Slovenia, Austria & back to Germany

Sunday 5^th June – Breakfast of leftover salami, cheese & bread in our apartment in Bled before setting off on motorway towards Austria. Near Slovenian/Austrian border ride through tunnel that is 9km long. Continue motorway riding past Salzburg and 100km toward Vienna past some of the beautiful Austrian lakes including Mondsee. We cut north on B roads that wind through lush farm country for 30km to join the motorway & across the German border toward Passau. Turn off motorway as we approach the Bavarian Forest and wind our way back to Barnzell. It's been a long tiring day with close to 550 km travelled. We ride to the local hotel and organise rooms with Josep Schredder the village publican – the pub has always struck us as basic but the rooms are superb and only 29 euro a night. We chat with Josep in our basic German over a dinner of Jaegerschnitzel & beer.

Hotel Barnzell                                                                  View from my room

Monday 6^th June – Move our gear down the road to Lindenhaus in the morning.Organise our gear and then ride push bikes to the local swimming complex at Zweizel for a swim, sauna & lie in the sun. Struggle to organise hotel room in Munich for the next 3 days on internet.

Tuesday 7^th June – Pack up and catch train from Zweizel to Munich. Lug our heavy packs to hotel and then spend the afternoon exploring the highlights of inner city Munich on foot. Meet each other back at hotel feeling pretty foot sore around 8.00pm for beer & pizza.

Marienplatz

Italy and Slovenia

                                              Over the Dolomites

Thursday 2^nd June – Leave Davos and head back over the Fluela Pass as we make our way south toward Italy. The map shows another pass or two to cross on our route – fortunately for us they turn out to be good roads through the Dolomites with a minimum of challenging climbs/descents. We try to keep off the autostrasse but south of Bolzano we keep getting redirected onto the main motorway so we go with the flow. Turn of toward Lago di Garda, a big inland lake that is a water playground for Italians. Riding beside the lake we pull over at a waterfront restaurant for a drink. As luck has it they have rooms so we book in – nice view over the lake with stunning views of the mountainous rock formations that rise up from the edge of the lake. Dinner at little family restaurant – entertained by waitress Erika who sits down at our table to take our order & tells us how exhausted she is! Very Italian experience – we want desert but they have a limited menu – she tells me she has marscapone and something in Italian that we can't understand. Reappears two minutes later at kitchen door with large tub of strawberries – we say yes!

                                            Boys with funky waitress miss erika

                                                 Lago di Garda from our room

Friday 3^rd June – Breakfast in hotel restaurant overlooking Lago di Garda then leave for a run around the Gulf of Venice toward Trieste. First section on narrow road alongside the lake – end up in stop/start traffic that looks like it goes for miles. Bikes (& riders) are getting hot so eventually we decide to follow the other locals and lane split between the stopped traffic on our right and the oncoming traffic on our left. We follow a bunch of locals & make good progress, learning to pull in tight if a bus or truck comes toward us. Eventually get on the motorway and sit on 120-130kph with occasional bursts up to 140-150kph. Couple of stops for drinks/food at the usual very Italian motorway complexes that are along the motorway.

We bypass Trieste, Martin does great job of navigating into Piran our target for today. We are now in Slovenia and sit down at a harbourside restaurant for a beer. Martin looks for hotel – turns out to be holiday weekend and there is nothing in town, but we get booking in cabin a bit out of town. Cabin turns out to be fairly reasonable apartment in nice hotel complex on water. We try to use pool but it has closed for day at 7.00pm.

                                             Waterfront at our "cabin" complex - beautiful clear blue Slovenian water

Saturday 4^th June – Swim laps in hotel pool before a hearty breakfast. Set off late morning to ride north through Slovenia to Bled. Motorway riding all the way with rain for the last 10 minutes. Bled is beautiful Slovenian town set on lake with a castle towering on a high peak over the lake. Initial hotel room falls through but owner gets us to follow him on Vespa to his mate's apartments and we get lovely apartment looking out on lake, complete with vege garden & cherry tree (cherries are just in season here). We walk around part of the lake & the town.

                                             Lake & castle at Bled, Northern Slovenia

                                            Martin at afternoon debriefing, Bled.

Tommorrow we head north through Austria and back to Germany.

On Tour South

Saturday 28^th May – Martin, Pete & I ride off from Barnzell with wet weather gear on as it looks like the drizzle has set in. Call in at BMW dealer in Degendorf to get my front tyre changes over and have a cup of coffee while checking out his new bike range. Ride on to join the autobahn and push along at 120-130kph – it's occasionally wet but mostly cold. You go to overtake and can see a black BMW about 600 metres back in the middle lane – you pull out and within seconds he's on your tail, you pull in quickly after overtaking and he flashes by at 200+kph.

