ReTyred

We will travel back to Europe in a few days to explore more of it. After returning to Australia October 2017 we bussied ourselfs with the grandchildren and family commitments.

In 2018 we travelled sans Blog to northern QLD. The intention was to reach Cape York , however we only got to 25 km out of Laura. There we both came off on the dirt road. Not thinking much of it we lifted up the bikes to survey the damage. After that it became apparent that Sigrid had sustained some more injuries than originally thought. A kind lady in pickup drove her back to Laura first aid station. From there she got air lifted with suspected spleen rupture.

The spleen rupture turned out to be a minor tear, so no operation was required. It did however hospitalise her in Cairns for a week.

Bjorn in the meantime had his hands full with getting the bikes out of the dirt and back to Cairns which he managed with the help of kind strangers and friends currently living up there. Repairs proved to be difficult. But after 4 weeks we were back on the road and returned home for a big family event-our son’s wedding.

This was followed by Bjorn reaching his 60 year milestone

and us planning a new trip ,which brings us to present days.🤗

Date: 18 – 23/09/2017
From/To: Prague – Venice
Distance: 195 Km
Total Distance: 16066 Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzle, Rain, Windy
Road: Paved

 

We said good bye to our host Blanca. She had to go to work and we started to pack our bikes.

The weather forecast was predicting rain, so we put our rain gear on, just in case.

It didn’t rain, but it was cold. On the way we found the ‘Motorest U Dubu – E 55’ restaurant, so we stopped and had some nice lunch.

Not long after we arrived in Austria, problem was now to find where the vignette- Required as proof for maud payment were sold. You need the vignette to travel on the Austria highways. Normally you can buy them at the patrol stations, but there were no petrol stations after the Czechian border. No surprise, comparing the petrol price in both countries. Anyway, it took us an hour to find a petrol station that sold the vignette, and another 30min before we found a petrol station that sell the vignette for motorcycles J

In the evening it started to rain, so we stopped in ‘Eben im Pongau ‘ looked for an accommodation. We found a nice hotel but the weather forecast for the next day was dim. Rain thew hole day, from Eben to Venice. When we started the next morning it was raining, the temperature was around 5 degrees. The snow line was dropped over night to 1000m , so we started to see white trees left and right from the highway and the temperature dropped to +0.5 degrees. Lucky there was no ice on the highway.

The rest of the right was as expected, rainy. We arrived in Cavallino, a peninsula in front of the Venice.

 

The next day the rain stopped and the sun started to come out. From our hotel we could see the mountains close by.

 

At night we had some sea food platter in a nice restaurante nearby.

The after was the day, we went to Venice using the public transport. Here some pictures approaching Venice with the ferry.

Below a picture of the famous sigh bridge-Ponte dei Sospiri .

Below you can see a prisoners hand, the last time before he went to the prison cell …, or it might be a tourist J.

And here is a picture from the famous ‘Piazza San Marco’ and the clock tower.

It started to get flooded, as it does twice a day. On the right picture you can see the water rising.

Here is a closer picture from the St. Marks Basilica.

I liked the channels, here particular with the reflection of the house in the canal.

Sigrid had to feel if the water is cold… it was. J

The pictures below from our way to the Rialto Bridge.

And here it is, the Rialto Bridge. On the left hand side you can see the middle of the bridge with shops and on the right hand side the outer stairs.

The mandoatory picture of us on the rialto bridge.

In Venice there are no roads, so the parcel delivery is done with boats and from here on a sack truck by foot. The right picture shows the garbage collection points. Here comes the garbage boat and picks up the rubbish and recycling material.

Some customer got wet feet when having dinner when the high tide started to come in.

And there was the house with the hands rising out of the water. It is a statement of the climate change impact and the rising sea level effecting Venice. The hands meant to support the side of the building.

The end of the fish marked, the left over fish was donated to the seagulls J

Just some building on the canale grande.

Narrow streets in Venice.

Some more canals.

And a dead end, we have to go back J

The old house facade was expose, it looked more impressive then the new one. And Sigrid with the lion on the ‘Piazza San Marco’

After so much walking, we sat down on a nice coffee at a channel. The weather was just perfect.

And we decided to have a gondola tour.

Here we are just passing the sigh bridge, and on the right gondola traffic jam.

 

At the end of our gondola trip we went up the ‘St Mark’s Campanile’, actually… we use the lift J. The view was stunning, particular at the end of the day. Below are some pictures from the top.

After all that hard work we sat down and had a glas of wine, as a finish of a marvellous day.

