The Second Grand Tour Part 1: To The Water.

Didn't take many pictures in Hungary, so here is a poppy field, ooh, ahh

The Summer has officially begun.

The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing and Londoners are explaining to bartenders that it is hot outside, remarking that it's lucky that they are working in a dark bar, possibly for under the living wage and for longer hours than is technically legal, because at least they don't have to sit outside and have BBQ's with their friends, god forbid.

Ask not for whom the cloud rains, it rains for thee

Here in central Europe, the weather will now be a consistent mix of sun, apocalyptic rain, then sun again, then 'seriously guys I see the horseman, the end is nigh' thunderstorms and finally back to sun. The summer hit us quite quickly after the excitement of getting married and all, and we realised it would go just as fast if we didn't hurry up and get exploring. We have an amazing opportunity this year to take time into our own hands and have real adventures before we head back to London to begin the next stage of our lives together. So Two days before we actually set out, we worked out where we could go for a two week period before we returned to the UK to finalise our affairs and celebrate our wedding with the Brits. We considered Italy, a bit of Eastern Europe and finally a trip to the Baltic sea and Scandinavia (which on second thoughts would take a really bloody long time, plus it was the summer and hot. So there was only one thing for it; we would ride to the Former Jugoslavia and travel down the Adriatic coast. It turns out that Croatia has a pretty nifty sea road that would keep the sea at our right hand side as we rode down to Herzegovina. So on Friday 2nd June, we decided to wake up early and pack our bags for the long ride across Hungary.

We super weren't ready so instead we left on Saturday 3rd. Now Hungary has a network of convenient Highways across the whole country, linking important cities and international routes. That being said Eastern Hungary's flat steppe landscape is really bloody boring after the first two hours. Budapest was exciting as always, our GPS suggested that it would be advisable to go through the city centre. Now you may not know this, but there are a lot of impatient Hungarian drivers, and driving through a city is the worst. We were nearly knocked off and flattened on multiple occasions, the most exciting of which was when a lady decided that there were two many people in her lane and instead she'd try her chances at not slowing down and flying into oncoming traffic, during this performance the part of oncoming traffic was played by us.

Nevertheless we made it past the city and across the Western half of the country to the Balaton (a giant lake, locally referred to as the 'Hungarian Sea'). We found a small town by the name of Zalakaros on the south end of the Balaton and stayed there for our night in Hungary. It may not be news to anyone but me, but Europe is ram-packed with apartment rooms available to people touring on the roads. These are basically cheap hotel rooms in people's houses with parking spaces or garages, perfect for riding a motorcycle. At this point I'd like to thank the ageing German camping community for this, it definitely made our trip easier.

The Istrian Coast in Slovenia

The next day we crossed into Slovenia and the landscape changed dramatically. Where there were fields, there were now mountains, where the green was deep, it was now light, and there are amazing vistas as you roll across the gorges and through hills. The road bent and twisted in pleasing curves as well. Slovenia is a Motorcycling dream. We stopped for lunch in Ljubljana (a pronunciation that I'm not sure is possible to get right). And explored the city a little. It is an amazing green city, with no cars in its centre, beautiful streets lined with trees and huge Habsburg buildings dominating the skyline. Sadly we didn't have a choice but to carry all our stuff with us, which was really heavy and hot in the midday sun. We left for the Slovenian coast after Lunch and enjoyed more of the highways that this tiny republic had to offer. The coast was a bit disappointing. The small old towns were nice but access to the sea was not really a thing, there was a small crowded beach, but it was packed and right next to a massive industrial shipping yard.

Ljubljana, heavy bags, cobbled hills and delicious overpriced refreshments

Not really summer holiday vibes.

We spent the night in a coastal town called Portorož and decided to leave the country for Croatia the next morning. And this is where I will leave you in this part, stay tuned for the Dalmatian coast in part 2, which I'll post tomorrow!

Puffer

The End of the First Grand Tour.

The oh so Reichstag.

