Tears in Rain - July 21

To borrow from Rutger Hauer's soliloquy in Blade Runner -

I've done things and seen places I never imagined. I saw the sunset on the Baltic Sea and over the forests in Porvoo. I saw the majestic tops of the Dolomites, the green valleys in northern Italy and the flatlands of northern Germany. I shared meals with old and new friends in familiar and strange places - some amazing, some mundane, some familiar. I experienced highs and lows on the road, fear and elation, adrenaline highs and some boredom. I saw great cities, and beautiful landscapes. I met friends I haven't seen in years. I got to spend time with my family. Some day, my memories of all that, as Roy says, will be gone, like tears in rain. Until then, I'll enjoy reminiscing, telling stories, reliving the journey, and in due time setting off for new adventures.

But for now, it's time to go.

Lichtenfels - July 10-14

That's the town I grew up in, in Franconia, Bavaria. I spent the long weekend there with friends that I know from kindergarten days, which is an awfully long time ago by now. I look at my nephew, Jamie, who's now ready to leave kindergarten at the ripe old age of 6 and marvel at how small we were when we met 47 years ago.

But anyhow, I go there to see them, drink beer and eat Franconian food. Most notably Bratwürste. The kind you can't get anyplace else in the world.
In addition it was the first weekend for Schützenfest, the festival for sharpshooters, more specifically the "Royally Privileged Society of Sharpshooters", whose genesis dates to 1413. Thus this was the 601st Schützenfest.

This is actually astonishing, because it means that there has been one every year, including all the war years, and presumably there were quite a few of those in the last 6 centuries. As you might imagine, this is an important event in Lichtenfels, and there really isn't a person who doesn't go and quite a few who go every day. It's a festival, it has food, it has rides, it has beer gardens and halls, it has parades, it has a king of the sharpshooters. You go as a kid and you walk in the parade. You go as a teenager and hang around the rides, using the effect of centripetal force to have the girl get squished into you ;-) , you go as an adult to sit and drink beer - in liters, natch.

So Friday, after my high speed sojourn through upper Franconia and visits to Bamberg and Coburg, we went to the opening, which happens on the market place. There's a truck handing out some free beer, the requisite oompah band and the Schützen assemble to march out to the festival grounds to officially open proceedings.

The weather played along until we made it out there, but after that it started raining, chasing us from he beer garden to the beer hall. Ah well. Nonetheless, the Schwein's haxe (pig knuckle) was most excellent and the beer was mighty tasty.

Saturday was a gorgeous day and we wound up going to Coburg to see the Samba festival. This has evolved over time to be the biggest Samba festival outside Brazil with 200,000 visitors and 3000 performers. It was quite something and in fact way larger than I expected. The entire extended old town is dedicated to it, with at least five stages and performances on many street corners in addition.

Sunday dawned very damp, which did not bode well for the first big parade. The showers were off and on, but it did pour for precisely the hour that the parade went through town. Everyone came to see anyway, but some of the parade walkers were ill prepared and did not look happy.

In the evening, it was the World Cup final. We went early for some rides and beer and then assembled to watch the match in the beer hall. There was much rejoicing. Monday am, I hopped on the train back to Grafenau. Tschüß, Lichtenfels, until Christmas.

Gooooooooooal - July 13

Well now, that was fun! 16 years ago, I was on the Copacabana and watched Brazil loose to France in the World Cup final. Bummer. Tonight made up for that big time. I was at a public viewing in a large beer hall type place with about 1500 people. The atmosphere was great and it was a great nail biter of a match with obviously a positive outcome. The place went wild. People dancing on the tables, waving flags, general mayhem. Very amusing. For the past hour or so, people have been driving through town, honking and going nuts. Germany is in World Cup fever. The fourth championship, one behind Brazil.

The World Cup has been an unexpectedly fun companion throughout the bulk of my travels. I watched matches at home with my family, in Irish pubs in Finland with Chris and Lonnie, in Glenn's garage in Berlin, in Riva del Garda with Tom, in some random cafe in Sondalo, and now in Lichtenfels, in the Stadthalle with Michael, Claudia and 1500 other fans. It comes to an end as my travels do. Timing is everything.

Boost - July 11

Forget Crystal Meth, this is mainlining adrenalin. "Oh wow man, what a rush". Who can name that quote? :)
Non gear heads can tune out now ;)
Borrowed my friend Michael's 911 turbo today to drive around a bit.
The relentless acceleration has to be felt be believed. It just doesn't stop. I did at 170mph, but I know the car has almost another 30 mph in it. Not today. The section of autobahn where I got to play is pretty curvy and taking sweepers at 135 takes some getting used to, even though the car has semi slicks and I know my friend Michael takes them flat out. The addiction happens fast. I was planning to just visit Bamberg and Coburg, but found myself blowing past exits to get more playtime.

