Oktoberfest in Stuttgart then Back to the States

(I apologize for the delay on this post, ending our European adventure. Life gets busy sometimes. I hope you don't mind the picture quality; they were taken with a cell phone.... and we may have had a couple beers.)

It was supposed to be a relaxed evening before our early flight back home to the U.S. Plans have a habit of changing with us though, and they certainly did this evening.

Upon checking into the hotel by the airport, the kind lady at the front desk suggested we check out the Oktoberfest happening in the city.  She said it was boring out here by the airport and was sure we'd have a good time at the festival.  It seemed innocent enough.  We've seen crazy pictures and video from the big Oktoberfest celebrations in Munich, but this one was probably much smaller and a lot more tame.  Why else would this little old lady be suggesting that we go?  Before we even had a chance to say no, she had already written directions and a schedule for the bus and trains for us to get there.  I guess it couldn't hurt to go check it out for a couple hours and then get some sleep.

After a bus ride and a couple train transfers, we started to notice a lot of drunk local kids all dressed up in lederhosen and dirndls getting on and off the trains.  We could sense that we were getting close to something big.  When we arrived at the fairgrounds, we could not believe the scale of this event.  We have never been to anything this big, loud, bright... and drunk.  Imagine hundreds of thousands of VERY drunk people packed shoulder to shoulder in a setting similar to one of our State Fairs back in the U.S.  There were several beer halls that you needed reservations to get into, all with people dancing on the tables with large beer steins.  After about a half hour of wandering, we figured out where to go to get some beers and checked out all the food stalls.  If this is the Stuttgart Oktoberfest, what the hell is the Munich one like?  I can't even imagine.

After enough beers to feel comfortable in that setting, we decided to call it a night and get back to our hotel for our early flight in the morning.  Even at late hours of the night, their public transport system works flawlessly, getting us back to our room with ease.

We couldn't think of a better way to cap off this trip.  It has been an experience of a lifetime, and we can't wait for the next one.  It'll be another year before we both have enough vacation time to do something again, but we're already planning for it.  Thanks for following along.

- Matt

The Home Stretch

It's bittersweet that our trip is coming to an end.  While it will be nice to get home to the U.S., I'll really miss riding over here and the freedom of not having a set schedule. Today we'll make a short ride from Konstanz back to Niedereschach to drop off the bikes, pack up our luggage, and say our goodbyes to everyone.

The home-stretch went by quickly.  It was our first time on an Autobahn with the bikes during this trip and really doing anything more than 100 km per hour.  You get used to riding slow after a week of 50-80 km/hr through twisty Italian and Swiss roads, so buzzing along at high speed on a wide highway seemed like a big deal at the time.

After arriving at the Touratech HQ, it was now time to un-pack both motorcycles, then re-pack everything into our airline luggage.  This proved to be a lot of work.  All of our riding gear had to be packed carefully and loaded into the bags while trying to keep within the weight allowances.  If we had any more gear packed with us, we would have been over the 50 lb. limit.

We had a nice lunch together with our friends at Touratech then got a ride to Stuttgart.  Our flight is very early in the morning tomorrow, so unfortunately we couldn't spend any more time in Niedereschach.  We have a hotel booked by the airport and plan for a relaxing evening with an early bedtime.  Plans always seem to change with us though...

Laundry on the Road

We learned awhile back that it's a waste of room to bring any more than a couple sets of clothes on our motorcycle trips.  The majority of the day, we're just wearing a base layer and a riding suit, so other clothes don't get much wear time anyway.  Here are a couple tips to keep your bags a bit lighter on any of your trips:

Plan to do laundry on the road every couple days - You can do laundry just about anywhere.  Hotel sinks and bathtubs are great, but if you're camping, any creek or highway rest stop sink will do.  We typically bring pre-made packets of laundry detergent meant for use in a sink, or fill up reusable bottles from the Woolite jug at home.  Doing a small load of laundry is easy.  Below is a video from Helge Pedersen and Globeriders where he describes  his method.  If we are lucky enough to be somewhere with two sinks, one person will wash and the other will rinse.  Then we wring out the wet clothes, roll them in a towel like Helge, and hang the clothes up to dry.  The whole process takes maybe 20 minutes to do all of the laundry between the two of us.  This is a far more sophisticated way than showering with your clothes on.

