If you don't really know where you are and don't care, you're not lost, just having a good time.

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All who wander are not lost

Gallivanting time again

Slovenia called and I’m going to see what it's all about.

I went through a couple of years ago and it was absolutely pissing down so no stops.

Took a new route to the continent, some catamaran ferry or other from the very southern tip of Sweden to Germany, to the island of Rugen, a lot cheaper than the normal combo of bridge and ferry and quicker.

As usual I did not pay attention to my sat nav settings so I got to see more of northern Germany than I needed.

But not to worry, I like Germany, a nice neat land with decent food and comparatively cheap hotels.

I planned for Potsdam but ran out of steam earlier so I hit a little town and got myself a room and a beer, tiny walkabout, nothing of interest.

Had a high calorie German something with meat and potatoes, I did ask for a large Chang and a green mango salad but they were right out of green mangos, what a shame.

So after this meal I decided that I would need some healthier food based more on things that grow in the soil, after a lot of deliberations I decided to supplement my daily food intake with stuff made from barley, malt, hops and grapes, that must be wise choice.

The next morning bright and bushy tailed I took off to somewhere close to the Czech border, no motorway all all, a nice day but windy, very windy.

Good riding and then I ended up in Annaberg in the Erzgebirge, some mining town also known for it famous lace!

A bit of a walkabout, mostly uphill, after all the Erzgebirge are mountains

Some supplementary food stuffs and dinner.

The hotel had a lot of weekend families on some kind of bus tour so breakfast was mayhem.

But I’m in no hurry so I took my time and had little fried sausages and scrambled eggs and fresh bread and water with a hint of orange juice in it.

Then of to see some Czechs, I ride more on the slow side but still not at a snail’s pace so there I am in the middle of the forest on a two one road with a car behind me and doing about 80- 90 clicks when whoosh roar howl I’m overtaken by a bunch of sports cars driving at least twice my speed if not more and they kept on coming, at least ten of them.

No, I did not stop to change my underwear.

Good riding with plenty of curves and brazillions of little Czech hamlets.

Many houses could use some painting and a general spiffing up, a far shout from the orderly Germany, but probably Karl Marx thought that nice housing was only for the apparatchiks of the defunct communist regime and fuck the peasants.

Anyway the day ended in Linz Austria, at least I understand what they’re saying and Euros to pay with.

I will now set forth to infiltrate some specialist in supplementary food stuffs.

The most amazing thing is that they can liquified it and make it tasty!

On the road I talked to a farmer about his cow and the steep meadows and he told it was not much of a problem, besides which he told that all the cows have the same name, Eileen.

This goes all through the Alpine region.

To identify each critter they’ve got a numerical suffix and a letter identifying the land, so an Austrian cow would me Eileen xxxxA a french one Eileen xxxxF.

I do think he was pulling my leg.

I arrived in Bled took in the sights and a dinner and the next morning I took the toll free road to Ljubljana whence I spent a day, Ljubljana is ok but to small for a whole day.Today I planned to go to Zagreb, but then I changed my mind and went back north to the Julian Alps.

Having recently been in Sevilla most old cities will fall flat to the ground, Siena in Italy is in some faraway vague plan, Tuscany is a definite maybe, but then again Sienna does lie in Tuscany

I’ve got a sticker from Chicken, a little town in Alaska which suits me well as I ride at my own pace and don’t race.

Some riders are not very safe, overtaking in blind corners and what not and we get to the same place , me maybe 2 minutes later. I like speed but not breaking legs.

Anyway I decided to go back to where I stayed in Bled, nice pension with a good breakfast run by a nice couple

So back in Bled in the midst of the mountains having a ball for two days , minus points for a very intense local deluge with me in the middle, I had to stop and get off the bike and stand under some kind of hay drying contraption., it stopped after about 10 minutes.

And then a mistake, I went down to Slovenia’s coast, crowded and way overpriced, no room is worth 200 +euros.

Slovenia was a nice experience-

i found a place in a ”resort”, the room was ok but the food and the service was shite.

The next morning off to Italy, I followed the coastal road but after having gone through Trieste and a bunch of small towns I realised that I would never get to where I wanted to be so against my principles I invested 10 eros and 60 cent and got on the motorway until Venice direction San Marino, as it turns out to be there are a bunch of San Marinos in Italy and the one where i was headed was not the one I wanted so a quick u-turn and a quick glimpse at google maps got me close enough until it was signposted.

It turned out to be a long hot day and my day ended in San Leo some little medieval town with churches and a fort on top of a cliff, stunning land scape and small winding roads. Just my cup of tea.

I was dried out and sweaty and got a fermented vegojuice before I got to my room.

Sometimes it’s beyond imagination how nice a shower can be.

The view from my chambers is lovely, the outside wall is about 70 cm thick, a walkabout a short one because the place is minute and then a crummy Italian dinner. one course is not enough and two is a bit too much.

I woke up very early and could not fall asleep again so I opened the window shutters and the window and let the night air in, absolute total silence and as the dawn came the birds started to sing.

Forts and high up place can be pure magic.