On our ferry trip back I saw metal Rino in a park.

Sunset at the harbour, when waiting for the bus.

Tomorrow we will start our way back to Berlin, maybe with a short detour over the Garda See.

Date: 14-17/09/2017
From/To: Dubrauke – Prague
Distance: 195 Km
Total Distance: 16066 Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzle, Warm, Sunny
Road: Paved

We left Dubrauke in the afternoon, after Marion left for her physio therapy. It started drizzling on the way (we have our personally cloud) but it stopped when we arrived in Prague. Here we had our first traffic jam for a long time. We were greeted by Blanca on arrival at the booked accommodation. There was a pool and a hot tub to relax. I didn’t feel that well (got Sigrid’s stomach bug), so we deferred the hot tub session.

The next day we explored Prague. There was a subway- the train, not the restaurant..- close by, so we hopped on it and arrived in the city within 15 min. Since we didn’t have a map, we just guessed the direction and stumbled over a small marked with all sorts of art and food.

After we found the tourist information, we had a map and some directions. First we looked at the old town hall with the astronomical clock build at the beginning of the 15^th century. The clock has two dials, one showing the position of the sun and moon and other astronomical details, the other is a calender dial, representing the month. Each hour, there is “The Walk of the Apostles”, a clockwork showing the figures of the Apostles. By chance we were there right at 12:00, as you can see there was a large crowd to see the ‘Walk of the Aposteles’.

 

Unfortunatelly they renovated the town hall so we couldn’t appreciate it. Anyway, there is the picture from both of us in front of the old town hall and the old town square.

 

On the square was as well the ‘Church of Our Lady before Týn’ (I love wiki). I took the pictures only of the small spires, because they look like out of a cindarella movie.

We found wonderful restored houses walking through the old town

Sigrid found a devil and had to hold it on his horns

We found the fireman sculpture rescuing a victim from fire. I it was at the top of house

When we enquired in the tourist office if there were free guided tours in Prague, we meet Jan. He was very friendly and knowledgable. He just returned from China, so we spend quite a bit of time in the tourist office to talk about Prague and the possibility of traveling on our own through China. .

From here we walked to the Charles Bridge, well that was the plan. We must have turned somewhere too early; we ended up at this monument, which looked rather interesting.

From there we could take a picture of the Charles Bridge from the side.

This is the bridge tower, the entrance to the Charles Bridge.

On the Charles Bridge there are a lot of sculptures, each is fascinating on its own right.

This is the other side of the bridge, the entrance to the little city.

Uphill from the little city, there is the Prague Castle

The Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle in the world. It is more a castle complex, with a cathedral inside. You can see the tower over the top of the main gate.

The cathedral and one of the gargolyes.

Looking a bit closer shows how much work is put into all the details

Here is the cathedral from the side with the St.Vitus tower, which can be climbed-We’ll leave that for another day….

On our way back we realised how deep the subway goes, the escalator was long and steep.

The next day we took the tram to the city when we came across this lightning rod on a car park. It was in the middle of a staircase. I would use the elevator instead of the staircase J

.

Back in the old city we noticed at one house some windows only painted J

We came across this restaurant where you eat in middle age style, no forks and knives, use only the hands.

Back in the castle we visited the church treasury; it is one of the most extensive treasuries in Europe. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures. There was at least one guard in each room who was watching you. So the only picture is Sigrid at the entrance. I was impressed by the craftsmanship of the 10^th century.

We thought we need some exercise after so much culture, so we climbed the ‘Great Tower’.

At the top we were exhausted, but the view was worth it. On the left is the view down to the square and a bit of the ‘Little Town’ and on the right both towers of the cathedral.

A view over Prague with it bridges.

On our way we found again an Irish Pub J But we didn’t go in, there was still too much to visit J

We hopped onto the ‘Funicular Railway‘ to get onto the top of the ‘Petrin Hill’ were a small Eifel Tower is located.

Here is the tower from the bottom. We didn’t climb up since we already had a great view over the city earlier in the day

Next we went to the other side of town, to the ‘Krizikova Fountain‘. The fountains are located in a park and they have a show to different types of music. Since it started to get cold, we picked the earliest show, it was classical music. Below you can see the setup before the show.

I liked the idea to use water as a screen and projects short movie scenes on it. This reminded us at the ‘Bellagio’ in Las Vegas.

The following pictures are from our way back as we passed a brigde. The buildings looked nice, I liked the purple towerJ

And the Prague Castle at night.

Tomorrow we pack up and leave for Venice. Apparently it should be warmer there -we shall see…