Arrive at Lindau as the sun starts to come out and find our way to the island section. Hotel rooms are in short supply so Martin & I share at one while Pete is just up the road. Lindau is a beautiful spot and across the water you can see Austria & Switzerland while standing in Germany. We have a couple of beers in a beer garden near the waterfront and then walk around part of the waterfront.

                                          Lindau waterfront

                                               Paul & Pete - Lindau

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                                           Pete shows his skill with the camera - perfect lineup

Sunday 29^th May – Leave Lindau & head for Locarno. We have to buy jumper leads for Pete's bike as his battery is dying. In the first 40 minutes we pass through 4 countries – Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein and then Switzerland.

I get an introduction to riding alpine mountain passes and am a bit shell shocked – the first pass has everything you don't need – narrow road, multiple hairpin bends, steep fall away on one side, often no guard rail and every sports biker in Switzerland flying up & down the pass. There will be much of the same through today. The compensation is that Switzerland is mind blowingly beautiful – just try not to look down while cornering through that switchback! Martin & I put all we can into getting the line right on the corners, trying not to cross the centreline into the oncoming traffic.

We enter Italy and then back into the little southeast pocket of Switzerland that Locarno lies in. Arrive around 7.00pm, find hotel and get some dinner. Locarno is situated on the water at Lake Maggiore – our hotel is on the waterfront but our rooms face the railway station behind.

Monday 30^th May – Locarno to Lecco in Italy, near Lake Como.

Fun descent on poorish Italian alpine roads in the early afternoon, we have lunch at little Italian family restaurant on the descent. Hot final hour through traffic in Como.

A struggle to find a hotel – Pete & I set off on foot and eventually find reasonable hotel on riverfront.

Tuesday 31^st May – Pete leads us out of Lecco and his passion for secondary roads leads us to a winding goat track that winds through remote Italian villages for about 50km. We travel at about 20kph

hoping not to meet oncoming traffic as there's barely room to pass.

Climb & descend over two alpine passes (Bernina Pass & Fluelapass) which fortunately are wider & have fewer hairpins than previous passes. Arrive in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos around 4.00pm. Pete leaves us to ride back to work in Germany and Martin and I look for hotel. Martin did time as medical student in Davos and we find the hospital he worked in – the quarters he lived in are being demolished to build some upmarket apartments.

Wednesday 1^st May – Davos - as it's summer we are the only people staying in our hotel. We decide to have a day off the bikes and check out the town before we make plans for travel over the next few days.

BMWs & Bavaria

The blog has moved to a new address now that we've left the GSA.

We're now in the little village of Barnzell near the town of Zweizel in Bavaria. Our host is Peter Turner who runs BikeBavaria and we're staying in his excellent accommodation in the Lindenhaus.

                                           Martin relaxing at Lindenhaus

A summary of what Martin & I have been up to the last 4-5days:

Monday May 23 - we were introduced to the bikes (BMW R1150s) which are kept in renovated cow stalls opposite where we are staying. The bikes are a delight to ride after the old Dneprs – the brake lever takes me a while to adjust as it actually stops the bike!

We rode into Czechoslovakia through an old soviet era border patrol building and then rode 200 odd km through beautiful pine forests.
Lunch at the Bavarian National Park complex (white pork sauages with sauerkraut) and then back to Barnzell. We climbed a huge acorn shaped tower in the national park that allowed a view for miles around.

Tuesday May 24 - rode to Regensdorf, Bavarian tourist town on the Danube, walked around the old part of the town and had lunch at the oldest sausage (Wurst) restaurant in Germany. Beautiful little sausages with mustard, sauerkraut & fresh bread rolls.Rode back through rolling countryside of farms & forest.

                                             The Danube at Regensberg

Wednesday May 25 – again into Czechoslovakia, this time to the motorcycle museum in the town of Kaspersky Hory. A lot of old Jawa & CZ motorcycles and we think Pete was setting us up as there was on old Dnepr in one corner – it looked like it would probably run better than the ones we had. Lovely ride through forest & farm country with lots of small streams. Lunch at a fish restaurant just inside the border.

Thursday May 26 – a day off the bikes. I walk up over the hill behind the village and through the forest to the town of Zweizel. When I get back Martin is mowing the lawn on Pete's ride on mower. Martin tells me that we are cooking dinner that night for 6 (Pete has 2 mates, Steve & Jason from England arriving on a ride south on their flash KTMs) so I walk up to the local Aldi and shop for dinner.

                                                           Zweizel river scene

Friday May 27 – raining in the am. We decide to have another day off the bikes because of the rain and the fact that we leave to ride south tomorrow for 6-7 days to Switzerland, Italy and possibly Slovenia.