You can just leave the car in 6th and it'll go. Boost comes on at 3500 and then really kicks at 4500. A couple of times I got a clean launch off an entrance ramp and kept it on the boil in every gear. Yow.
I think it makes about 520 hp on over boost, so my piddly 345 will seem pretty lame when I get home. Still, the car gathers speed so silly fast that I really wouldn't want it in the land of ludicrous speed limits. Hard enough to stay reasonable with mine.
Anyway, that was fun. As the Porsche slogan used to say "Kills bugs fast"

Finland recap

Still catching up. I assembled the Finland pictures and thought it was a good time to reflect back on the trip.

Finland - June 2014

I want to give a big shout out to Monna for organizing the trip and coming up with all the things for us to do. We wish you had been there to show us your country and we missed you.
So clearly it could have been better, but such is life. We did have a good time, saw a lot of places and things, had interesting and fun experiences, and got to enjoy the white nights. Cheers.

Berlin, June 20-23

It's about time I finished this. I've been a bit busier on this trip than anticipated. It's fine though. Anyway, onwards...
 
I like Berlin. I noticed that last time I was there, in 2008  High time to go back. I'm not counting the drive by during my loop of Germany, though the evening was great fun. I would be staying again at Nina & Glenn (& Tom)'s place. Since Tom wasn't into going out to party, we stayed at home and polished off some of Glenn's red wine supply. Beer and Prosecco supply as well I think.

Saturday, Glenn & I set off to explore Berlin from above and below. We started with a quick visit to the Bernauer Straße, where famously the East German soldier jumped the fence. It's now a bit of a Wall memorial, with murals, posts explaining some of the history and a symbolic wall running along the street.

After that we went underground to see an air raid shelter, that's part of the subway system. There's a group of people who preserve old (mostly) underground installations. The educational tours support that endeavor. Sadly no pics allowed, but it was a fascinating look into what it was like to be in one of those shelters during the war. Another funky bit was the tube mail system running below the entire city at one point. We finished the sight seeing by driving around the city a bit more and having a requisite Curry wurst.

Saturday night was the Germany - Ghana soccer match. We had set up a projection TV in the garage and a bunch of neighbors and friends showed up to grill and cheer (and to put a dent in Glenn's Obstler supply). It stayed dry and not too cold and everyone had a grand old time. Did Germany win that match? I don't remember. I guess those braincells were wiped out by one too many glasses schnaps.

Sunday was a bit of a slow start, but we nonetheless rallied and did a boat trip on the Spree. No doubt the sights were nice, but more importantly we were able to have a beer on board, which put us back on an even keel - so to speak.

Right along the Spree is a lengthy piece of the wall, now covered in graffiti. Really more art than graffiti really.

We finished off the sightseeing on Monday by going up the TV tower and seeing Berlin from above. A visit to the famous Alexanderplatz, another quick curry wurst and it was off to the airport for me.

It was a fun weekend and the city really has a great vibe. I would love to live there for a while, but I need to figure out how to do that...

Bag o' Passes

If that's not all, it's certainly all the major ones. It's a satisfyingly long list. The numbers are elevation above sea level in meters. The delta from where the pass roads began varied wildly. All had different personalities. Some were scary, some were epic, some were tight, some were fast. Some had smooth roads, some rough, some wide, some (very) narrow. Many dozens of tunnels & galleries, lit, unlit, hand carved, smooth, cobble-stoned, dripping, short, long (8km). Thousands of curves, hundreds of switchbacks. All were great. Luckily none were gravel.

Austria:
Fernpass 1215 3x both ways
Brenner 1374
Reschenpass 1510
Hahntennjoch 1894
Dolomites:

Grödnerjoch 2121 2x
Sellajoch 2244 2x both ways
Campolungo 1875 2x
Pordoijoch 2239
Falzaregopass 2105
Fedaiapass 2056

Switzerland and Lombardy:
Passo Agueglio 1241
Splügenpass 2113
Ofenpass 2149
Julierpass 2284

Veneto:
Passo Duran 1601
Passo di San Boldo 706

Sudtirol/Valtellina:
Jaufenpass 2099
Timmelsjoch 2509
Passo Stelvio 2758
Gaviapass 2621

Passo Tonale 1883

Lago di Garda:
Passo Canalette 1617
Passo San Rocco 1020

Not actual passes:
Monte Zoncolan 1730
Kaunergletscher 2750
Monte Bodone 1570
Martelltal end 2051

End of the road - July 7

But we went out in a blaze of glory. Once again, the weather forecast looked none too promising, but it seemed like the likelyhood of bad weather was more towards the end of the day. I wanted to have some fun before burning up the Autobahn for the last stretch, so I decided to finish this part of the journey the way I started, by crossing the Timmelsjoch. As luck would have it, I had to cross the Jaufenpass (2099m) to get there. Somewhere around 2050m, after popping out of the tree line, I met the clouds. Nothing too bad until I crossed to the other side, at which point I ran into a whole lot of gray. What's more exciting that riding a pass in the rain? ... Luckily, the clouds/fog seemed to not adhere to the mountain. This left enough space for the road to be visible, giving the eerie feeling of riding through some weird tunnel.