So as it turns out it is not too easy to keep a travel blog when the movement starts picking up as the days go by. As of now I am sitting in Debrecen, Hungary organising the final parts of the first two wedding celebrations and for the first time since my last post I have the time and energy to write this post. You are all welcome, drones.

To begin this where we left off. We came to a realisation in Maastricht that we were fast running out of time on our tour across Central Europe due to unfinished wedding preparations before the big day/days. So we had to re-organise the rest of the trip to get down to Debrecen in five or six days. Not an easy task as this didn't just involve cutting out days in places and destinations (sadly only got one day in Cologne and we had to miss out on Vienna which I was devastated about) but also spending much longer days in the saddle as we had over a thousand miles to cover. Motorcycling is a fantastic hobby and gives you a large amount of emotional freedom, but it is not without its downsides as will be explained in this post.

Two little dogs enjoying the sun with a third even smaller dog close to the camera.

Up until now we had been riding for 3-4 hours a day, stopping at various points of interest along the way, but now we had to cover too much ground and also fit into good weather days as riding in the cold and rain can range from a tad uncomfortable to downright impossible. So to start off easy, we took the quick trip between Maastricht and Cologne. Although the transition between countries in Europe is no more than a blue road sign these days, it has to be said that there is always a subtle change of scenery as the landscape unfolds in-front of you. I can't say that we saw a lot of the real Germany, even if we crossed everything except Bavaria, but there were two things of note:

1.) Germany is a giant forest of Conifers, a little like that sad part of Lord of the Rings when Sean Bean gets pin cushioned.

and 2.) The Autobahn is the most convenient and yet boring road ever.

Honestly this cathedral is bigger than Kanye, and only slightly more religious.

But anyway, Cologne is a pretty amazing place. Our host, a friend of ours who we met in London, was a local through and through and showed us some of the amazing things this Rhineland city has to offer. FYI: It has a bloody massive cathedral that you can see from pretty much everywhere, along with a bridge with so many love locks it makes Paris look as romantic as Staines. But the greatest feature of Köln is its breweries, which will keep supplying you with fresh glasses of beer until you physically stop the waiter by either placing a beer mat on the glass or wrestling them to submission.

We kind of had to didn't we?

We had a few technical problems with the bike in Cologne which delayed our departure (wouldn't complain after that hearty German Breakfast mind you!) but finally took the first long ride across the country to it's capital. It was gruelling and didn't get easier at any of the re-fuel stops but finally we made it on a beautifully warm evening to Berlin. We were kindly put up in Berlin by an artist friend of mine who is doing exciting things with reclaimed bones, if you would like to see her extraordinary work you can find it Here. Now we didn't get to experience Berlin to its full extent.

Motorcycling is a deeply personal experience. You must both fight and embrace the road simultaneously while navigating across landscapes and your own perceptions. You find that there is a lot of time for thinking sitting in the bucket that is your helmet, and between the two of us we thought both great and terrible things. But I digress, it was thanks to Vanda's patience that we found what was lost and moved on from the stunning but small town of Brno, which we didn't see enough of to write meaningfully about so here are some pictures:

Brno in its melancholy twilight.

We decided to stop off in Budapest to split the last journey in two and make it more bearable, like every other night we had been blessed with on this trip, it was a hot evening and we had a beer with a Hungarian friend of ours at the Akvarium bar. It was a cathartic experience having come so far to know there was only two hours left and we enjoyed the night with understated revelry.

Budapest of the bright lights.

The final ride was the worst, we were nearly run down by at least two impatient drivers and literally no-one was indicating or giving us any idea what they were doing, paired with strong winds it was a ride I would rather soon forget. But finally, we came into Debrecen with laughter and smiles having traversed Europe on a big bastard of a motorcycle, carrying way too many things over a route that was way too long and having all the ups and downs of a real adventure. Our first one. All in all we enjoyed the experience and are looking forward to our next 'Grand Tour'. But first we have to survive the greatest adventure of our lives, our wedding...in three days...god help us.

What pretty, exhausted mugs we own.

I shall leave you with the route map and hope that you can find it as impressive as we do, we are very impressed with ourselves.

Onto the next!

Puffer