Gallivanting

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To gallivant go around from one place to another in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment."he quit his job to go gallivanting around the globe"

synonymer:gad, flit, jaunt, run, roam, wander, travel, range, rove, ramble, traipse, stray"he goes gallivanting about looking for excitement"

That definition fits me to a T



Having gone home earlier than planned from Canada and the US I felt entitled to some kind of compensation, so what could be better than a couple of weeks on the bike hustling down to Greece through some new countries aka as former Yugoslavia, hopefully there won't be sleet on the ground but, sadly no bears either.

The goal of this trip is the same as ever, none well there is but the trip is the goal and maybe the odd beer in the company of strangers.

I've heard nothing but positive things about that part of the world, I went to what is now known as Slovenia in my youth, about 150 years ago, and I had a good time then so I'll have it again, its' basically a mind set anyway.

No negative waves Moriarity, ( Kelly's heroes)

The turn around point will be the monastery of Meteora and then I'll follow the Adriatic coast, looking for damsels in distress, cold beer and good food.

The damsel part might not work out but the food and beer part most certainly will.

Good rain gear and waterproof boots and gloves and working heated grips will make this into a comfy trip, I must admit that my mind has already shunted the rainy and cold bits from the last trip down into some dark and murky corner of my mind, one of many I might add.

Anyway, I can't wait to leave.

The plan was to get down to Meteora ASAP, Meteora is a a mountain with some monasteries built on to of some peaks, it looked good enough on the internet so why not go.

Meteora is in Greece a mere 3000km from home, my plan was to do it in 4 days and well I did.

Home to Heidenau, south of Dresden, day one Heidenau to some un pronounceable town south of Budapest and then from that place to Skopje in Maccedonia and the last leg down to Meteora.

The weather gods were not with me the whole time, instead of smiling at me the laughed, 6 C in Sweden and that was ok but when it started to piss down big time in the Czech republic it was no fun and to top that Mssrs Garmin have decided that my GPS should not work in the former Soviet satellites, so not only was I cold but also blind, what could go wrong?

Well nothing, the only wrongish part when the only hotel I could find in Skopje also had a convention of the southern European Youth kickboxing federation, the hotel was jam packed with kids running about being very noisy.

One ten story tower block with one working elevator, a study in patience.

The dinner was shite and the breakfast as well, I got out early before the kids woke up so I got the elevator to myself, it's no fun walking up 5 floors in riding boots all made out of very squeaky plastic, the sound like ski boots but more so and slippery at that.

There's a saying: drive it like you stole it, from that I deduce that most vehicles in the eastern part of Europe are stolen

Crossing into Greece mad my GPS come alive so I dumped the motorways for plain Greek roads, it took, most probably double the time but I've had enough of droning down the motorways to last me until the next time.

Meteora is nice , tis' very impressive what you can do when time and money is no object, after all your boss is a very patient one.

The sheer force spent schlepping all those bricks and rocks up on to all the pinnacles is amazing, them monks most have had bodies well on par with top athletes.

Quite a few monasteries and of course a nunnery as well, maybe no secret tunnels as there was in Cuzco but I bet that not all of them were chaste.

In one place they had a 12000 liter wine barrels so they must have gone on the piss every so often, say 50 monks to a monastery with 12000 l of wine gives each monk a bottle a day.

Well you can't pray the whole time.

Meteora is a very nice place and the hotel where I stayed was nice as well, very friendly and a good breakfast and comfy beds.

The even let me use their PC to update my GPS, it took all of 4 hours and the funny thing/ depressing is that the Mac said that every thing was A OK.

Now is works again.

Well enough is enough; I set the GPS on secondary roads and had a very nice trip from Meteora to the Albanian border, over the mountains and on a road that had a sign saying that you used it at your own risk, it was a bit iffy and no maintenance since they opened the motorway so the was the odd land slide or two, bits missin from the pavement and basically no traffic, a very nice ride indeed.

At the border the Greek border guard got so mad at some guys jumping the line with a mini bus, that he went away for some 15 minutes or so and left everyone waiting.

The road from the border up to Durres was very hot and very boring, the amount of speed limit signs for each and every litttle thing along the road was incredible.

I tried to be reasonably good but soon got inspired by the locals who did not give a shit, so the seep went up.

I saw quite a few of the famous Albanian bunkers that the former dictator Enver Hoxa had built all over the place, 750 000 or so.

Once In Durres the life seemed to be like anywhere else in the world bar the fact that I've never seen so many black Mercedes, BMW and Audis in the same town ever.

Balck and German top brand car equal staus.

Allegedly Albania is the end station for a lot of cars stolen all over Europe, a black car ina country where the sun shines more than not.

GTAC= Grand Theft Auto Central aka Albania

I was planning to go to Tirana but the sky was really black in that direction so I thought that I followed the coast I would be spared the rain, well I was not, it jolly well came down in buckets.

I had a pucker moment when I almost lost control of the bike, the rain made the road very slippery, but for the grace of Dog I almost hit a car on a corner.

