Guestbook

MOTORCYCLE TRIP JOURNAL

Sunday July 29 – Our departure date had finally arrived.  This trip required several months of preparation. It was not just an ordinary trip to Disneyworld, etc.  Additional accommodations such as passports, international driver's licenses and flight plans needed to be processed. Much earlier we decided to arrive on July 30 in Frankfurt to giver ourselves one day to adjust to the time difference and anticipated jet lag. So we thought anyway!  We spent Saturday and Sunday morning packing our clothes and gear.  We were going to take four pieces of luggage: one suitcase for each of us, a third bag with our motorcycle gear and a fourth bag with bathroom items.  This would figure prominently later.  In addition to that, we would carry on a motorcycle seat bag and Anne's computer, which we foolishly thought we'd be able to use throughout the trip. Anne's suitcase weighed 56 lbs and the gear bag weighed 41 lbs.  The gear bag contained two motorcycle riding suits, boots and helmets. Early that afternoon, we decided to drive to the airport and check all our luggage early. We left about 3:00 PM for Mitchell Field.  In an omen of things to come, I spilled a can of Mountain Dew in our Bravada.  This necessitated a stop to clean up the mess.  Anyway, we then continued to the airport. Once there, we checked our luggage and asked the ticket agent at the United counter if our luggage would be put on an earlier flight.  He said probably not. So then we drove back to Jackson, loaded up our dog Klaus and went to my parents house to drop him there. We said good-bye to Klaus and Mom & Dad drove us back to the airport. We then said good-bye to them and went back to the United ticket counter.  It was then that we made the ill-fated decision to take stand-by on an earlier flight from Milwaukee to Chicago. The thinking was that we would get there an hour earlier and could have some extra time.  We made it onto the earlier flight.  However to our horror, we sat on the runway for 75 minutes before the plane took off.  The only announcement we were given by the pilot was that it was foggy in Chicago and nothing was taking off or landing there.  I thought at the time that our connecting flight to Frankfurt would certainly be delayed, so I wasn't worried about missing our flight.  We finally took off about 8:10 PM and landed at 8:40 PM in Chicago. Anne checked the United flight information number which said the Frankfurt flight was still on time at 8:55 PM. I really didn't believe this could be possible because I was taking stock in the pilot's announcement that nothing was coming in or out of Chicago. Nevertheless, we decided to high-tail it to the gate at O'Hare where the Frankfurt flight was leaving from.  Naturally it was in a different terminal.  (terminal B and we landed in terminal F). This meant we had to run the equivalent of a half mile. I got there first a couple minutes ahead of Anne.  To my astonishment, the Frankfurt plane was actually leaving on time!  Unfortunately for us, they had already closed the door to the jetway and wouldn't allow us to check in.  Boy did this piss us off royally!  We were both nearly loco. After about 20 minutes waiting for this ignorant German passenger in line in front of usto get taken care of, we finally got to talk to a United ticket agent. She was actually relatively helpful and seemed to sympathize with our predicament. Their first suggestion was to get us onto a Lufthansa flight leaving later that evening.  I quickly got into line at the Lufthansa ticket gate and eventually booked us a few seats on their flight to Frankfurt. As I got back to Anne at the United gate, we inquired as to the status of our luggage. A tracking call revealed that it was still in Milwaukee because our original flight was canceled and wouldn't come to Chicago until the next day.  At this point, it seemed pointless to take the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt if it meant we wouldn't have our luggage when we arrived. This being the case, United offered to put us in a hotel and booked us on the next United flight to Frankfurt, which was at 2:45 PM the next afternoon.  Exhausted and majorly pissed off, we went to catch the shuttle to the Airport Marriott. More grief was awaiting us.  We waited over an hour for the shuttle and it still hadn't arrived.  We then decided to take a taxi to the hotel, only to find a line of at least 50 people waiting for a taxi! I tried calling my friend Jeff Miller who lives near O'Hare to come and get us, but he wasn't home. It was now 11:00 PM and we felt stranded at O'Hare with nothing but the clothes on our backs. The shuttle finally arrived about 11:15 PM and took us to the hotel. At check in, we asked for some bathroom items since we didn't have our luggage. All they gave us was a couple plastic toothbrushes and some Chinese toothpaste.  The only good thing was the room was very nice and had a high speed internet access line.  We ordered a pizza and sent some e-mails to my parents, Jose Geldreich who we were to meet the next day, and Leon Heindel the tour guide. The pizza arrived around midnight and was disgusting for the most part.  We washed our clothes in the bathroom sink and hung them up to dry.   Jeff called back at 12:30 AM and I explained things to him. We went to bed around 1:00 AM. Lesson # 1 – never take an international flight unless you leave from Chicago. 

Monday, July 30 – It was mostly a sleepless night. My allergies were aggravating me leading to endless misery and no sleep for either of us.  Of course, my allergy pills were in my luggage which was still in Milwaukee. Lesson # 2 – always take medicines in your carry on luggage.  So we got up at about 5:30 AM only to find our clothes as wet as when we were finished washing them.  Luckily there was a hair dryer in the room.  We spent the next hour and a half drying our clothes with the combination of the hair dryer and iron.  It was fairly pathetic, but it worked.  I then tried calling Leon on his cell phone in Germany. I was successful in getting through to him.  He was waiting for us at the airport, and said he hadn't gotten my e-mail.  He seemed ticked off, but I emphasized that this certainly wasn't our fault. I told him we would be there the next day.  This was my first taste of what a strange individual he was, as I felt his behavior on the phone was bizarre.  After brushing our teeth with the Chinese toothpaste (which could've been substituted for Preparation H), we went to breakfast.  We returned to our room, then decided to check out and get to O'Hare early. We got to O'Hare around noon and went to the international check-in counter.  It was then we were informed that our flight was delayed by 3 hours and fifteen minutes!  Geez, what next!  At least we could get into the United Red Carpet Club which Anne is a member of, so we didn't have to aimlessly roam about the airport for the next 6 hours. Once in the Red Carpet Club, I called Leon again and described our latest predicament.  We ate lunch at the Chili's at O'Hare and went back to the Red Carpet Club.  I finished reading my first of three books on this trip, "The Ghosts of Cape Sabine".  Finally our flight was called and we boarded the plane at 5:45 PM, almost 24 hours past the time we should've boarded. The plane was a 747 and our seats we on the upper deck in business class.  I must say that business class was pretty sweet.  There was huge amounts of leg room and a very comfortable seat that reclined all the way back.  However, now there was another problem that cam into play later. The plane was delayed by an hour because some luggage needed to be unloaded. Finally, we took off about 7:15 PM and we were on our way to Frankfurt at last (still wearing the clothes we left home in).    The dinner served was a choice of steak or salmon.  I of course chose the steak (which would be the best meal for the next several days) and Anne had the salmon. After the dinner, I began reading my second book, "Mawson's Will". I then began watching the in-flight movie "Erin Brockovich", which I must admit wasn't bad. Anne watched part of "Notting Hill" which she reported was nauseating. For some inexplicable reason all the movies were Julia Roberts movies.  What's with that? Anyway, after all that, we both tried to get some sleep – it was past midnight. That effort was thwarted by the flight crew clanging dishes, silverware and being generally disruptive.  It didn't help that we were in the last row very close to the galley. Oh, by the way, today was our Anniversary. Yup, number 13 at that.

