. and it of course isn't imported to the US. It's the 1-Series hatchback. Hatchbacks are BIG in Europe. Audi, Mercedes, every Japanese maker, every euro manufacturer seems to offer one. BMW's is one of the best looking of the bunch so of course BMW doesn't want to import it.

I-Series Hatch in Red:
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BMW-NA believes in self-fulfilling prophesies.. Back many years ago they had another hatch that was considered a semi-hot hatch of the day.. It was based on the 3 series - the 318i Hatch. BMW prophesized that it wouldn't sell in the US, so they imported very few of them in the lowest possible trim level. They were right - since there weren't any available to buy in the US it didn't sell well. DUH. Since then they drag that up as an example why a hatch wouldn't sell in the USA.

Sometimes they are very dumb. I got to chatting to one of the product specialists who work in the Welt about the 1-Series hatch.. and said in an M guise it might actually get me out of my M-Coupe. He said they're coming out with a 325HP version of it in Europe with a twin-turbo 4. EXACTLY what would interest me. But - of course - BMW-NA knows it wouldn't sell here so they won't import it. And most hot-hatches from Japan have buyers lined up for them.

I think BMW-NA needs to get their heads out of their asses sometimes.. but I digress..

BMW is very big on electronic cars. Turns out Germany has some deal where they give people enough incentive money to make buying an electric car worthwhile, and then for the frosting on the cake - includes 10 years of free electricity to run it on.

I might not have mentioned it - but Germany now gets more than 1/3rd of it's power from renewable sources, primarily wind and solar. Almost every roof has solar panels on it, and the windmill farms are all over Germany, often simply located in the middle of farmer's fields. They shut off all their nuclear power plants after the Japanese disaster, and their intention is to move as much as they can as fast as they can to non-polluting renewable energy. Apparently part of that move is to make electric cars and vehicles (including motorcycles) replace a large part of the current internal combustion vehicles.

So - BMW - being sometimes smart - has a much larger range of electric vehicles in Europe than in the US (as best I know.. but I'm going on what I see at dealerships here..)

I-8 Electric Sports Car:
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I(?) Series Electric:
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We noticed that outside the Welt was a series of parking spaces specifically for electric vehicles - with charging ports - for free, and at the AutoBahn service centers there were usually 1-2 fast-charge parking spaces for electric cars.. all for free.

5-Series Touring
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Another one BMW predicts won't sell.. so they're not bringing them to the US and guess what - they're right - they haven't sold a one. They're all over in Europe.. But - in the US the past two 5-series Tourings were brought over in tiny quantities so they only sold a few of them - every damn one they imported. In 2003 we bought one - of the 2 that were available on the entire east coast of the US. If they had imported last year there probably won't be a Lexus in my driveway - but BMW-NA knows they won't sell.

Motorcycles had their own level..
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Apparently we were just a few weeks early to see the new watercooled R1200R bike (revealed this week.) And there was a nice coffee/lunch bar in the motorcycle section where we had lunch before heading over to the Museum.

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To be continued in next posting as soon as I can - visiting the BMW museum..
Don Eilenberger - NJ Shore
2012 R1200R - I love this bike!
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

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This post is going to be photo intensive. I probably took 300 photos in the museum. These are just a few of them - ones I thought interesting or significant. Still no riding to report on - but the next post we'll be back to riding (and a bit in the Alps..)

Sept 5th - BMW Museum, Munich

The museum is the round bowl shaped building on the right.
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Before there were bikes - BMW started with aircraft engines.
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The museum had a number of aircraft engines on display - ones from each World War, including the first jet engine from WW-II.

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14 cylinder radial aircraft engine (from WW-II era):
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I believe this was a V-12 aircraft engine - from WW-II era:
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This started the two wheeled division - made in response to the restrictions put on the company after WW-I prohibiting it from making aircraft engines. BMW had supplied engines to several other motorcycle manufacturers (Douglas in GB, and some others), but they were the first to put the engine in cross-frame so the cylinders hang out in the air.

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A fabulous 1930's prototype that never got to production. It was recently discovered and restored after being lost for 50 years:
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The first boxer bike engine was based on a utility engine BMW made (used for things like sewage and fire pumps..)
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Post WW-II era BMW single (1950's into the 60's):
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The 60's era bikes, under-stressed "gentlemen's express" sort of bikes. They were famous for their reliability - at the time most bikes broke all the time. This one was outfitted as a police bike.

