Maps and short stories about the actual itinerary of my 2008 European tour

Showing posts with label itinerary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label itinerary. Show all posts

June 22, 2008

From Prague to Warsaw by Krakow

The road from Prague to Warsaw saw a very special 3 day stop in Krakow. After about more than 500km from Prague to Krakow ridden at high speeds on boring highways while being blown by strong side winds all over the road, what I was to find in this adorable city was a gift of fate.

The second lag from Krakow to Warsaw was a good lesson in how not to trust your GPS when the maps it is using are rather crap, as proved to be the case of the map of Poland contained by the City Navigator 2008 Plus from Garmin.


Although I have carefully double checked if the option to avoid unpaved roads was selected, and it was, the local authors of the map were probably too proud to admit that their otherwise lovely green country had also some roads that still wait for the people at Tarmac inc. that they marked everything as “paved” which I painfully discovered was not at all the case. So at few occasions, after the tar strip narrowed to the point where 2 (small) cars could not pass one next to the other, at some points even that disappeared into what was very bumpy dry dirt or even worse (I had to turn around there) very fine deep dust.

As I don’t like taking my motorbike on highways as they are rather straight and boring for someone liking the more “waltzing” part of motorcycle riding, I also try to avoid dirt roads, not because the trusted GS could not take them into it’s ample stride, but because I’m rather fed up with them. Not on this choice of road the Zumo made for me...



From Maps

From Bregenz to Prague by Munich

So after the "delightful" camping experience in Bregenz this is the journey lag to Prague. In Munich I was for 1 1/2 days just to make a visitat the BMW world for few minor check-ups and a much useful GS tank-bag. In Munich I also changed the original GS windscreen equiped with the Touratech extension with a much better Wunderlich one piece larger screen - good choice. Got new riding pants as well because the ones I left Romania with although very good did not had the removable waterproof lining and I was sweating a lot even on cooler days.
The overnight stop I had to make in Vimperk on the way from Munich to Prague was just a good's night's sleep in a decent but overpriced hotel. The last day of this lag was just about 4 hours riding to Prague where I got by noon and checked in at the very pleasant Drosus camp. More about my stay in Prague in another post.

Day 9 - 26 May: Bregenz to Munich
Day 10 - 28 May: Munich to Vimperk
Day 11 - 29 May: Vimperk to Prague


From Maps


Few more exceptional riding days: Budapest to Bregenz

If you will notice a discrepancy in the sequence of numbers of the days and the equivalent calendar dates please assume that in the missing days I have been staying in the last stop of the previous leg (in this case Budapest, not that it has proven very productive in terms of writing so far, but please bear with me...)

Day 5 – 22 May: Budapest – Bruck an der Mur (amazing secondary roads)
Day 6 – 23 May: Bruck – Kitzbühel – Jenbach (breathtaking Kitzbühel horn)
Day 7 – 24 May: Jenbach – Thaur (just riding around the Tirol valley)
Day 8 – 25 May: Thaur – Bregenz (splendid mountain passes)


From Maps

Today in Bregenz is my first camping day in the trip. Can’t say I like it very much...

Road-map of the first 4 days: Bucharest to Budapest

The waypoints on the map below can't be edited, or at least I don't seem to know yet how, so don't take them literally.
Day 1 - 15 May: Bucharest - 30km past Deva at "Gradina lui Ion" roadside inn
Day 2 - 16 May: Roadside inn - Gyomandröd
Day 3 - 17 May: Gyomandröd - Eger
Day 4 - 18 May: Eger - Budapest

From Maps

Today is the 20th May and I'm still in Budapest...

The rough sketch

So here I am, a step closer to departure. By now I have decided on the main path of the journey, i.e. the countries I want to go through and the sequence I want to follow in doing so. But beside this, and some pre-researched pointers for each of the countries that I will go through, there will be no more planning: no calendar, no roads to take, no dates of arrival. I want to keep this trip as open as possible in such a way to stay free to decide on new places to discover if recommended by locals or fellow travelers, or more days to stay in places that will prove more welcoming, interesting or fascinating altogether. In other words I want to leave room for this adventure "to happen as it unfolds".

So, following is the list of the countries I plan to go through: Hungary - Austria - Slovakia - The Czech Rep.- Poland - Lithuania - Latvia - Estonia - Finland - Sweden - Norway - Denmark - Germany - Holland - Belgium - France - The British Isles - Spain - Portugal - Switzerland - Italy - Croatia - Serbia and back to Romania.