Tuesday, July 31 - After a restless, uncomfortable night on the plane, we were served breakfast of fruit, cereal, yogurt and a croissant. We finally landed at the Frankfurt Airport at about 10:00 AM German time. We exited the plane and headed for Passport Control which we passed through very easily. Then we moved onto luggage claim.  After watching all the luggage twirl around on the carousel, we had only seen one of our bags. Finally the carousel stopped and we both astonishingly realized that we had only gotten one of our four bags. After they had a whole extra day to make sure it was on the right flight! Geez, how incompetent can you be?  After some thought, we came to the conclusion that when our plane was delayed to remove luggage, ours was probably removed because we were originally supposed to be on the flight we missed.  Wow, who would've thunk it? OK – the next step was going to the luggage trace department. Of course now we're in a foreign country compounding our troubles further.  Luckily, most of the United employees spoke fairly decent English. At the luggage trace department, we were told two of our other three bags were coming in on a flight later that day, and the third one was on the way later on an unknown flight. How can four bags be put on three different flights? You'd have to try to do that!  I called Leon who said he would meet us at the Treffpunkt shortly. After milling around at the Treffpunkt for nearly an hour, he finally arrived.  He was not at all what I had pictured.  Not really a guy you'd picture putting on motorcycle tours. But anyway, he gave Anne a hug and welcomed us to Germany.  At the time, I thought it would be more likely he'd hug me than my wife. As we approached the van, he offered us some water.  This was my first experience with European water, which is carbonated and tastes like Alka Seltzer.  Being that it was about 90 degrees, a cup full of Alka Seltzer didn't hit the spot for me. I had to spit it out in the street.  What a great sight that was!  There were some others from the group with Leon which we were introduced to. We finally left the airport with our one bag of luggage and Leon told us we'd return later for the other bags.  It was unusually hot in Frankfurt – in the nineties.  Leon's van had rear A.C., but it didn't work. He took us to the hotel in Mainz and we checked into our room. Another negative – the hotel had no air conditioning and it was extremely hot in our room. From the room, we called the baggage trace department at the airport and were told two of our other bags had arrived. Hopefully, one of them would be our motorcycle gear bag, or we wouldn't be able to start the cycle trip. Leon took us back to the airport and we picked up the two bags.  They were my suitcase and our cycle gear bag. This meant that the missing bag was the bathroom bag with all our bathroom items and Anne's makeup, etc. This was the most expendable bag of the four in my opinion, but Anne disagreed.  Anyway, with the cycle gear bag we could at least start the tour which was already the next morning.  We were told by the agent that the last bag was to arrive tomorrow morning.  So we hoped at that point we might have it before the trip started. Leon then drove us to the cycle dealer – Wollstadt.  We signed the rental agreements and got on our cycles finally.  Mine was a 2001 Honda Varadero – 1000cc.  Anne's was a 2000 Honda Trans Alp – 750 cc. He had spent a lot of time picking our cycles previously and it was already somewhat apparent then that we had erred in our choices. The Varadero was very high off the ground and had a very wide fuel tank which was uncomfortable for me.  I would learn to get used to it over the next several days.  We rode the bikes back to the Favorite Parkhotel in Mainz. So we were finally at the hotel with our motorcycles!! Needless to say, we were the last ones to arrive there thanks to the lickknobs at United.  After we parked the bikes and walked toward the front door of the hotel, a mysterious figure was hanging out there. Turns out it was Jose Geldreich who we had planned to meet the previous day. Believe it or not, he works in Mainz and stopped there after work hoping to find us.  It was an awkward meeting because we were both so tired and delirious from the previous two days events. We took the rest of our luggage up to the room and I came back down to give Jose his death sauces which I brought for him. I then asked if he could take me to a drug store to buy some hair spray for Anne.  He brought me back to the hotel and said he would return in a few hours.  I went back to the room and took a shower and put on my first new clothes since Sunday morning.  At 6:00 PM we had an orientation meeting, slide show and get acquainted session.  We were both bleary-eyed tired and I kept dozing off during the slide show.  Leon bought everyone a drink during the meeting and I took the opportunity to have my first European beer of the tour.  He also introduced us to his "life partner", Ellie. Jose arrived back during the meeting and stayed with us for the next several hours.  After the meeting we went out to the garden terrace and had dinner.  I ordered the pork and Anne had chicken.  I thought the food was actually good.  It was grilled. We spent most of the evening getting to know Jose better.  He brought a lot of his Geldreich family genealogy research with him.  Very interesting. Neither Anne nor I spent much time talking with other members of the tour because of Jose's presence. At around 9:00 PM., Anne went up to the room and I came up about an hour later. The alarm clock was unplugged, so I plugged it in and set the alarm for 6:30 PM.  It was still very hot in the room and with the windows open, there wasn't much of a breeze coming in. There are no screens on the windows in Europe, but there seemed to be very few bugs too. In addition to the heat, there were train tracks about 25 yards from our side of the hotel. Trains were coming by about every 90 seconds. This in itself may have been tolerable, but many of the trains applied their brakes resulting in the most obtrusive, ear-splitting screeching noise which only the dead could've slept through. Despite this, we were both so tired that we actually fell asleep for a short time only to be ruthlessly awakened by the alarm clock going off at midnight! After being shook by that experience, we tried in vain to fall back asleep.  It was just too hot and noisy.  The more time that went by, the more pissed off we would get.  After a couple hours of this, it became obvious that we weren't going to get back to sleep.  Anne appeared on the verge of a mental breakdown and there was nothing I could do to make things better. In the middle of the night, we tried going for a walk to calm ourselves down, but it did little. We were going to have our third nearly sleepless night in a row! Below is a photo of Jose and me.

