The Ardennes and Germany

[panzerrocket]

Originally Posted by cvcaelen

great writing :)

I also like riding in the Ardennes,
takes me 2 hours to get there from where I live,
but it's worth it,
every time.
Never been to Baton Rouge though, must visit them soon.

Greetings
Christiaan

Hi cvcaelen, thanks for your comment. You should definetly try to stay a weekend at Baton Rouge. Highly recommended.

[Blader54]

Wonderful report! Thanks so much for taking us along with you. Africa, Asia, and South America are fine but I really like reports about Europe, from the perspective of a "sporty" bike. I am making notes of your route and hotels for the future. Baton Rouge will be a destination, for sure.

[panzerrocket]

Originally Posted by Blader54

Wonderful report! Thanks so much for taking us along with you. Africa, Asia, and South America are fine but I really like reports about Europe, from the perspective of a "sporty" bike. I am making notes of your route and hotels for the future. Baton Rouge will be a destination, for sure.

Thanks Blader54, more to come now, so keep your pen sharp and ready

[panzerrocket]

After a good night's sleep I was on my way again. Weather was okay, partly cloudy, with good temperatures. I criss-crossed through Eifel north-east bound avoiding everything that looked like a larger city by sticking to the smallest roads. Yesterday in a mega-big fucker of a supermarket, I was so lucky to stumble over the ADAC KartenSet 1:200,000. Excellent! For the last 10 years I've used Shell's Die General Karteset 1:200,000 over Germany, and that's mildly spoken worn out, and not quite up to date I'd in my idiocy left 2/3 of the Shell map-set at home mostly using 1:500,000 maps over Germany. The smallest roads are not on a 1:500,000 scale map... But back to the riding.
Small nice german towns.





Suddently I hear this unmistakebly sound and point the camera to the sky. Shooting 20 something pic's at highspeed, I managed to get this shot. They were flying bloody fast and low!



Lovely Eifel.





Taking it easy, time to enjoy.



I noticed at some point that I'd crossed into the state Hessen, and thought to myself wait a moment, I know about a biker-hotel in the so-called Saurland in Oberhessen. I stopped at a parking/resting-area and got the pc out. Found the adress and plotted it into the GPS. Damn it was only 8 km away. But the time was only 14:00, a bit too early to stop, or what? To hell with it I thought got to check that biker-hotel out for future reference. So I rode to the small town Battenberg-Dodenau.



Recently I'd noticed that a lot of the houses had slate on the walls. Here I found a nice old house looking like that.



Then I checked in at the biker-hotel Arnold.



Also a nice biker-place with a good atmosphere.



Coming there so early, I had a lot of time to plan the rest of my route home on the smallest roads with my new ADAC map-set.
After my route-planning was done I went down to the bar before dinner. I got talking to a local guy who'd had a beer or 3 too many. He kept telling me how good I spoke german, and all I could answer was, but you're drunk and talking too bloody fast for me, I only understand half of what you're saying! He didn't seem to mind though, so I tried to say yes and no, in what seemed like the right places
After another brilliant day and evening it was off to bed.

[IslandMonkey]

"I had a short ride through Luxembourg on my way to Germany, and stopped here for a coffee."



Do you recall the name of this town? About 3 years ago I passed through Luxembourg with my brother-in-law on our way home from a European tour. We stopped somewhere for coffee and I bought some stickers for my panniers and some rolling tobacco, but neither of us can remember the name of the place. I think this is it.

[panzerrocket]

Hi IslandMonkey.
The town is Diekirch 28 km north of the city of Luxembourg, as the crow flies.

[slide]

Great RR. The writing and pictures could make an advertisement for touring the region.

[IslandMonkey]

Originally Posted by panzerrocket

Hi IslandMonkey.
The town is Diekirch 28 km north of the city of Luxembourg, as the crow flies.

Thanks.

[panzerrocket]

Originally Posted by slide

Great RR. The writing and pictures could make an advertisement for touring the region.

Hi slide thank you very much

[panzerrocket]

I'd planned to have a look at a small bit of Saurland. Under a clear blue sky I rode east,



untill I reached naturpark Kellerwald-Edeersee where I went along the shore of Affolderner See,



followed by Edersee. Saurland turned out to be a pleasant surprise, got to get back here again to explore the area.



I went north of Kassel to avoid traffic, and crossed the river Wesser on my way into Naturpark Mürden.







The vacation was getting near the end, so I tried to slow down, enjoying the last bit.





Nice riding area.



When crossing Lüneburger Heide it started to rain around 16:00, so I checked in at Schumann's Hotel.



In the bar after dinner I got talking to a woman, seemingly nice. And well, men are men, so no need to tell you what I was thinking about. It quickly turned out to be a nightmare, as she spent an hour telling me how dangerous it was to ride a motorcycle, with no respect to me or my points of view. I tried to say that I was aware of the dangers and after 25 years of succesfully surviving riding my bikes, I thought that I had a pretty good idea as to what I was doing. It was like talking to a deaf. She bulldozed me down. Talking about my son, and eventually of my riding with a 6 year old approx. 30,000 km over Europe finding that safe, she went totally bananas and called me irresponsible. Well horny or not, I was fed up with her shit, and told her fuck you bitch - and went to bed.
I usually regard myself as a good ambassador for motorcycle-riding, but that was just too much.

Next morning it was a damp and misty morning when I started out.



I don't know what it is with me and Lüneburger Heide, but I never seem to ride here in sunshine.



I'd planned to ride up through Holsteinische Schweiz, a nice area in the northern most part of Germany. But it was raining on and off, and several times I thought of just hitting the autobahn to get home.
Thankfully the rain stopped at last.





Holsteinische Schweiz is a very beautiful area, and being close to the ferry to Denmark an excellent place for shorter trips.





Last ziggy stop here,



before I boarded the ferry and afterwards blasted up the motorway to Copenhagen.
It's been a good trip. I really enjoyed riding with team rrr, and as I'm writing we're planning a get-together evening with some good food. One can only hope that planning of future trips will take place
On the other hand I also enjoyed having a week by myself. For the past 2 years I've been riding with Nikolai, my son. He's without comparison my best riding-buddy, but it was nice for once to be on my own, only thinking of my own needs and what I wanted.
And then I got the chance to ride some brilliant parts of Europe.

That was all from me guys and girls, I hope you enjoyed.

[Don T]

Good RR.

Funny to read the story from another point of view after having read Kox' RR from the same trip.

[MustTourEurope]

Nice to see familiar faces on the first page of your report

[panzerrocket]

Originally Posted by Don T

Good RR.

Funny to read the story from another point of view after having read Kox' RR from the same trip.

Thanks Don T

[panzerrocket]

Originally Posted by MustTourEurope

Nice to see familiar faces on the first page of your report

Hi MustTourEurope, yes small world isn't it?

[Unstable Rider]

Epic stuff!

What a great write up. May I ask about the camera you used?

Great photos I must say.