Two Wheels move the Soul

41st Anniversary picture in Oberursel Well after a beautiful day in Heidelberg and a visit to our friend and bike shipping contact Stefan, we changed oil on the Strom, took mileage readings and then headed back to Frankfurt where we met up with Heiko Heiko, a true friend indeed! for our anniversary supper. It was a beautiful evening in Oberursel and we ate out at Zum Schwanen, a pub that Sandra and I had discovered back in 2011. Back when we began to plan our ‘retirement trip’ which became the 2011, 5 month 22,500 km 16 country 3 continent extravaganza, we had quickly realized that we really enjoyed the opportunity to travel this way and see all the places we wanted to see.  It became and always will be our “Trip of a Lifetime”. We have now completed 5 motorcycle trips to Europe, spent cumulatively a year on the continent, visited 24 countries , and saw in excess of 180 World Heritage Sites and traveled approximately 60000 kms . by motorcycle. We even learned that w

Moto Guzzi Factory and Museum As everyone knows when we plan our trips we look to connect great riding roads to great destinations. The past two days have been just so. We left Levanto early. It was hot already, about 28C at 08:00 hrs, but as we got into the mountains behind the coolness was evident for a bit. We took the autostrada to Genoa where we got held up for close to 30 mins in a series of traffic jambs. Nothing like being in a tunnel and not moving, but we finally weaved our way through the cars/trucks and headed off toward Milan, finally getting out of traffic there and into Mandello de Lario, on Lake Como, and one of the exhibit halls  the home of the Moto Guzzi factory and museum, where we waited until 3 pm for the opening of the museum. The exhibits were good, but it’s a shame that the new company that opens them, Piaggio hasn’t spent a restoration dime there. Hey guys, how do you expect to re-build the brand? A racing 3 cylinder Fin

Porto Fico at breakfast, you can feel the heat Monday we woke up to another gorgeous morning over Lefkada Island, and our preparations to leave. It’s hard to believe the change in the hotel, and village in 10 days. Jane had said to us when we arrived “ Tell us what time you’d like breakfast, since you are our only customers”, to now being almost full with at least 4-5 families of 2-3 children each, plus a number of couples. The breakfast buffet was now being provided by hired staff, brought on to handle the load. June 15 th seems to be a th reshold for Vassiliki and Porto Fico alike. We left after saying our goodbyes to Valentino as well, though Vicky and Florien, from Human Sport  Surfstation were a little late arriving that day,( part of Greek time and surfing) . Jim, Stasis’ brother arrived and told us again how much he loved and respected Canadian people from his visit to Vancouver for 6 mths. a few years back. Something we will have to live up to. We shook hands and we

S4   S un,  S ail, S urf and S miles Falassarna Beach So where have we been the past while? We decided to enjoy the area around Kissamos while waiting for the ferry that never came, so when booking tickets off the island the travel agent asked if we’d been to Balos beach, or Falassarna beach. They explained that Balos was listed as I think 35 on the top 100 list and that Falassarna was beautiful as well. Seems the only way to get to Balos now is by an all day ferry excursion as the bad road in got washed out with the spring rains, so we headed to Falassarna for a day. As we drove into the area parking the Ford Fiesta in front of us bogged down in the sand and got stuck. Seeing this I swerved to the left, felt a slow sinking feeling and hit the gas, creating quite the rooster-tail but getting enough momentum to not sink in. It is a beautiful stretch of beach listed as #100 on the top 100 list of world beaches (so who cares). On that list, Chestermere Beach or Long Beach is

To all our friends and followers who travel by bike as well, Stefan Knopf has a container shipment planned for late October 2013 to Vancouver  from Heidelberg) arriving 5-6 weeks later. The reason I mention it is two fold. One he is a great guy to deal with and fair pricing, the second is that our bike will be shipped back and by adding more bikes to the container everyone's costs are reduced. So give him a shout and let him know where you hea rd it!

After a number of European trips, specifically covering 7 years of ferry travel I think I can distill some common practices to trip organization with ferries involved. Routes and Schedules There are a number of good resources on the web but one I have used the most extensively now is this one , Ferries.gr. It covers many of the ferries that travel to Greece and within Greece. But one thing you should know, Greek routes and schedules change from season to season, so but less so from year to year. So, if you want to travel in June , July 2014, review schedules now. But it is unlikely that you will be able to see an off-season schedule for later this year. They are ready to schedule likely 6-8 weeks in advance nothing more. Similarly, Marmaris Ferries will do the same for travel to Turkey from Greece. Another great resource for Greece in particular is The Greek Island Hopping travel guide. It’s a very comprehensive guide showing such things as “routes by port”, “frequency b

Lost in Vai, Crete As we circumnavigate Crete we head to the far south (east) to Kato Zakros http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakros , an ancient Minoan settlement. Read the Wiki info for more detail. The roads to get here are difficult and in some cases amount to goat trails, or 1 lane shared paved sections, but the scenery at the end was worth it. Here we stayed at Stella’s Apts. which was very nice. Kato Zakros In the morning we headed off to Vai, a palm grove, Vai the only one on Crete, and it is believed it was brought there by the Minoan’s from Egypt many centuries ago. Apparently it is now made popular by an English commercial with it’s Palm trees, sand beach, and beach bunnies. I’ve tried to re-create the scene as best I could. (Laugh) Beach Bunnies in Vai From here we headed to Sitia, another port town on the eastern side of Crete, one can catch a ferry infrequently to Rhodes from here. As we ate lunch on the quay in Sitia we found an o

Christina Beach Hotel pool Kissamos is at the top northwest corner of Crete. Crete is the largest Greek island and a strategic place from a military background. Hitler during WW2 met tremendous resistance here from the Greeks and the allies used it in the fight against Rommel in Egypt. Kissamos is a laid back beach town with access to the west side beaches and is only 38 kms north of Chania. It offers a great alternate location to stay while visiting. We also found out that once a week (Thursday) a ferry goes from here to Gythio on the Peloponnese peninsula and  is a day ferry instead of an overnight from Heraklion to Pireaus. It is 1/3 the price, and completely bypasses the Athens corridor. It is a great alternative. Church built into Rock Cave Our hotel (The Christina Beach Hotel) was excellent with a top floor sea view/pool view from the room. We lazed around the pool while working out the kinks from our Samaria gorge hike and then walked 6 kms to the Port of Kissamos,

Signage at the top of the Mountain gorge How quickly? Each trip we plan at least one challenging hike and this year is no different. The Samaria gorge hike is in a National Park by the same name and is a gorge that drops some 1200M. from snow level in winter to sea level in about 16 kms. Probably the most technical hike we have ever done since for easily ¾ of it you have to position each step since you are walking down rocks that have become polished over time, or rough skree. Rough trail but the there is a handrail in places In addition, the logistics of getting to, and returning from the hike are a challenge, a special bus has to be caught from downtown Chania (only 2 per day) which takes you slightly over an hour to climb into the mountains. Then you hike down to a remote beach community that is serviced by a once daily ferry/barge that arrives at 17:30 hrs. But it may not arrive at that time, that’s just approximate. Once it arrives, as with ours it still had 2