My heart was like the wings of a hummingbird for a little while, but my underware was ok.

I went around the bay in Montenegro, very pretty but far to much traffic, so I had the bright idea of zipping up to Dubrovnik, where I'd get a room in a jiffy and spend some time exploring the mind altering effects of Croatian beer.

Drubrovnik was jam packed and it took quite a while to find a a room and the beer was no good, well not good enough to spend my loot on anyway.

An overpriced dinner finds me searching on Booking.com for a new place to stay tomorrow, as I'd like to explore the old town a bit.

The old town is nice, something that I shared with a zillion other tourists, heaven forbid to be here in high season, there was barely room to walk now.

I had a nice coffee and trotted, all up hill of course, back to my new lodgings, an apartment no less.

A couple of beverages and some cevapcici ,a grilled meat ball, very Balkan and alright. I won't lay awake at night dreaming about another helping but way better than the Greek pig swill.

Enough of Dubrovnik and not enough of Mostar so to remedy that I got on the bike and went there, from Croatia into Bosnia Hercegovina, another border crossing.

Mostar is the town with arched bridge that got blown to smaller pieces during the fightings.

Mostar has churches and mosques side by side, when you talk to people there's old grudges that are not solved yet, yet on the streets you see women in chardor/ burka or what ever and also girls in tight tops and even tighter pants (diet?) on the same street side by side.

I had learned from the problems on finding a room in Dubrovnik and used booking.com to get a room in Mostar, that worked out well, a nice room in a nice hotel in a one horse town.

In Mostar there's one thing, the bridge, there are some other old buildings as well but basically there's the bridge and thats it, some cobbled streets, a brazillion vendors of tacky souvenirs.

So I was soon finished with Mostar, my gilded digs were all uphill from the center, 1.5 km away but not a word about steep up- and down-hill.

So having done the sights aka the bridge that has been rebuilt, with old stones and techniques looking just like the original, that was it.

So I did what every sensible person does, when bored have a beer, or two or maybe three, and if you feel good after three surely a fourth is the answer to everything.

Having had one of my two meals, breakfast I took of towards Zadar, lees famous that Split with the idea that it would be less crowded so no forward booking.

On the way to Zadar the weather gods stopped smiling at me and instead started to laughs their heads off.

The sky turned thunderstorm black and it started to rain and then to pour down and the the skies really opened up.

The good thing about being wet is that it can't get any worse, or maybe there is a wet, wetter and wettest, if that is so I was the wettest.

Rivers coming down hill, tons of gravel being washed out onto the major roads from drives and lesser roads, the cops blocked of the coastal road and I road on with a bow spray with a mile, it's no use getting annoyed as it won't stop the rain, In Zadar the told me that they got around 170 mm in the morning it was indeed an epic deluge and Zadar was declared a catastrophic area and the prime minister came with his entourage in a motorcade with a lot of, guess, yes you're spot on black cars.

The room in Zadar was a room in a private house, no ups, no frills and Zadar was really nothing compared to Dubrovnik a bit of a walkabout, a bad pizza and later on some slibovitz, plum brandy.

The forecast for the next days was grim so I thought that Irather be at home than holed up in some dungeon while it pisses down outside.

So the next day I started my trek towards the faraway north, the day started out good with a vey nice ride along a very nice coast, but then the water hidden in the clouds decided that it would be more fun to fuck up my day.

A dismal rainy ride through Slovenia and into Austria got me past Villach when enough was enough, the first room in the first village was to be mine, spare no expense, I'd had it, wet feet and wet hands and it was getting dark.

So I got a room and dinner and a schnapps and two glasses of red wine and breakfast and my stuff dried out in their boiler room for the princely sum of 53 Euros, maybe the gods smiled a bit at me.

The next morning through Austria towards Germany, through the valleys and over the mountains, down in one valley the temp was down to 2 (two) C, an we're still in early autumn.

I hit the road as fast as i dared aka not very fast as the the traffic in Germany is on par with LA, there's a never ending flow of lorries, the right lane is the realm of the lorry.

The general speed limit in Germany is AFAIK 130 km/h a bit of a bonus to that and a lot of people are doing 150 in the left lane, so you spend as much time looking in the rear view mirror as looking forwards, very tiring and very boring but you get there quickly and if there's a que, just split lanes.

When enough was enough, I dined and slept in the Black bear, a place that had been there since the 1200's, an 800 year restaurant is not something you find every day.

It was easy to hit the sack, being fully alert, trying to stay alive, for more than 7 hours takes it out of you, and awake for 16 or so.

The next morning a good Teutonic breakfast, ah yes I forgot about dinner, some concoction from Thuringen, the province where I was, lots of mushrooms , onions, potatoes and 3 kinds of meat all fried together , very nice but half of it would've been more than enough.

The next day was just slogging it to the ferry from Jerry land to Denmark and the home to meet my dear wife and her too may hounds

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