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In the 1930's BMW got involved (and dominated) Euro bike racing - mostly with the "Kompressor" engine bikes:

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In the 1970's - the /5 bikes were introduced, and the R90S - an iconic bike for BMW. BMW went racing again with their north-American importer Butler & Smith, winning Daytona with Reg Pridmore on the bike:

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Ever hear the saying "necessity is the mother of invention" - this "modification" is a prime example of that. I have a friend who was part of the pit-crew for this effort, I've been meaning to ask him who had the idea..
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The streamliner bikes from the 1930's - at the time BMW held the land-speed record:
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A bit later BMW invented the large-displacement "GS" class "adventure" bike, and went on to win the ISDT several times with it:

The first R80GS:
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And they claim to have made the first production fully-faired motorcycle (I question this - there are a few from England that I believe preceded this):
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The start of the automotive division - the "Dixie" - a design from the UK based on the Austin-7 of the era. BMW used the design and stuck their engine into it.
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In the 1930's BMW got involved in motor-racing. This is probably my favorite car in the museum, certainly the most beautiful and with the most presence:
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All aluminum body - left unfinished - simply stunning in person.
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BMW has a LOT of cars in the museum, strangely - no M-Coupe, and except for a single advertisement for it - not even any mention of it.. but here are a few that I considered exceptionally beautiful:

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The ONLY mention of the M-Coupe I could find - and this was a temporary exhibit:

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Being pretty much exhausted - we left the museum and decided to take the subway back toward our hotel, but get out one stop early and see where we popped up - and look for some dinner. Turns out we popped up right in the central square in Munich.. facing the clock, which just at that moment went off:

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We found a sidewalk café, and sat and had a beer and watched the passing crowds. Interesting mix of nationalities/races/etc - about as cosmopolitan as NYC..

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Then back to the hotel, dinner and off to bed.. we're riding tomorrow..
Last edited by deilenberger on Mon Oct 13, 2014 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Don Eilenberger - NJ Shore
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by thepeacebullgrunt »

Congratulation Don! (& it rhymes!)

Thanks for all the pictures too...
Pain is Ignorance this is why it really hurt...
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

Sept 5th - Munich GE to Österreich Austria

We're back to riding.. :)

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We got back to riding - heading south more or less, and ended up staying the night in Austria. We'd gotten to the border of Austria and Liechtenstein, but decided to head back into Austria to stay the night, the reason being Liechtenstein hotels are horribly expensive (300E and up...)

So - after having lunch at Lake Bodensea (AKA Constance in English) in Germany, a popular tourist/vacation spot - we got back on our route and eventually looked for a hotel.

Lake Bodensea lunch detour:
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Lunch stop:
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Was next to the Town Hall..
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Which looks very elaborately carved - but.. look closer:
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Lunch:
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Semi-healthy fare:
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And dessert:
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Our motorcycle only parking (common all over Europe - and usually free)
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We ended up riding all the way to the Liechtenstein border with Austria - but we turned around and retraced our steps a bit. Why? The cost of hotels in Liechtenstein is horrendous. An on line search turned up ones starting at 300E - and going up from there.

The trick now was finding an affordable hotel in Austria. I found one that when we pulled in appeared deserted - only to find that it was fully booked by some bus-tour company. The very helpful young lady at the desk checked for us - and found a Best Western in a nearby town - Rankweil, that had rooms, and had just had a new addition put on. The rooms we got were in the new addition (and I think we were the first people to use them,) and were probably the most deluxe rooms we had on the trip. The hotel was also a "Rider Friendly Hotel" (as qualified by Harley Davidson) with separate motorcycle only parking right in front of the front desk.

My room:
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Nice place. I was so impressed by the bathroom, I had to take a few photos:

The rainfall shower (which managed to soak the bathroom floor - they have some engineering to take care of here..)
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Shrine to Shampoo..
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That was a bit odd.. but this was the first hotel we'd been to that provided shampoo in the bathroom. The only other one we experienced was another Best-Western in Germany later in the trip. I guess this one wanted us to recognize their superior accommodations so they made sure you saw the shampoo. I used it.

Hotel link: http://www.bestwestern-ce.com/bwc/hotel ... Dv9D1J0xpg

We had dinner right around the corner - usual Austrian/German fare - rather heavy. Then came back to the hotel in the hopes that Internet connectivity (WiFi) actually worked. It worked - if you sat in the lobby. Otherwise - not. This created a problem for Klaus since he was trying to run his business (taking advantage of the 6 hour time difference) while on the road, and it just wasn't happening at most of the places we stayed. They ALL advertised WiFi - but delivery of it was spotty and getting it in your room was rare, except in Prague where there was an access point behind the couch in my room.