Wednesday, August 1 – Since we were awake from midnight on, morning couldn't arrive soon enough. We were both very tired, physically and mentally.  Plus, we arrived a day late, didn't have all our luggage and were still adjusting to the time change and jet lag. We wearily ate breakfast which was a German breakfast of lunch meats, bread, butter and juices. No cereal or eggs, etc.  Then we went to the first trip "briefing" as Leon always called them.  Here, he discussed the route for the day, lunch stop, breaks, meeting places, sights to see, etc. You basically had the choice of going from one location to the next, or riding with Leon.  We made the decision to ride with Leon.  We figured that was what we were paying him to do – give us a guided tour of Europe. He scored more bad marks with me by cracking Dan Quayle and George W. Bush jokes at the briefing. Apparently, I was the only one in the group who voiced their displeasure with these wisecracks. We went back to the room and made several calls to the United luggage trace department and all I got was a voice mail message.  I called about 10 times unsuccessfully. Each time our room was being charged with a long distance phone call. So we checked out and loaded up our cycles.  The rear seat bag I brought along fit nicely on Anne's Trans Alp, so she carried it throughout the trip.  I had one Givi box on the back of my bike and Anne had two Givi boxes on hers. We had plenty of room to take amenities along with us. We finally departed as a group around 10:45 AM and headed south out of Mainz. After about 25 KM, we stopped for a short break, where some members of the group went off on their own. The region south of Mainz was open spaces with several vineyards visible.  We proceeded southward to the town of Dittelsheim where we stopped for lunch at the Diedesheimer Hof. This place was renowned for its fine food and famous chef. Obviously, this meant a large bill would be facing us at the end of the meal.  Since I felt sick to my stomach, I ordered a Caeser salad and a coke. Anne ordered the same. The result was a bill for 70 DM – about $35.00.  This steamed me but good, but what can you do?  It's a vacation and you can't let things like that bother you.  While there, Leon called the luggage trace department for us and was told our fourth bag had arrived. However, they would not deliver it to Titisee, but to our next stop, Brienz, Switzerland. Before we left, I got sick again. Thankfully, there was a decent bathroom close by.  After lunch, we continued south. We drove for about 30 minutes on the Autobahn reaching consistent speeds of 130 km. The Varadero was a smooth ride at high speeds.  We left the Autobahn to head for France.  It was now that I first began to realize Leon was not as great a tour guide as he made himself out to be. He was driving very fast and at one point lost the entire group with his speedfest. As we were approaching the France border, we lost him and tried to regroup.  We figured out which direction to go and eventually met back up with him at the French border.  There was nothing to do at the border but drive through it.  No one stopped you there. We were only in France for a short period of time when we turned back east into Germany near Baden-Baden. Here we stopped for gas and I purchased a soft drink called Mezzo Mix, which Leon told me was just like Dr. Pepper. I did not care for it, and did not think it tasted like Dr. Pepper.  The taste was more like orange peels made into a soda. It was still very hot out – nearly 90 degrees. We left Baden-Baden and climbed slowly into the Black Forest.   It began to get pretty scenic as we were driving on the Black Forest High Road. The sun was out and it was pleasant driving for the most part.  We stopped at a café for a break. Again I got sick.  While I was in the bathroom, Leon ordered us two waters.  Of course, they were the disgusting carbonated waters, so it wasn't very good.  We left before everyone else at Leon's direction. This was the first solo riding we did. We drove on high, winding roads through the Black Forest catching some nice scenery.  Eventually, Leon caught up to us and rode with us again. We stopped after a while and he took his first opportunity to criticize Anne's riding.  We stopped again for gas and arrived in Titisee at the hotel about 7:30 PM. Thankfully, it was much cooler there because we were at a higher elevation and the hotel was fairly nice.  We took a shower and met the group at the bar at 8:15 PM.  I ordered a coke and was charged 5 DM for it! We had dinner on the terrace with a view of Lake Titisee (comparable to Devil's Lake in Wisconsin). I had the sirloin steak which was pretty good.  Here we also finally got to know some of the others from the group as we sat with Jim and Shelly from Oakland.  At 10:00 PM, we went back to the room and went to sleep.

Below is a photo of a view from the Black Forest High Road and the second photo is a view of Titisee Lake from the hotel.

Thursday, August 2 – Finally, we got a decent night's sleep. We ate breakfast at the buffet which had more of a variety of items, but still mostly fruit, bread and lunch meats. At the briefing, Leon announced that Titisee was one of the world's best places to buy a cuckoo clock.  He decided to let everyone shop for a while in the morning in the open market.  There was indeed a large selection of cuckoo clocks at various shops. However, we didn't see anything we wanted to purchase. The weather was almost perfect, sunny and in the 80's by the time we left at noon. We continued south from Titisee through the Black Forest. About 45 minutes after we left, we stopped for lunch at what looked like a farm. It was actually a farmhouse/restaurant called the Badliche Straatsbrauerei Rothaus.  Anne and I each ordered the Schinken (ham sandwich). What we actually got was a soggy slice of bread with a pile of very fatty, spongy ham on top served on a wooden board. It was edible, but not very good in my opinion. Anne ordered a glass of fresh, whole milk with her meal.  Others ordered what appeared to be a board full of fat and headcheese.  At least it was a much less expensive lunch than the previous day.  We left there about 2:15 PM and kept heading to the south.  We got to the Swiss border around 3:00 PM at Koblenz.  Here we had to stop and get off the cycles, show our passports and get them stamped. It was still very warm, nearly 90 degrees. We continued to ride into Switzerland going through several towns, when we stopped at the Fritz-Egli motorcycle dealership in Bettwil, SW. No one really wanted to go there, but it was one of the things Leon forced us to do. We spent about 30 minutes at the dealership, which I found to be a large bore.  From there we traveled to Lucerne. After fueling up I bought a Sprite, and we drove to the center of town and walked around for a while.  We walked across the covered bridge which was built in the 1500's.  It also had very old paintings in it that were destroyed in a fire in 1995. We looked unsuccessfully for a place to get an ice cream cone, then headed back to the bikes. As we went south through Lucerne, there was the largest city traffic jam I've ever seen going north. There was about a seven mile backup of traffic going north.  As we continued past Lucerne, we entered the Alps region and began climbing again.  The temperature cooled and the sun disappeared. We drove around a lake that was bluer than any lake I have ever seen.  Near the top of the Breunig Pass (the first of five mountain passes we drove on), we stopped for a few photos.  Leon took a photo of Anne and I that surprisingly turned out to be the only photo of us together on the whole trip. After that we headed toward Brienz to the hotel. On the way there, we began to see some very long waterfalls and spectacular scenery. We finally arrived at the hotel in Brienz at about 7:30 PM. We drove 200 km total. The Lindenhof Hotel was a rustic, European looking dwelling. Each room had a theme. Ours was Adlerhorst, which means eagle's nest.  There was a spectacular view of the Brienzersee from our hotel room window. In my opinion, this was the most scenic setting we would enjoy during the trip. As darkness fell, a full moon crept up over the mountain on the far side of the lake.  It is an image I will always remember.  Later that night, I also gazed across the lake at a few lights near the top of the mountain wondering who could possibly live there, or how you would be able to get up that high on the mountain.  After we showered up, we went down to the dining room for dinner. I had a pork and noodle dish and Anne had salmon.  I drank a few beers as I did on most nights. We spent time talking to a couple from Minnesota, Mike and Jen.  About 10:00 PM, we went back to the room.  This was one of the few places we were able to connect with the internet, so we took advantage and sent a few e-mails. I also called my mom from there and in the process burned up all the time on our international calling card. One minute of time equaled seven minutes of time there. We were to find out how expensive Switzerland was. This was the first opportunity to watch TV. All of the channels were in German with the exception of European CNN.  It was quite humorous to see The Fresh Prince dubbed in German.  But what I enjoyed the most was their track and field coverage. Track is big in Europe. With the windows open, we had a comfortable breeze in the room and went to sleep around 11:00 PM.

Below is a photo of the awesome view from our hotel window in Brienz.

