Tunnel Vision

 

Next was Austria , why isnt it called Eastern State in English? though we were a bit unsure at the border. The road was fine and the idea was that we would get to Innsbruck early to mooch around in the afternoon, but as we didn't leave Vaduz until 11.30 that was going to make it difficult. Photo-opportunities were proving difficult for Francoise as either the weather was hazy, it was about to rain (but never did) or we were in tunnels. The Austrians clearly like tunnelling.  With the closure of one tunnel we were obliged to take the mountain pass, so having come down from 1800 m we climbed back up and had lunch at the top of the pass. Switzerland was expensive; Liechtenstein similar. Austria seemed good value.
 

To fully appreciate the 5D experience on a motorbike one really needs to wear open faced helmets. Preferably silly ones but on long trips we try to be a bit more sensible. Just after the champagne region Paul caught a wasp just to the side of his left eye. The impact didn't kill it as  it kept on stinging Paul for about 15 minutes until we pulled in for petrol and it was still wriggling just about alive when Paul took his helmet off. The side of his temple was slightly numb. A couple of days on now and the swelling has moved from the side of his temple to a rather large bag below his eye. This was a wasp and NOT the end result of one of our couple moments.
 

                    
                     
                    
 

We arrived in Innsbruck quite early and still dry. Our hotel was five minutes walk from the Old Town so we were straight out there, having checked in. Our nose for the weather meant that we knew exactly when to hit the coffee shop before the rain broke and the crowds looked for shelter. And we found a good one at that, Seit 1803 and Innsbrucker Torte every bit as good as Sacher! Innsbruck with its medieval old town was also very nice. We continued our Zaha theme by going to see the four metro/cable car stations. Some issues with the glass tolerances. We even went almost to the top as the sun had come out post our afternoon coffee. We dined in the old town - almost a new definition of 'old' - our German wasn't quite up to deciding whether the Goldener Adler had been going since 1390 or 1494.
                   
                   
                   

Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria all seem to be very clean and tidy indeed. Almost Singaporean. But the dogs are bigger and better dressed in Austria, those wolfhounds with the knitted bonnets to stop their ears flapping around; nice.

                 
                 
                 

Next day head South East. Lovely roads, castles, churches with ridiculously steep steeples - (perhaps thats where there word comes from?), houses with geraniums and Gasthofs serving coffee at every bend. Cream of Garlic soup for lunch at 1630m altitude. And then down to Mittelsee for our stop over. More 'fun' with hairpins as Francoise wanted to take photos on right handers - words said. All well that ends well with an aperitif down by the lake - quite like Windermere, but a hundred times less people here.
                

                
                

Managed internet just about from Uzbekistan to Singapore. Proving difficult in parts of Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'High'way to Hell

 

 

 

Apparently 'hell' in German means light and here we were on our way to Liechtenstein .

Occasionally, Paul doesn't always think things through. But then we just make the best of the 'opportunities'  that arise from this. After all we set off for Sainsbury's last year and because of him struggling with his right hand turns we ended up going most of the way round the world before getting home.

First thing that hit us in Liechtenstein was a nice little castle perched up on a rock just above the road. Liechtenstein isn't very big so the second thing was upon us very quickly. And that was the road to our resting, sorry, sleeping place for the night.

                         
So when you reserve a place to sleep and it says in the small print that it is not accessible by car in the winter months you could imagine certain things. When it is called a Berggasthaus you can also work out it is on a mountain. So we climbed about a kilometre in a very short distance with a series of very sharp hairpins - which always come in pairs, left and right handed, and it was stressful.

But when we got there we felt on top of the world in more ways than one. Having got there, there was no discussion whatsoever about going out elsewhere for the evening.
                        

And what goes up; comes down. And we came down from the mountain.

In fact the above was written before we came back down again. The word 'safely' can now be added. Note that the average gradient up the one kilometre was not far off 1:10.

There was no way after having made it all the way up there that we were going to come back down for dinner so we ate there too. Local, very local, chicken, eggs, pork and dairy products were on the menu. 

We had arrived mid - afternoon and the cattle were down in the valley and we saw them coming in for milking from afar. Saw and heard. Are the bells needed to avoid them getting lost or just to weight their necks down to get more grass in?

                        

The very quaint sound of bells was not quite so quaint during the night and one wondered whether fitting music to the bells as the cows were ringing them would not be the ultimate mathematical equation?

