MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 9-10: La Carridad to Porto Distance: 455 km (of 8,667 km total) It was difficult to wake up with damp and rain. Slugs left their slimy trails all over our new tent. We skipped breakfast, did what we had to do to leave and were off to Santiago de Compostelle! There, the skies turned sunny again. We found our way through winding cobble-stoned streets in the old city, and parked the motorcycle in the old town right by the police station. When we enquired as to whether would be safe to leave the bike there with our luggage [View Full Entry]

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MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 8: Mundaka to La Carridad Distance: 444 km (of 8,667 km total) Left Mundaka behind in the fog, drove towards los Picos de Europa. Bad weather continuously on our back, but we managed to escape it. Los Picos de Europa is a fantastic mountainous park, amazingly picturesque, like being inside a postcard. The scatterings of small villages: all very alive, with people in them, and neat houses with flowers - a big contrast to France's dying, deserted villages. Winding roads! We didn't manage to drive many km. today. Once back on the coast, the bad weather caught us [View Full Entry]

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MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 7: Day trip: Mundaka to Bilbao and back Distance: 114 km (of 8,667 km total) Today we took the bike to Bilbao. Stopping at the next town after Mundaka, Berneo, we found an open café and had brunch: coffee + Basque-style tapas again. Zak who has an eye for these things, suspected the place to be a mafia den, which is totally plausible since the characters inside the café and those standing guard outside could really have been straight out of a godfather movie! Going to Bilbao, we took the mountain road. The landscape is very Pyrenees-like. Arriving [View Full Entry]

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MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 6: Dune du Pilat to Mundaka Distance: 328 km (of 8,667 km total) We woke up in a thick fog Most of the dune had totally disappeared in the clouds. Realizing we wouldn't be able to see much, we decided there was no point in climbing up this morning either. There was nothing to do but pack and leave for Spain. No stop in beautiful Biarritz either, since the weather wasn't that great. Then we thought we'd stop by in San Sebastian, but the weather was still not that great. Upon entering Spain, the scenery changed: We saw [View Full Entry]

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MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 5: Orleans to Dune du Pilat Distance: 513 km (of 8,667 km total) It was good to get a good night's sleep in a decent bed, especially for Zak who would be driving. The only thing missing was a good breakfast. Some dolt at Formule 1 had forgot to buy milk, and Zak who isn't into sweet breakfasts couldn't have any decent cereal or coffee. We left Orléans for the Bordeaux region, deciding once again to see how far we'd get today. By the afternoon, we thought it a good idea to stop somewhere on the Atlantic coast, [View Full Entry]

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MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 4: Utrecht to Orleans Distance: 614 km (of 8,667 km total) Left the house at 8 am. - Paulien and Ferry had to leave for work. Once outside the house: packing everything onto the bike. That, plus tanking up: we left Utrecht by 9.30. We have got to get better at this! We made a stop at Breda, the final Dutch town before Germany, so Zak could buy a good supply of Kreteks - Indonesian clove cigarettes going by brands such as Gudang Garam or Sampoerna. To Zak's delight, he found tobacco-bag and cigarillo versions of them. We [View Full Entry]

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MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 2-3: Køge (Denmark) to Utrecht (Netherlands) Distance: 710 km (of 8,667 km total) Marion woke up in Køge at 7 am. Zak was up earlier because of birds singing in the trees. The sky was grey and it was drizzling lightly. We packed up and were ready to go by 9 am. We weren't too impressed with ourselves that it took 2 hours to get going. We went looking for breakfast in the center of Køge, and discovered a charming little town with typical Danish houses. Brecky was coffee and some Danish pastries. We finally got going by [View Full Entry]

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MOTOTOUR 2007 Day 1: Stockholm (Sweden) to Køge (Denmark) Distance: 644 km (of 8,667 km total) Hi! We've written our travelogues for family and friends, and any Internet visitors from around the world who might surf in looking for info about the places we've been to, or the how-to's regarding motorcycle touring. Our mode of travel is also known as mototouring (a term that may have been coined in Europe) or going on a Harley vacation - which we don't feel entitled to calling it, since we drive a trusty ol' Japanese bike we've named the Red Baroness. Our bike of [View Full Entry]

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Thru Germany in one day Leaving Luxembourg and entering Germany from the south, we drove all day and night till we got to Lübeck late that night about 1 am., and headed straight for Schönböckers camping again. We set up camp in the dark. The next morning we dealt with checking in and immediately checking out, and headed for Denmark and Sweden. Thru Denmark into Sweden and to Stockholm in one day Hoping to cut driving time, we had been making enquiries about the ferry from Rostock to Trelleborg, Sweden. But information on routes and schedules were scarce. We decided to [View Full Entry]

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Tired and homesick after the freak storm in Blois, with both of Zak's hands now suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, plus tennis-elbow, golf-elbow, and now even claw-hand and trigger-finger in the mornings, we had decided to head home as fast as we could. We drove from Blois through to Luxembourg, hoping to make it into Germany, through ever changing weather, rain-sunshine-rain-sunshine... We had picked up a hitchhiker, a grasshopper from Blois, and Zak named him KwaiChang Caine, after the TV series of the 70s called Kung Fu, which starred David Carradine as a character who was known as "grasshopper" as a [View Full Entry]

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