Friday, August 3 – Today was our first rest day.  We had planned on going to Klein-Scheidegg and taking the Eiger cog wheel train up the mountain on this day.  I had read about this in a mountain climbing book.  However, it was extremely foggy this day and we decided against this.  We talked to Leon at breakfast and he said he would meet with us at 10:15 AM to discuss other activities.  We decided to walk downtown to do some shopping.  Anne purchased a watch for herself and a genuine Swiss Army knife for her mom, and I bought a music box with two dachsunds on it for my mom.  We walked down by the lake to check on boat and train rides.  Here is where I bought a funky dunky, which was an ice cream bar in the shape of a watermelon slice.  After that, we walked back to the hotel.  We shifted our plans to taking a short ride and viewing some waterfalls to the east of Brienz and on the other side of the Brienzersee. Of course, Leon discouraged this, but we did it anyway.  We left the hotel and drove east into Unterbach and saw the largest waterfall I had seen to date (we saw plenty more the next few days). I would guess it was 700-800 feet high. We took some photos and got back on the bikes because it had started raining. From there, we went to the south side of the lake to the Giessbach Falls (see photo below). This was another series of waterfalls which was a pretty scenic sight.  We did some hiking up the mountain and actually got behind the waterfall. From there, we thought we would try to drive to Interlaken from the south side of the lake.  However, I misread the map and we ended up on a twisty, curvy mountain road that slowly crept up the front of the mountain.  This was our first experience with roads known as switchbacks.  Lucky for us, there wasn't any other traffic on this road.  After about 20 minutes of this uphill driving, it appeared that we were on the road to nowhere. Adding to this, it began raining heavily.  We decided to turn back and carefully descended the mountain and drove around the east side of the lake back into Brienz.  The nice part of that ride was that we were alone and not at the whim of Leon and could go at our own pace.  We decided to eat supper at a pizza place we had seen earlier that day, Bino's Pizzeria. The waitress told us that the pizzas only fed one person.  Therefore, we ordered separately – Anne ordered a pizza and I ordered a calzone which was riddled with green peppers (which I hate).  I spent the time it took to fish them all out.  When we got our food, we realized that one pizza would've certainly been enough for both of us. We got hoodwinked on that one. While we were eating, Mark from the tour group stopped in.  We left there just as the place got very busy.  It was still pouring rain, so we walked back to the hotel and relaxed in the room.  On the way back, I noticed a poster advertising a rock concert the next night with Krokus headlining. Krokus was one of my favorite rock groups in the 80's. Once back, I continued with reading and watching track & field on German TV.  We went to bed knowing some very challenging and scenic riding awaited us the next day.

Below is a photo of Giessbach Falls.

Saturday, August 4 – Got up early, packed, ate breakfast and went to morning briefing. Today would begin our most difficult and most scenic riding in the Alps. We would traverse our first high mountain passes on our way across Switzerland.  We again decided to stay with Leon for as much of the day's riding.  He painted a challenging picture of the day's ride at the briefing. As we went out to our cycles, we realized that Ellie had dried off everyone's bike.  It was still wet, cloudy and much cooler with the temperature around 60 degrees.  We got gas at the Esso on the east end of Brienz then left this scenic town for more mountain riding.  We started out in a big group, but that quickly ended as several riders sped off ahead. A short time later, Anne and I were the last ones riding with Leon behind us.  There were numerous tall waterfalls to see to the south as we headed east. We then began climbing upward at a steady pace traveling through a seemingly never ending series of switchbacks.  The temperature began dropping and the road was wet.  Fog was settling in to the point that we could no longer see any scenery.  The road grade was increasing and for the first time on the tour I had the heebie-jeebies.  While there were guard rails on most of the roads, they weren't always there.  I couldn't resist the tendency to look over the edge at times wondering if I'd ever be found if I slipped off the road.  I began noticing that Anne's speed had decreased noticeably behind me, so I pulled over. She was getting nervous and uncomfortable with the driving conditions, and so was I.  A few moments later Leon stopped as well and tried to reassure both of us.  Unfortunately, his approach did not instill either of us with any confidence. We regrouped and continued on. The treacherous road kept angling further up to the point that we were engulfed in clouds. Eventually, we finally made it to the top of the Susten pass and slowly began our descent   After a brief descent, we stopped to take some photos and gather ourselves again (see photo below).  We had completed our second mountain pass, but this one was far more challenging than the first one.  A short time later, we stopped for lunch. We sat with Dave, Lori, Mark and Leon. I ordered a sausage for the first time on the trip as I felt my stomach problems were behind me. We finished up and left the restaurant.  Again we were in the back of the group as we headed east down the mountain.  More switchbacks as we continued down. However about 15 minutes into the afternoon ride, another setback occurred.  I was following two cars too closely. As the first car slowed, I slowed down as well. What I didn't foresee was that the first car came to a dead stop in the road in a part where it narrowed. I had to come to an abrupt stop to avoid rear-ending the car in front of me.  Unfortunately, Anne couldn't stop as quickly, grabbed the hand brake lever too hard, lost control and wiped out. Because I was in front of her, I didn't see what happened. But I heard the cycle go down and a sick feeling came over me. There we were in the Alps at a high altitude, seemingly light years from any medical help.  I pulled to the side of the road and turned around to see Anne lying in the road.  Dave & Lori were behind Anne and helped me get her to her feet.  It appeared that she had only suffered minor injuries, but was pretty shook up nonetheless. I picked up her sunglasses, which had landed in the middle of the road (they would break later in the tour). Dave helped me stand the cycle back up and we gathered ourselves.  A few moments later, Leon appeared on the scene and began chewing us out for stopping there. Dave explained to him what had happened. We got back on the cycles and traveled about a half mile down the road to a large lot. Here we stopped to discuss what happened, assess the damage and plan the rest of the day. Anne only complained about her rib cage and a few areas that were going to be bruised. There was a large scrape in the helmet and face shield, and some scrapes to the riding suit. There was surprisingly minimal damage to the Trans Alp.  Leon gave us a different route to take to Pontresina which was less challenging.  The nice part was that we were able to ride by ourselves without Leon for the first time on the tour.  It was less stressful and a little more enjoyable.  We stopped for a break near Benaduz, then headed south toward Thusis and Tiefencastel. We went through several tunnels and ascended again into the mountains. We stopped again near a lake to take a few photos where we ran into Mark from the tour group.  He had taken a wrong turn and went back because he wanted to go over the Albulapass.  We continued on and went through the Julierpass. It was less challenging than the Sustenpass, but a nice challenge for us. As we descended the Julierpass, we came down into St. Moritz.  This was a very scenic area with a large blue lake that was visible for quite a distance.  On the other side of St. Moritz was Pontresina, our destination for the day. We pulled into the hotel lot at the same time as some others who had taken a different route. We got to park our cycles in a garage. Total mileage for the day was 245 KM.  We checked into our room and Anne assessed her injuries.  A definite rib cage injury and other bruises. It could've been much worse, but these injuries would intensify over the next few days.  We went to dinner where we had veal, spaetzel, cauliflower and apricot pie tart. We sat with Gary and Lynn from Oakland. We went back to the room about 10:00 PM. We each called our parents and went to sleep.

Below is a photo of the switchbacks on the way down the Susten pass. Note the tunnel.