FWIW - Skype is the way to go for phone calls to the US. If you can get a decent WiFi signal - you can call for $0.02/minute - and the quality was equal to a normal cell phone call on a 4G network. I was pretty impressed - but it did mean you could ONLY make calls if you had WiFi. I'd turned my 3G/4G data connection off at the beginning of the trip (use Airplane mode, then selectively turn WiFi back on) just to avoid the absurd roaming charges Verizon wanted to charge.

I'd also picked up a German SIM card in the hopes of connecting to a local data network - but totally failed on getting it working - since the instructions with it were in German, and the website to activate it was in German, and even after using Google Translate - I couldn't get it to activate. Since I was having charging problems with my phone (caused by worn mini-USB cables) I didn't want to dingle around with the phone more than absolutely necessary, so I gave up. If anyone is heading to Europe and wants a German SIM card.. ping me off-line.

Anyway - after spending time in the lobby trying to get the SIM card to work, and trying to plan a bit of tomorrow's ride - it was off to bed. Tomorrow is another riding day.
Don Eilenberger - NJ Shore
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Re: I'm back - or how to visit a LOT of countries in Europe

Post by deilenberger »

OK.. time to get back to this (had to add another drive to the PC - 1TB for video editing, and since I had the space I moved all my photos and music over too.. turns out an external USB connected 2TB drive just didn't hack it for speed.. but, I digress..)

Sept 6th - Osterreich Austria to Como Italy

If you want to find a pass in the Alps on your GPS - just tell it "No Highways" then set the destination to the other side of the Alps. That's what we did.. and it made for a great ride.

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The terrain:
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This is where it started getting "interesting"..
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A note on road passes..
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The photo above is of the "road passes" you'll need if you're travelling in Austria or Switzerland. These tell the police you've paid the road-tax required to use any of the higher speed highways.

The Austrian one can be purchased for a period of time.. so we bought ones for 10 days at a cost of about 10E ($13.50). The Swiss only sell a yearly pass - for 40E (figure about $56). The Swiss one seemed expensive, but if you were there for a year it was a bargain.

Italy uses tolled highways - much like the NJ Turnpike where you pay for the type of vehicle and the distance you've travelled.

None of these were inexpensive. They almost make the NJTP seem like a bargain (almost..)

But back to the passes. There were lots of them on this route, and I have no photos of them. I'm sure if I dig around a bit I can find photos other people have taken, and if I get time, I'll insert a few here. I think I have video of them, but have to get into a video editing mood to dig them out. That's the problem with riding passes - who wants to stop to take a photo..

Somewhere in the Swiss part of the ride - we were in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland - we came out of a nice pass and twisties and saw a place to eat. So off we pulled..

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My riding companion is of an age where he sometimes HAS TO GO.. (he's as old as I am..) so first thing he was after when we stopped was the loo.

He saw the following sign:
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Following it - he found:
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Good so far - until he got to:
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Which to use?

Well - if you're a guy, don't use Donne. Even if when you open the door there is a trough like thing that looks like a military urinal. The hint might have been the height of the trough. While my riding companion could reach it, for me it would have meant peeing up in the air and hoping it landed in the right place. Turns out - the trough was a sink, and the woman who exited one of the stalls in the Donne Room was rather upset seeing two guys peeing in the sink.

Live and learn.. :lolhit:

We didn't let that little incident dampen our spirits and we continued on to Como Italy (on the lake of the same name..) a rather famous and expensive resort town.

Como Italy:
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Hotel Continental - Como Italy
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Which had this on the side of it..
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And below that - this:
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The hotel was slightly older than dirt. We got two rooms as usual - but they only had one "small" room and one "large" room. We flipped to see who got which room. I lost. The room I was in was about the size of a moderate size front hall coat-closet, and apparently had last been decorated when Lenin was staying in it.

We had dinner down the street a bit, then came back to do some laundry. There was a coin operated laundry about 5 doors down the street from the hotel. We got some change for the bizarre payment system (done via a single pay station with a video game sort of interface that you pressed combinations of buttons to turn on individual machines) put our laundry in - and about 30 minutes later an older woman came in, and while not speaking any English, and we not speaking any Italian, made it clear the machines would automatically shut off in about 20 minutes. Which they did, leaving us with a bunch of wet laundry.

All in all - Como didn't impress me a lot, but perhaps we were in the wrong location. Quite a bit of litter (first we'd seen in Europe), and the people weren't overly friendly - not hostile - but not real friendly either. Off to bed - tomorrow is another riding day.
Don Eilenberger - NJ Shore
2012 R1200R - I love this bike!
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