We are on the Road


Well we’re on the road. What a great feeling!
After a flight that seemed to go on forever we arrived in Frankfurt only to have Customs shut down while our plane waited to clear, due to a security breach. When it finally re-opened, we picked our bags and Heiko was on the other side waiting for us. After a short visit Sandra and I grabbed a 3 hr. nap to help us recover from the jet lag, then we all went out for supper to the Ratskeller inOberusel , a suburb of Frankfurt.


Heiko is particular when it comes to food, and with me giving him a heads up by skype a few days before he had the Ratskeller picked out, a short walk from his home. Now April thru early June is Spargel season (asparagus) in Germany and France, and in particular the White variety which is covered up before chlorophyll can case the stalks to go green.  Done up with a light whipped Hollandaise sauce, a true Calfs (Veal) snitzel and potatoes this was an exceptional first meal.
On Friday Heiko took us to see Klaus’ new shop which is now out by his place. Very nice motorcycle accessories offered there.
Afterwards we headed for Heidelberg where we would be re-united with our bike. Stefan was in the midst of off loading crates of motorcycles that just came back from Bike week in Daytona, and was laying a brick patio. Our Vstrom was in great tick, and after replacing the hub cushions, plugs and signal reflectors I washed the bike and started it up. What a great sound to hear it running so nice. It was also then that I realized that the bike was in front of Mike and Ruby’s R1200GS’ as they were at Stefan’s at the time. Note the ‘reasonable facsimile ‘ plates that they run on their bikes. This was likely done, after another Calgary rider (Ekke Kok) had his Alberta plate stolen off his bike while overseas. You see the bike does not have to have current registration while over in Europe, it just has to have a registered home title and plate.
Today would be another great day. After meeting Tom, Burt and Tanya at Stefan’s we loaded all our gear up and headed out. About 150 kms later we stopped for a break and Sandra remarked about how smooth the bike was. With the new rear wheel hub cushions installed along with the new chain and lower geared from sprocket the bike was ‘zoned out’ and perfect all day long. The new iridium plugs seemed to have the reported affect of better fuel economy which is welcomed given that we are paying 1.6E/litre right now.


Our day would end when we arrived at the “Le Detour” Castlehouse Pension in tiny Buffard France. If ever there was a small French village this is it. Such a great start to the trip! Ate at the L’Edgar’s bistro in another small village 3 kms away. Such beautiful old buildings in Buffard.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hope for the Best, plan for the worst!

Image
 Hope for the Best, plan for the worst! Ready to Ship This year we re-committed ourselves to travelling back through parts of Europe on our bike. Westjet's BikeAir program was not well founded at the beginning but in June seemed to have found it's feet. We found reasonably priced premium Economy seats, chose Rome as the destination as Barcelona/Spain doesn't honour the EU temporary permit for moto's for leisure purposes. We wanted to avoid as much of the high tourist season and high heat temperatures.  Plan for the Worst We knew that Westjet would fly the bike from Vancouver as well as Calgary with a small surcharge but since we had family to visit we decided to truck the bike to Calgary and visit family in advance. That worked great and a benefit was my son-in-law came to the cargo drop-off and I got a picture with the bike after the customs clearance was given for it. Next day, was flight day, our premium economy seats came with priority boarding passes and we were th
Read more

Switzerland - Sept. 21-23 - Lukmanier Pass and Disentis

Image
   Lukmanier Pass and Disentis Our last morning in Menaggio and we wake up to threatening skies. We knew they were forecast but we hoped we'd luck out like the rest of our trip and have great weather. It was not to be. After our final breakfast at the Hotel Merloni we load the bike and head towards Lugano, Switzerland.  This is a memorable highway for us that dates back to mid May 2006 when we rode from Colmar, France to Menaggio on a day that got colder and colder and began to snow on the Gotthard Pass. So much so, that we were turned back and had to take the Oberpal pass to Disentis and the Lukmanier Pass to Lugano.  I always characterized that ride which turned to pouring rain once you got over the Alps, "as driving inside a firehose" . We've been in contact with Heiko as he wanted to ride the pass and meet us 1/2 way and take us to his friends place in Disentis, CH. His last report was everything was cloudy but not raining there, and with it still dry when we prep
Read more

Ostia Antica and Ostia Lido

Image
 Ostia Antica and Ostia Lido After a nice hot humid afternoon getting repacked after recovering our riding gear from panniers etc. we enjoyed a nice pizza at our B&B suite hotel. They run an extremely successful B&B, pizzeria near Ostia Antica, which was the birthplace of Rome before Rome. We had been here passing through in 2006 and stayed in 2014 while visiting the ruins of Ostia Antica itself. Our neighbor Jeff who has a degree in Archeology remarked about how impressed he was with OA and it is impressive. Our 2014 Ostia experience is here .  This morning, Sunday, we reset and were just going to go for a walk when I suggested we head close to the Lido and then take our walk there. It was a good plan. Neptune and Friend to the left The Lido was busy when we got there around 10:30 am as it was super sunny, 33C humid and real beach weather. As we walked the Lido we got to see Neptune with a guy fishing beside him, and jam packed beaches. Beaches crowded The architecture there i
Read more