Sunday, August 5 – We had what had become a typical breakfast and went to the briefing.  By now, everyone knew of the accident and was asking us what had happened.  After breakfast, we took some group photos before we left.  We decided at the briefing we would ride on our own again today and take an easy route to our destination that day Voels am Schlern, Italy. This meant I would have to rely on my map reading skills.  After the briefing, Leon told Anne she would get hurt on the Stelvio pass.  I thought that was an inappropriate comment, but didn't say anything because we had no intention of taking that route anyway.  We decided we would take a valley route and take the Ofenpass just before the Italian border. The weather was very pleasant – sunny and about 70 degrees.  After filling up with gas that cost 46.50 swiss francs, we left Pontresina by ourselves and went at our own pace all morning.  We rapidly went through a scenic valley north to Zernez, Switzerland. Then we turned east and ascended the Ofenpass. Again this was a much more relaxing mountain pass without all the fog, wetness, etc.  At the top we stopped for some photos. On our descent, we crossed the Italy border at Mustair and continued riding into Glurns.  It was around 1:00 PM, so we began looking for a place to eat.  In a small town a mile north of Glurns, we stopped to figure out what to do. As we began heading back to Glurns from a parking lot, I dumped the Varadero when my rear tire hit a patch of sand.  It went over so fast, I could do nothing to stop it.  There was relatively substantial cosmetic damage to the right side. I was extremely upset with myself for allowing this to happen. I picked the bike up and we drove back to Glurns and stopped for lunch at a small café. This was our first lunch stop without the group.  Glurns is a medieval town with many extremely old buildings (see photo below). I ate a salami sandwich and Anne had some dumpling soup. The cost was 17,000 lira.  I used the bathroom which was a urine soaked hellhole. The weather was now hot again – about 80 degrees.  We left Glurns and rode east through several valleys and small Italian towns.  At Merano, we headed south where I decided to take the Autobahn for a change of pace. The plan was to take the Autobahn to Bozen which is near Voels am Schlern. However at Bozen, we stayed on the Autobahn (which was now a toll road) , figuring we could exit about 10 miles up the road, near Voels am Schlern.  Well was I wrong on that decision. There were no exits at all until we reached Chiusa, about 30 miles past Voels am Schlern. I was getting frantic wondering if or where there were any exits on this god-forsaken stretch of highway. Meanwhile traffic was blitzing past us at speeds of over 150 km.  Lucky for us, that move only cost us about $1.75 and 45 minutes of our time.  Visible high on a mountain just south of Chiusa was a large castle.  We took some pleasant back roads from Chiusa back to Voels am Schlern.  It was an intense climb up these back roads to our hotel.  Very steep and twisty roads, but extremely scenic. We arrived at about 4:30 PM, had a beer and checked into our room. The room had no TV and a rotary dial phone.  This was our home for the next two days.  We did some laundry and went for dinner.  It was a four course dinner of bruschetta bread, salad, ravioli with venison noodles, spaghetti, palenta and terramasu.  There was also different wines that we were pretty much forced to drink. It was probably the best dinner on the tour so far.  Leon introduced the owner of the restaurant, Hans-Peter to the group.  He was involved with our group for the entire stay at the Hotel Waldsee.  We left the dinner at 9:30 PM and went back to the room.

Below is a photo of Glurns, Italy. Note the medieval style and cobblestone street.

Monday, August 6 – Voels am Schlern was a scenic setting upon the top of a ridge.  There was a large outcropping to the east which we had a great view of from the room.  This large rock is called a schlern (see photo below).  The previous evening we saw some paragliders at the top of it.  I was also struck at how anyone ever ventured up to this area so remote and difficult to transcend.  The view to the valley below was awesome.  We decided to take it easy today as this was a rest day. The weather was near 70 degrees, but temperatures fell throughout the day. We began with breakfast and a briefing by Leon.  Leon offered to take some of the group to a cycle shop in Blumau. Anne still needed to try to replace her face shield that had been badly scraped in her accident. I also took some time to access the damage to the Varadero.  Most of the right side pieces were damaged in some respect, including the fuel tank.  I took one of Anne's facial wipes and did the best I could in polishing out the scrape. It wasn't visible unless you were looking directly at it. We finally left at 10:45 AM and descended into Blumau. The route down into the valley was steep, curvy and challenging. But the scenery was outstanding. We arrived at the cycle dealer, a Moto Mart.  No luck on the face shield, nor did I find any suitable items to purchase for souvenirs.  From there, we did some more valley riding, then ascended back up to the town of Castelruth. We walked around the village for a while before eating lunch at an outdoor terrace with Leon, Mike, Jen, Dave and Lori. Jim and Shelly were also there.  I ordered some ravioli. When finished, Leon took us to a conference room which was a courtroom in the 17^th century. We then drove back to the hotel after about a 50 km ride.  We decided to go hiking through the nature preserve at the hotel.  One of the trails was an old physical fitness circuit.  After returning, we relaxed in the hotel room for a few hours.  I did some more reading of "Mawson's Will" and Anne went for a massage.  At 7:15 PM, the entire group met for a group photo. Hans-Peter was also present for the photo. The dinner which followed the photo session was again superb.  The meal consisted of a duck breast appetizer, potato chip soup (which I wish I could have again), salmon pasta, ham & pork slices with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.  Dessert was a jelly roll with whipped cream. We sat with Leon and Ellie for this meal and talked about how Milwaukee had changed over the years.  Before the meal began, Leon promised the group a surprise.  This turned out to be a tour of the wine cellar. While in the cellar, Hans-Peter brought out several bottles of groppa. Groppa is wine made from the vines and skins of the grape. It is very potent and much like drinking a shot of Jack Daniels. There were different flavored groppas and some were positively revolting.  Anne and I each downed about six shots of the different groppas. It was an interesting experience.  We concluded the groppa tasting at about 11:00 PM and went back to our room. I definitely had quite a buzz going at that point.

Here is the majestic "schlern".