                    

Morning broke, we came down from the mountain and visited Europe's smallest capital city, Vaduz. There are only 37,000 inhabitants in Liechtenstein and about 5,000 of those are in Vaduz. Just about as many contemporary art sculptures down the hight street too. August 15th, the morning we were there, was National Day and we climbed up the escarpment to see the Crown Prince's residence and were given flags and song sheets for the National Anthem. The Crown Prince's son runs the country and is married to Princess Sophia of Bavaria - we thought that this only existed in Disneyland?

                   

                                       



                                                         

Swish swiss

So we were in France and Basle is in Switzerland. Not the EU. A bit of a border; passports prepared. Underwhelmed; four blokes in open necked uniforms who couldn't even be bothered to look up as we passed.

Out on the town but our German is not at the same level as our French, so all of a sudden we are foreigners and tourists without the smug feeling we have in France. So we walked over the Rhine, found a traditional Baseler bier kellar and dined on something that we thought bore resemblance to what we ordered. Despite being less than 2 km from the French border and an international City, home to many of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies our server was pleased to tell us he spoke 'nur Deutsch'. With a smile.

The thing about travelling like this, especially in Europe where things change so quickly is that you set off from somewhere and lunch is in a totally different place and same again in the evening. And being on a motorbike it's all a bit 5D. So Champagne and cathedrales to lakes to the Rhine and bier cellars, all in a day's ride.

So we window shopped the cake shops in Basle, 180 Swiss Francs for a Rose Cake, we watched the swimmers being taken full pelt down the Rhine with their clothes in a plastic bag acting as a float, cleverly sold by the Tourist Office. And then the storm hit - it had been far too hot all day and we sheltered in the Bier Kellar and all was fine. We even managed the tram back to the hotel, but they could have told us that there were two Bahnhofs in Basle.

                                    

                                    

We had struggled with the automatic check-in at the hotel. Paul's fingers or the touch screen; one wasn't working properly. Basle didn't endear itself with Paul, as the car park attendant insisted Paul should pay or he would call the police, despite insisting that we weren't allowed to park there. But we had.

A bit grey in the morning but we decided to shelter in the Vitra Museum. Only 4km away but then we were in Germany. This hadn't been planned.

Felt both the Gehry and the Zaha a bit disapointing though the Zaha is clearly historic. Thought the clock that was also a helter skelter a bit naff and the HdM central Building bore many similarities to Ban's Metz. But then again we are not Architects. Paul keen on changing houses to Vitra-fy a house.

And then the road - let's not take the big roads and even though it was 11.30 when we left the Museum it was soon time to stop for lunch, even though we had just cafe'd in the museum. But we had gone back into Switzerland and then back to Germany. Were we back in Switzerland now? Euros or Francs? We take both...

Sometimes it can be difficult to do 200 km in a day. Too many distractions. Riding through Zurich was grim, so we took the Autoroute and it was very scenic indeed. But we wouldn't have had such a nice lunch if we had done that straight away.

And that was how we swished through Switzerland this time round.

 

Back to the Beginning

More than 15 months on and here we are again. 15 months wiser? After all the "stuff" that has happened? No problems with the electronics, Paul's or the bike's and we are setting off to do what we didn't do in 2014: London to Istanbul with a tweak up to Sofia. The weather forecast was good. But wrong.

                       

Normally when we ride out into Kent at the weekend on the bike, it feels like we are on holiday again. Today the weather was pretty miserable and it certainly didn't feel like a holiday. Teeth were nonetheless gritted because  it was a HOLIDAY and we would make the most of it and as it doesn't rain when one is on holiday, we were not going to put our waterproofs on. Even if we did get quite 'damp'.

There was no stack on the M20 and we remarked how thoughtful the authorities had become in introducing toilet facilities every 500m along the motorway. And the coffee?

Things brightened up the other side of the channel with very few, ie no migrants to be seen.

And if it is possible to say things were bright in a now defunct coal mining town like Bethune they were bright indeed. Cobbled town hall square which Paul managed to navigate reasonably well and lots of cafes and brasseries en terrasse.

                               

It was now warming up and we could do without our warm jumpers - a last minute addition to the packing as we were not going to need such things on a holiday in August . Nice lunch and on the road to Reims.

We were now in a different world with the temperature in the 30's and morning's blues had evaporated.

Afternoon in Reims; cathedral magnificent especially the stained glass. Chagall as is often the case with French cathedrals and an abstract German artist unbeknown to us, who must have used a laser technique to cut the glass.

Reims was deserted. There is something to be said for the month of August in certain parts of France.