One good thing about Italy compared to Slovenia is that i can actually understand some of what the are saying and use some of my homemade and pick-up as you go Italian, birra is a good word to know.

San marino turned out be what all those places are, crowded and all the shops selling crap.

It looks nice but walking around in full gear bar the helmet when the sun beats down is a no no, being bit of a Scrooge I filled up my water bottles and went down to whence I started and headed west towards Tuscanny.

Tuscanny offers some very nice riding, the actual pavement as such leaves somewhat to be desired but I had a good days ride which ended up in Bibbiano, it was a hot day with temps over 30 C and it takes it’s toll, watching out for bicycles and Italian car and motorbike riders who can’t stay on their side of the road.

Dinner was not half bad, some chill would’ve helped.

The restaurant owner and his wife start shouting at each other and it was a bit like a film, loud voices and big gestures.

Italy is a beautiful country who offers a bit of everything that I love, but and this is a big butt the food is crap, the hotel breakfast is pure crap, loads of sugar and no fibre or protein.

The wine is good as is the coffee.



Leaving Bibbiano i headed towards Florens, being naive or just outright dumb I hoped that the traffic would be light and that I could catch a glimpse of something.

I saw a lot of people a lot of cars a lot of traffic lights so I’m happy that i did not book a room in Florence.

The next time I’ll stay outside of the city and take the bus in.

San Giminiano was less crowded as it’s small but still nice and having a motorbike you can basically park anywhere.

I went to somewhere north of Saint Jimmy where they had some hotels, one was just outside the railway station and no parking and the next one was on a pedestrian street and the third one was closed, intercourse!.

So i went to Pisa 50 km away on a road that was going through a lot of villages and a speed limit of 50 km and shitloads of cameras.

After a long while I got into Pisa, got a room with a garage, a good but not cheap solution, not that I care if the bike gets stolen, they make new ones everyday but it would be a nuisance and fuck up my trip.

Pisa turned out to be alright.

The hotel owner recommended some place or other that turned out to be closed but there was an Indian place next door so Iota curry and some rice, yummy.

Liguria and Cinque terra was on the menu and it turned out to be a mother of a meal, there are many beautiful places that I’ve been to, and the coastal rood easily ranks in the upper part of the top ten.

One nice thing about this time of year is that there are lot of flowers about, I like flowers when the are where they grow, not some crummy roses or tulips in a vase.

Rapallo had the pleasure of having me staying over, down by the sea loads of people and fancy restaurants galore, I got some vego juice here and there and later found a mom and pop place near my hotel.

So now I’m heading north to the Alps, I want to ride more along the coast, but then I’ll have to backtrack

Going through Genoa was no fun, the satnav does not keep up with the traffic and there are scooters everywhere, I’m like a cruise ship, big and slow and the Italians on their scooters are like barracudas, quick and lithe, I don’t feel like lane splitting on some that as wide as the QE II.

Finally i got to Savona, 4 hours wasted, up into Piemonte, hardly any traffic and decent roads. As I close up to Como it’s rush hour and no fun at all and hotels are over priced so i head for Menaggio, no rooms and then go up towards Croce on the road to Lugano there is the Adler hotel with a room for me, the innkeeper thinks that I’m to big for a singled puts me in a double with a view over Lake Como including a sunrise over the lake in the morning.

They ask me if I want dinner and if so please choose from the menu, I tell the waitress to surprise me, you choose, spaghetti carbonara and a steak.

Yikes, that filled me up, they had to push me up the staircase

The next morning it’s s Stelvio time, hairpins, hairpins and more hairpins, thankfully it’s not high season yet and a normal week day, the inner turn of a down hill hairpin on QE II is a bit hairy.

And as said before, chicken, chicken.

North means that the sun is on your left side after lunch, but not on an Alpine road, I have a map of Austria but can’t be half arsed to get it out, the Silvretta hochalpen strasse in Austria is the next item on the menu, and bugger it’s closed due to snow.

The alternate routes are under the mountains or over the mountains, the choices simple, so up and up to the Arlberg.

Mother nature offers cold rain , poor visibility and some dense fog, wet curvy narrow roads with poor visibility drops my speed to almost going backwards.

I make it in one damp piece down to a crummy hotel, as this is now in Austria, I get a schnitzel and some potato salad, made with vinegar instead of mayo and that was nice, yummy not made worse by a couple of very nice specimens of the avian population.

Alsace, Elsass, depending on who won the last war has the Vosges mountains, a place that is a minor motorbike riders Mecca, a half decent dinner and some conversation with three english blokes and then bedtime.

Alsace as it’s now French is famous for it’s storks and just outside my room there’s a big tree with two large nests on the top.

The frogs are like the Italians, bad breakfasts, cafe au lait from a bowl and some white bread with jam is not enough.

Anyway to the higher parts, into the mountains, the southern sky is a very dark grey almost black and some rain, in fact quite a lot is on it’s way.

So against all principles I get on the autobahn with the intention to out run the rain, I arrive dry to my friend’s place in Donsbach-Dillenburg a hundred klicks north of Frankfurt.

A nice day and a half with them, more rain on the way so I get up with the sun and go home. a long day 14 hours and as close to 1000kms as you can get.



The end

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