Tuesday, August 7 – Today was another nice weather day, sunny and in the 70's all day. We began as usual with breakfast on the outdoor terrace and had the briefing immediately after.  We decided to try our hand at another mountain pass, the Penser Joch. The Penser Joch was west of our current location and stretched north toward Austria.  We packed up our luggage, said good-bye to Hans-Peter and left the scenic Hotel Waldsee. We gassed up at the Q8 station at the edge of Voels am Schlern.  Some of the group members went ahead to take photos of the group ascending the road to Presule. This was a severe incline, and I saw a sign that read a 28% grade. I was thankful for the high horsepower of the Varadero.  We then descended into the valley and stopped at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Bozen. I bought a few t-shirts there and we played with a Doberman outside the shop.  I also put some of my Italian money into a vending machine and got about a 7 ounce can of Sprite. As we departed, Anne and I made sure we were the last ones so we could ride at our own pace.  We began our ascent toward the Penser Joch, once again climbing to the point where we had spectacular views of the valley. With the valley behind us, the road became riddled with hairpin curves and twists.  We had a few close calls with buses coming in the other direction.  Near the town of Wangen, we saw some other group members stopped at a small stand called Andy's Imbiss. The draw of this place was that it featured American food such as burgers and fries. We had not had the opportunity to eat American food at any place on the tour. Despite the opportunity, Anne and I left without eating. It was only about 11:30 AM and neither of us was particularly hungry. Therefore we continued on toward the Penser Joch. The roads became a bit wider and we enjoyed a very pleasant stretch of riding. As we approached the summit, we stopped to take a few photos (see below).  At the side of the road there was a cow that had somehow grazed up to that altitude. It was a bizarre sight.  We pressed on from there and within a few more minutes and switchbacks were at the top of the pass.  Things were going well and we had gotten to the top of a mountain pass without incident or nerve wracking riding. At the top, I pulled into an unpaved lot.  As I drove further into the lot, I realized the surface was uneven and not conducive to parking a cycle.  I stopped and gestured to Anne to stop and turn around. I got off the Varadero and started to turn it around manually, when the front tire hit a rock and it tipped over on the left side. This time I was enraged with myself. I should've known better than to enter a lot such as this. Beyond that, I was merely walking the bike by hand and this shouldn't have happened. I picked up the bike and got it pointed in the right direction.  After starting it up again, I noticed I could not shift it into first gear. A closer inspection revealed that the clutch lever had broken. So there we were at the top of a mountain with a broken clutch lever. As I pondered my options (which were few and none), Anne noticed that Gary and Lyn from the tour group were just leaving.  I ran down the road trying to attract their attention.  Gary noticed me through his rear view mirror and stopped.  I explained my embarrassing predicament to him. Being a smooth, mild-mannered individual, he calmed me down and came back to help me. He offered to push me so I could pop the clutch into second gear. This did not work, but regardless I was able to get the Varadero into second gear anyway.  Gary offered to ride it down the mountain for me, but I did not feel comfortable riding his Gold Wing down the mountain pass.  Therefore, he followed me down.  I kept the Varadero in second gear the whole way down and had no problems.  At the bottom, we ran into other group members. Jason adjusted the clutch cable for me so it was possible to shift the bike through its gears. While parked there, I drove Anne's Trans Alp back down the road to see if Leon was at the restaurant.  I was alarmed by the lack of power this cycle had.  This was no doubt part of the problems she had on the tour.  I blame Leon for offering this cycle as a choice. After not finding Leon at the restaurant, I headed back to the group. Jen was there and told us someone said there was a Moto Mart cycle dealer in Sterzing, which was only two miles down the road.  I assured everyone there that we would be fine and they continue their riding without us.  We wandered into Sterzing and could not find the dealer.  We felt it best to get something to eat and regroup.  With my cycle now semi-driveable, I felt confident I could drive it to Seefeld, Austria where we had a rest day the next day. Due to the time (2:30 PM), there were no restaurants open in Sterzing.  We settled for a couple of ice-cream bars at a café. Once finished, we stopped at a gas station where we saw Neil and Jason.  They said the clerk told them the cycle dealer was 300 meters back in the other direction. With this new information, we at last found the Moto Mart dealership. We were directed around back to the service area where I tried talking to the service manager.  He did not speak English. I mentioned the word Varadero, and he let out a laugh.  I did not take that as a good sign. Nevertheless, he tried a few clutch levers before getting one for a Honda Dominator to work. I was greatly relieved.  Now my worry was how much this emergency repair was going to cost this idiot from Jackson, WI. The bill was 60,000 lira which translates to about $35.00. I was pleased with this. We thanked him and were back on the road in only a half hour.  It was about 3:30 PM already and we had to get through Innsbruck, Austria to our evening destination of Seefeld, Austria. We quickly got back on the road and began swiftly moving toward the Austrian border.  We crossed into Austria about 4:00 PM without incident and had to slow down to the 70 km speed limit. Leon warned us not to exceed the limit in Austria. Police are everywhere along the highway.  Speaking of Leon, we hadn't seen him since we left the Harley dealer. As we headed toward Austria, a mysterious rider appeared behind Anne. I stopped to read the map and found out then it was Leon.  He offered to guide us through Innsbruck and get us to Seefeld. As we approached the south side of the city, we passed beneath a very high bridge.  One of my regrets of the tour is not getting a photo of this. With Leon guiding us, we were not able to stop.  We made our way into Innsbruck and got caught up in some heavy traffic. Near the far edge of town, we stopped for gas and finally headed NW out of Innsbruck. We were climbing again and Leon was driving very fast. He was nearly a mile ahead of us, continuing to pass vehicles like a madman (much like George Constanza on the way to see the bubble boy). At this point, I felt comfortable enough reading European maps that I didn't care if we kept up with him or not. We eventually reached Seefeld at 6:00 PM and checked into the Hotel Hochland. We had driven 183 km on this day. This was probably the nicest room we had on the whole tour.  It was a large suite with a balcony with another nice mountain view overlooking Seefeld (see photo below). By this time in the tour, Anne's injuries from earlier in the trip were really setting in. She had some moderate pain in her rib cage.  Continuing to be a warrior, she didn't wallow in too much self-pity.  We went out to the restaurant terrace and I had a beer before dinner.  At dinner, Leon decided to split the group into two tables, one men and the other women. Although somewhat immature, it was something different. I sat with Jason, Gary and Jim.  Dave told some interesting stories of his days in his Harley gang. My dinner was a salad buffet, melon cocktail, lamb with scallop potatoes and a hazel nut parfait.  Another pretty decent dinner.  We were back in our room by 9:30 PM.

Here we are near the top of the Penser Joch, moments before I broke my clutch lever. We were reasonably happy at this point!

Wednesday, August 8 - Today was our last rest day of the tour. This was the only day of the tour where we didn't ride. It was raining heavily most of the day.  We did some laundry this morning and hung it up with a series of clotheslines I made with bungee cords from the cycles. Due to the weather, it was hopeless that it would dry by our departure tomorrow. After breakfast, we walked into Seefeld and stopped at the internet café.  We spent about 30 minutes there sending out e-mails. This cost us 50 Austrian shillings.  We then made our way to the train station and decided we would take the train into Innsbruck, against Leon's advice. It was about a 35 minute ride. We then had the dilemma of which of three Innsbruck stops to get off at. After the first two looked worthless, we got off at the last stop, which was the downtown area.  Our first stop was an optical shop where we inquired about getting Anne's sunglasses repaired.  They broke a few moments after I dumped my cycle on the Penser Joch.  We left the sunglasses there and said we'd return later. He quoted us 800-900 shillings.  As we walked up the street, I saw a girl with a McDonald's cup.  I asked where the McDonald's was in my best German.  Her father gave me some directions, and we started moving in that direction. It's funny, we seldom go to McDonald's at home and now we were in a foreign country looking for one. About a half hour later, we found it and entered.  It looked much like a McDonald's here.  We ordered a Big Mac Menu and a Fisch Mac Meal for 118 shillings – about $17.00. Great deal, hey? The food tasted the same, with the only difference being the drinks were served with no lids.  It was also refreshing to get ice in my soda.  We left there and walked into a marketplace.  There we purchased some souvenirs – a few shirts.  From there, we went back to the optical shop because Anne wasn't feeling well. They weren't finished with the glasses yet, and we were up against the clock to catch the early 3:50 PM train back to Seefeld.  About 20 minutes later we paid for the glasses, which had mysteriously gone up in price to 1100 shillings.  Without time to argue, we paid and left.  We got to the train station with a mere 30 seconds to spare.  The train began moving right as we sat down. Once we returned to Seefeld, it was again raining heavily. We walked back to the hotel and Anne laid down to rest her rib cage.  I continued to read my second book of the tour. Around dinner time, Anne did not feel up to walking back to Seefeld to eat.  Therefore, I walked into town alone and stopped at a pizza restaurant.  There I saw Gary and Lyn who invited me to join them. I ordered a small proscuito pizza. The service was very slow and I didn't get my pizza for about an hour. In the meantime, I had a delightful conversation with Gary and Lyn. They insisted on paying for my dinner. I think they felt bad about our misfortunes and maladies along the tour. I walked back to their hotel room with them – a different one than ours where Lyn gave me a Vicadin tablet for Anne.  Being that it was dark, I became disoriented and couldn't find my way back to our building.  I ended up on the opposite side of a small valley in a residential section. It took me about 30 minutes to get my bearings and find my way back.  Once back, I watched a little TV and went to bed.