 

Aperatif just outside and then a fish supper to rival the one we had in Bondi Beach. But with champagne this time.
                              

Next laid the road onwards to Basle but we profited from the Route de Vignes-60km no less of all the major champagne houses and also the champagne we had drunk the night before. All very neat and tidy and once could certainly feel the money.

                           

                           

                           

                           

Basle was a long ride, 525km in the end but going through farmland all the way, ' la France profonde'. And empty of all traffic

 

 

Leaving, on a jet plane...

The Catskills gave us a great morning ride before going to New York City New York State; so good they named it twice?

 

Impending thunder storm said the man at the Turnpike Toll Booth, hope you miss it. We had very little idea of New York City geography and we were a bit, a lot, reliant on Mr Garmin - remember that brick wall in China? Weather was still very misty too as a prelude to those impending thunder storms. So we go over one very expensive toll bridge that takes us onto Manhattan Island to be met by a long queue of traffic at 3.30 in the afternoon in Harlem we think taking us to another expensive toll bridge to take us off the Island only to face a near two hour trudge up Long Island to Roslyn which was very Great Gatsbyish twee. And expensive. Maseratis, Jaguars, Astons, Rollers and the usual Teutonic machinery. And all to get a half price hotel with free breakfast and parking. But it was very nice, as was the restaurant, and the arrival at the Atlantic signalled not only the end of the American Coast to Coast but also the American leg and our trip too.

                         

                         
 

We felt that our ride in Manhattan had not been enough. So we returned and made life difficult for ourselves. The impending had impended and we needed waterproofs to add a bit of colour to those photos. But Mr Garmin chose a freeway this time which took us back to Manhattan in substantially less time and also over a bridge where we didn't have to pay. What a difference a day makes. So Central Park, Times Square, Broadway, Wall Street and Ground Zero plus a host of other Avenues and Streets - just to say that we cut and carved in Manhattan traffic and what could they possibly do about an English registered bike driving down bus lanes? Clearly the road information we had was not the most current as we were continually being directed the wrong way down one way streets where we had to respect the road signs due to the presence of not only armed Officer Dibble but Deputy Dawg too. So we resorted to our usual trick of flagging down a taxi and asking to follow him to the hotel. Two refused even though it must have been less than 500m.

We then had to take the bike to New Jersey so it could be freighted back to the UK. Mr Garmin again chose a toll-free option and by now the sun had come out and we dried off in the 20 degree C sunshine. Come on Garmin, are you sponsored by the New York Transit Authority?New Jersey, well let's just say that we probably didn't get round to seeing the best it had to offer. Perhaps the New Jersey shed where we left the bike was so utterly drab in order to hide what was inside. The man was not that impressed by the cleanliness of the bike either. New York New Jersey weather we said but the truth is that the bike last had a very brief wash in Sydney but a proper clean back in Singapore

                         

And then our own touristy bits. Not sure about the Calatrava at Ground Zero. It probably looked a lot less hemmed in when the Architect showed his sketches. The waterfall memorials are very moving and powerful indeed, but there's something about a Memorial Museum that didn't feel right at present, which was made even more so by the $24 entrance fee. There is an awful lot of commercial space being constructed too.

 

Staying in Central Manhattan is expensive but then again so is London, so why should we expect otherwise? But this did mean that we wouldn't be staying long. We managed to walk quite a bit. We managed the Empire State Building as our must-do paid visit, but also managed Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island ferry for views of both Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty for free. One starts to worry when the tourist hawkers try to sell you Statue of Liberty ferry tickets at $47 return a pop, but $57 if you don't get off at the island thus avoiding the queues. Surely you could save the whole $47, or $57 by not going at all?

 

  

We also managed Times Square and the Toys'R'us shop where Paul could face up to a Lego challenge. Then there was Washington Square in Greenwich village where we listened to the jazz musicians and chatted with a lady that used to work in the University about travels and culture. And then there was Central Park too where everybody seemed to be out getting the last drop of sunshine before the winter came in.

 

So our trip ends with us returning on a jet plane. We will have travelled from Greenwich to Greenwich (Sydney) to Greenwich (San Francisco) to Greenwich (New York) and back to Greenwich. What was the point? We tell people that we set off to go shopping at Sainsburys, but because Paul has difficulties with his right hand turns it took us a bit longer than anticipated. We will have done 26,576km and the missing link due to health issues back in April and May annoys us a bit some times. What was our best bit? Ask us in a couple of years when it has all sunk in.

                   

                                

                 

So, whatever, or whenever next?

Paul & Françoise