Luckily, after a few miles, I rode back out of the clouds and could enjoy the long, 27km descent a bit more. The moment I hit the bottom, I turned to go up the Timmelsjoch - but not before stopping to get my last Espresso in Italy - sigh...
The Timmelsjoch crests at 2509m, so I was wondering what the cloud cover would be like up there. I probably said that before, but it is a fantastic road. Wide, sweeping, awesome panoramas. A joy to drive and a joy to drive quickly if one is so inclined. Also easy and safe to pass those not so inclined. I think everyone should go up at least once, it's just beautiful. One can even take the bus up there or the gondola lift out of the Ötztal for hiking.
The clouds, luckily, were not as dense as before, so running into them at the top really wasn't a problem. It did provide for a interesting view of the mountains and valley.

The run down from the pass through the Ötztal is very pretty as you exchange the mountains for the green valley below. But that was it for the fun. A quick pop over the Fernpass and on to the German border and the Autobahn. After 7h on the bike I finished my marathon stage of nearly 500km back in Grafenau. Much to my surprise, I did not get wet and the promised thunderstorm did not come until late in the evening.
And so, 2300km and two weeks later I get to look back on another grand adventure. Less driving, more sightseeing this time around. I now feel very familiar with Südtirol and the Veneto. I got to do most of what I wanted to do and see most of what I wanted to see. I even forgive Riva for being what it is - well, mostly. I'd like to go back, but there are so many other places to see. We shall see.

A final goodbye to Italy from Lorenzo, named after his creator who goes by the name "Der mit dem Windhauch spricht". His genesis is from the river that carries the the snow melt from Stelvio.

Ciao.

Dolomites - July 6

I meant to get a good night's sleep because I planned on doing some serious riding today. That grand plan was foiled by the wedding revelers and by a bout of gluttony on my part brought on by the location. Also, at 7am some very enthusiastic church bells roused the believers from their slumber to get ready for church. The unbelivers, sadly, were collateral damage and also awake. It is always ill advised to do the menu completto in Valdo, but it's oh so difficult to resist. I alway say "yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again". So I didn't, resist that is, and washed down some awesome food with a bottle of Prosecco and a caffe corretto. Yum. Fried zucchini blossoms, sopressa, pancetta, gnocchi with duck ragu, grilled steak and beans, dolce. Oink, I know. I really need to eat iceberg lettuce for a week. When it was time to go they were preparing lunch, and boy was I ready to stay...

Instead, north to the Dolomites. The forecast was mighty dicy, but I decided to chance it since today was my last day south of the Alps, and the only other viable option was to stay for lunch - tempting.
I rode out through Prosecco country and then north via Passo di San Boldo. Aptly named because the switchbacks are tight single lane IN tunnels. The whole things is one way at a time only and controlled by lights. Check it out, there are some cool pix out there.
As I was decending from San Boldo, the Dolomites came into view. Awesome, but with some worrisome cloud banks.

As I was driving along I passed a traffic light type sign which had all the high passes listed. About half were in red. Oops, so much for blind optimism. Well, at this point, the was nothing to do but press ahead. I recognized most of the names, so I thought I should be able to navigate around them. I decided to go towards Cortina because the clouds weren't quite so dark in the east. It was then that I realized one of the unknown passes was in the way. Well, lots of people seem to be going up so let's give it a try. After a third of the way (9 switchbacks) traffic stopped dead. Fine, that didn't work out, back down, onwards to plan B - into the dark gray stuff. I decided it was a good idea to make sure everything was in its watertight bags and that I was fully zipped up.

What's more exciting than riding a pass in the Dolomites? Why riding it in the rain of course. Luckily it wasn't one of the very high ones - only 1800m - and I'd ridden it before, so I knew it was pretty tame, but not a whole lot of fun anyway. Made it down into Corvara where I expected to turn off towards the Wuerzjoch, my target for today, where I planned to stay in the refugio. Unfortunatley the town was basically closed. Some sort of festival/bike race and I could only go west up Gruendnerjoch (2200m). Luckily the rain stayed away from at run and the street dried out as we gained altitude. It's a great pass with spectacular views, but it totally took me away from where I wanted to be.

I tried to map a reasonable ride back to the refugio, but finally gave up in frustration and decided to bunk in Brixen. It's a good launching point for riding the Timmelsjoch again on my way back to Germany tomorrow.

 

P.S. Second time around, the Dolomites were just as mindblowing.