The view from our room in Seefeld.

Thursday, August 9 – The previous night, Anne and I decided we would go to the Neuenschwanstein Castle on today's ride.  According to the route in our tour book, we would be riding very near there.  We mentioned it to Leon at breakfast and he said he would take us there. After breakfast, we spent about an hour taking photos with Mark and the photographer from Cycle World. We packed up our wet clothes and left the hotel as a group. About 10 miles from Seefeld, we stopped and arranged the cycles for a series of several group photos.  The photographer had me put the Varadero to the left of Mark's Yamaha. These photos along with the ones at the hotel chewed up about 11/2 hours of the morning.  We would later find out neither of us, nor our cycles would appear in any photos in the article. I was a little hacked off at the time about how much of the morning was spent on these photos.  When we finally finished, we followed Leon in a northerly direction toward Germany. Dave and Lori went along as well.  Little did we know at the time, but Leon had no intention of taking us to the Neuenschwanstein Castle. In the early afternoon, we stopped for lunch in the town of Ettal.  There we asked Leon about the castle and he told us we were better off not going there because it is very touristy, so he changed the route unbeknownst to us to an area he hadn't seen in a while. That was the last straw with this guy. First of all, we paid big money to go on this tour.  Part of the billing was to be able to go and see things along the way.  Secondly, we asked him about the castle and he specifically told us he would take us there.  He even told the whole group at the briefing. Thirdly, if he had no intention of taking us there, why didn't he just let us off on our own?  Fourthly, the Neuenschwanstein Castle is mentioned in his tour book as a point of interest.  Finally, Leon continually belabored the point of how he guides this tour for a living. Well, as far as I'm concerned part of being a tour guide on a tour that costs over $3000.00 per person includes making sure your participants get to see the few things they ask to see.  What a display of pretentiousness and arrogance!

Anyway, at lunch I had a chicken sandwich and Anne ordered a bowl of soup. Afterward, we briefly went into a large bascilica behind the restaurant. There were very ornate gold sculptures on the church walls and ceiling. It was getting fairly late in the afternoon by the time we left Ettal and we had an extremely long way to go to get to Rothenburg – our evening destination (about 175 miles). This meant driving the next 4 hours at a breakneck pace.  By now, we were past the Austrian mountains and on a much flatter terrain. No more mountains, and for the first time since the tour began, the scenery was boring with nothing to see.  We were really flying down the highway – a mostly 2 lane road, trying to keep up with Leon. We went through many towns, the largest of which was Augsburg.  Needless to say, we arrived in Rothenburg very late, nearly 7:30 PM after riding 334 km. There was no parking at the hotel, so we had to park in a lot about 6 blocks away.  Leon gave Dave some poor directions and we got lost on the way back to the hotel.  I stopped some people on the street and in my best German asked for directions.  We got to the hotel and check into our room. It was a very small room, directly above the kitchen. Both Anne and I were in foul moods due to the events of the day. We showered and went down to the outdoor terrace of the hotel.  Mark's photographer was buying beers for everyone, so I drank two quick ones before dinner.  Anne and I were letting our frustrations with Leon known to other members of the group. Some agreed, and others said nothing.  I didn't care by that point what Leon or anyone else thought of us. At dinner, there was an American choice of fried chicken and French fries on the menu.  I ordered that. I ordered a raspberry dessert which I waited for a half hour for, only to be told they didn't have any more. That really fried my ass, so we immediately left the table and went up to our room.  While trying to get to sleep, we were kept awake by incessant noise from the kitchen. We finally fell asleep sometime later, trying to put the aggravating events of the day behind us.

Below is the group photo taken as we left Seefeld. Note the Varadero in front.  Leon is in the tan jacket, Mark in the red jacket, Dave in black jacket to the left.  Austrian mountains in background.

Friday, August 10 – We got up today determined to stay away from Leon today.  We ate breakfast and spent about an hour and a half walking around Rothenburg. Rothenburg is a walled medieval town that was unaffected by World War II.  Our hotel was built in 1308, as were many of the towns buildings.  We spent some time touring the shops in town and Anne purchased a drawing of the Neuenschwanstein Castle at an art store, and I bought a yodeling bear for my nephew Cade. On the edge of town, there was an old fortress which we walked up onto, and around it as well.  At about 9:45 AM, we walked back to the lot where the cycles were, mounted up and left. I had to pay close attention to the map, because we were entirely on our own and the roads were tricky and poorly marked. Our first stop was at a Harley- Davidson store in Berndshofen.  We bought a few t-shirts and got back on the road.  We had wanted to stop at the Hornburg Castle for a tour and possibly lunch.  Following the map along with Leon's sketchy directions in the tour book, I got a little off course and went about 10 miles out of the way.  Despite that, we still made it to the castle at 12:15 PM in time for lunch.  We met Gary, Lyn, Jim & Shelly in the dining room. I ate a club sandwich. After lunch, we toured the old castle and went to the top of the tower, which gave a great view of the Neckar River and the city of Mosbach (see photo below). When we got back down from the castle tower, we met Leon near where we parked our cycles. He remarked that he was surprised we made it to the castle, instead of opting for the easy Autobahn route back to Frankfurt which he had recommended for us at the briefing. We then departed at 1:45 PM and started heading north toward Frankfurt.  We were on a rather wide two lane highway allowing us to drive at a fairly high rate of speed.  The weather was overcast and in the 60's – fairly comfortable driving. At mid-afternoon we got to Dieburg where were supposed to turn west toward the Autobahn.  I found Leon's instructions to again be flawed here, as we got off course once again.  After about a half hour setback, we found our way to the A3 Autobahn and began the last stretch of driving on the tour. After about 15 minutes of Autobahn driving, we were at the airport where our hotel for the night was.  Again it was a little confusing, but we found our way to the hotel.  We parked and checked into our room.  A total of 217 km today, and a grand total of approximately 1800 km for the entire tour. Finally a room with air conditioning!  Way too little, way too late for that!  We waited in the lobby for Leon, then left to turn our cycles in. This was a moment I had dreaded since the first incident. This little side trip did not go without consequence. Again Leon being the bad guide, bolted out ahead and out of sight of Anne who was behind him. I had thought he turned into the gas station, but wasn't sure.  After about 3 miles of guideless driving on the Autobahn, I got Anne's attention and we pulled over.  Gary assumed leadership at this point and we continued on.  Luckily, Leon caught up with us and led the rest of the way.  However, there was still one last fiasco awaiting us.  With the group altogether, we waited at a stop light.  By the time Anne and I got to the light, it was already red.  No one from the group ahead waited for us. Thus, we were alone again wandering the streets of Frankfurt trying to find the cycle dealership.  We pulled over after about 6 blocks.  Again, no sight of anyone from the group. I got out my rental agreement and took note of the address.  We got back on the bikes and went looking for the street that the dealership was on. After we found the street, all we needed to do was guess which direction to go.  We picked the right one and after about another 3 blocks, we pulled into the dealership. Once there, we had to admit we both had damage on our cycles.  The owner inspected both cycles.  I did little to point out any damages. While waiting, we talked to Mike and Jen voicing our opinion about Leon.  After about 45 minutes, we paid the damages.  Anne's cycle had 887 DM and mine had 1700 DM. That translates to about $1200.00. I had originally estimated the damages to be about $2000.00, so I was pleased with this outcome. I used $500.00 of our traveler's checks and put the rest of the balance on the GM card.  It was a painful layout of money we hoped to use in England.  The owner obviously didn't notice the damaged fork on Anne's cycle, nor the damaged fuel tank on mine. I also found out at the dealer that someone had bought the Varadero while I was riding it.  Too bad for him!  Ellie then picked us up and we went back to the hotel.  We showered up and went to the farewell dinner. We sat with Leon (as usual), Jim, Shelly, Neil and Sherry.  The dinner was a buffet of numerous choices.  There were also some musicians there who played some songs at our tables.   Some members of the group got up and said some things.  We chose not to say anything. Everyone thanked Ellie who carted our luggage from one stop to the next in her VW Eurovan. Leon passed out t-shirts to everyone.  The dinner ended cordially and we went back to our room, somewhat relieved that the tour was finally over.

The view from the top of Hornburg Castle.

Some other observations from the trip are below:

The Group – Our tour group consisted of 11 motorcycles and 15 people total. Besides Anne and myself, there was Mike & Jen from Little Canada, MN; Jim, Shelly, Gary and Lyn from Oakland, CA; a family from Denver - Neil, Sherry and their sons Greg and Jason; Dave and Lori from California; and Mark also from California who was writing an article for Cycle World magazine on the Yamaha 1300.  Then there was our tour guide, Leon.  I can't say we were close to anybody in this group. We spent a little bit of time with everyone. The people of this group we rode with the most were probably Dave and Lori, and I was grateful for their assistance at the accident scene.  Below is most of the group from left around the table: Shelly, Jim, Lyn, Gary, Jen, Mike, Dave, Lori (barely visible), Sherry, Neil, Jason. Not pictured:  Greg, Mark, Leon and both of us.

The Motorcycles:  Anne and I spent a fair amount of time researching which motorcycles to rent on the internet. We worked with a list provided to us by Leon.  I chose the Honda Varadero and Anne chose the Honda Trans Alp. In retrospect what we should've done is gone to a Honda dealer to try similar motorcycles. It turned out that both cycles had high centers of gravity. The Varadero was an extremely heavy 1000cc sport bike and my feet barely touched the ground. I had trouble controlling it at low speeds.  Anne's bike was a lighter 750cc tour bike but was underpowered for this type of driving. I got used to the Varadero after a few days, but initially it was uncomfortable.  The main drawback besides the lack of power on the Trans Alp was the low windshield. We carried a rear seat bag on the back of the Trans Alp where we kept the cameras, some tools and other items we felt we would need during the days on the road.  Below is me and the Varadero just before the trip began in Mainz.

The Weather: I would say that we were pretty fortunate with the weather.  It started out very hot in the beginning, nearly 90 degrees.  For short periods early in the tour, we both drove without our jackets. It obviously got cooler as we ascended into the mountain ranges. The coldest day was the day we left Brienz and went over the Susten pass. I would estimate the temperature there at about 42 degrees. As far as rain, it rained most of the day on two of our three rest days. We only drove through rain on a few different occasions, and at no time did we drive through any thunderstorms. I wore my Ballistic Jacket every day and the pants about 50% of the time. Helmets are required by law in Europe. I used my thin leather gloves the entire trip except for the Susten pass where I put on my snowmobile gloves.

The Drinks: There isn't nearly the selection of soft drinks in Europe as in the U.S. In many places, you can only order a Coca-Cola.  If you want a bottled water, you need to order it "ohne gas" which means without carbonation. The other popular drink is Fanta, which is what Europeans consider lemonade. It is actually a carbonated orange drink. Sprite was available in some places. There was also a citrus soda I tried called Lilt, as well as a soda called Mezzo Mix which was an orange like style Dr. Pepper drink.  Wine and beer are very popular in restaurants.  I took advantage of this by trying a beer at most places we were at. The different beers I tried were:  Dortmunder, Cordal Brau, Edelbrau, Bitburger, Konigs Pilsner, Heinekin, Reininghaus, Furftenberg, Stella Artois and Licher Pilsner.

The Language: I was surprised that practically everywhere we went people spoke some English.  In most places, you could communicate in English. All regions we were in, the people always spoke German.  That appeared to be the primary language, even in Italy. The only place we ran into a language barrier was at the Moto Mart in Sterzing, Italy.  All waiters and waitresses knew some English, as well as gas station employees.

The Roads: The roads in Europe were in very good condition. Even most of the side roads we traveled on were well maintained.  There was little if any road construction.  In most countries you could drive as fast as you wanted.  The only time I saw highway police was in Austria.  Traffic moves along very quickly, but I noticed that drivers are friendlier than in the U.S. People always moved out of your way if you needed to pass. On the mountain roads, there were guardrails about 80% of the time. The fastest I remember driving was about 140 km. In Germany, motorcycles are allowed to go around all the cars at a red light to be first in line.  I also liked the fact that at a red light, the yellow light comes on for a second before the light changes to green.  This allows you to know exactly when the light is going to turn. The other European feature I liked was the roundabout. At most busy intersections, there was a roundabout instead of a stoplight.  You can go around the circle without stopping, unless there was traffic coming from the left which you had to yield to. This allowed us to motor through most towns without stopping.  For the most part, I felt the roads were marked much more poorly in Europe than in the U.S. They are marked more for what towns the roads lead to, rather than continually indicating which road you are actually on. This led to some confusion for me the days we rode on our own.  It was a challenge  reading the maps when we were on our own. I had a map bag on my gas tank which was an enormous asset.  This allowed me to check the map without getting off the bike.