Buy clothes designed for traveling - Many outdoors clothing companies make clothes with special materials that dry quickly, wash easily, and resist odor and wrinkling.  These garments are great because you can typically wash them and they will dry in about 15 minutes.  They usually pack much smaller than normal clothes, too.  Brayde has a dress made out of the materials and we both have pants, shorts, and shirts.  A small investment in some travel-specific clothes will make a huge difference for your trip wardrobe.

Lucerne, Switzerland to Konstanz, Germany

Our trip is winding down, and the weather is quickly turning to full-on autumn with pretty steady drizzle and the occasional cloudburst. It's always a bummer to see a vacation coming to an end, but what an amazing trip this has been. We had already planned on two short riding days for these last two legs of the trip, and given the weather we woke up to today, we probably would have made that decision anyway. The vast majority of this trip, we've had the GPS set to avoid highways... but not today. We set it for the hotel we reserved over lunch, jumped on the bikes between downpours, and took off for Konstanz, Germany. Our route took us through Zurich, which I would have otherwise been tempted to pop into and explore, but today we opted for more of a rolling tour in the interest of time and weather.

Our apartment-hotel reservation proved successful. It's always a bit of a leap of faith booking a hotel online, sight unseen. But this place was blocks from the altstadt, was easy to check into, had a private garage, and was nice to have more of a "homey" feel by virtue of being an apartment. We were able to take advantage of daylight left after we rolled in, thanks to the short trip from Lucerne, and Konstanz did not disappoint.

Probably one of my favorite things about this trip has been seeing just how truly old the Old Town sections of cities and villages really are here. The history is just so rich that it's humbling. The oldest dated building we found in our stroll around Konstanz was 1384--very cool! While we did get to capitalize on a couple hours of daylight, we decided it wasn't enough over a dinner of beer and Jagerschnitzel. We agree to get up early the next day to walk around a bit more before we head back to Niedereschach to give our loaned bikes back to Touratech.

The weather's a bit clearer today, and our early wake-up allowed us to take in Lake Konstanz's views. A nice way to wrap up our visit to this southern town in Germany.

- Brayde

Feldkirch, Austria to Lucerne, Switzerland

Not having a German map, and not much internet access for the last few days, we were finally able to figure out where the next two days of riding would take us while drying off in Austria.  We weren't far from the Touratech headquarters, so we'd have to get creative with our route.  We were spending a lot of time on the motorcycles in bad weather, so only riding for a small part of the day, then exploring a city the rest of the time sounded good to us.  Two cities that interested us were Lucerne, Switzerland and Konstanz, Germany. Both would be short rides and give us a good opportunity to explore.

Lucerne has a lot of history with many sights to see and a very old town center to explore, complete with a long covered bridge built in 1333.  After arriving in town and being soaked in the rain, we immediately decided to find lodging.  Again, most of the hotels in the historic part of the city were a bit above our price range, but eventually we found a nice one that wasn't too expensive and even overlooked the river and bridges.  We did some much needed laundry in the hotel room sinks then took advantage of a break in the rain and started exploring the city.  We worked up an appetite walking all over the place, so we treated ourselves to dinner and some beers at a local brewery on the river then went to bed.  The next day we would walk the old castle wall and see the dying lion monument everyone had told us about.

We woke up to pouring rain again.  After checking out of our room and leaving our gear at the front desk, we hit up the first shop we could find to buy an umbrella.  This proved to be a wise purchase. The old castle walls and lookout towers were fun to explore, and we managed to take in most of the sights in the city.  Lucerne has definitely been one of our favorites this trip. After getting back to the hotel and packing the bikes, we made one of the best decisions yet: book a hotel room in advance for Konstanz.  A quick bit of searching online found us an apartment to rent for one night in a great location at a great price.  If we had done this all trip, we would have saved a lot of money and aggravation.  We are used to camping every night and flying by the seat of our pants in a country where we know the language and customs, but it's a lot harder to do that here.  Lesson learned.

-Matt

One of the bridges had paintings depicting the Black Plague.

The dying lion memorial for Swiss mercenaries that died in the French Revolution

Sondrio, Italy to Feldrkirch, Austria

After raining all night, we woke up to sun in Sondrio.  This was a welcome surprise as we were planning on crossing the Alps back into Switzerland and Liechtenstein. We knew that snow was a serious possibility, so picking the lowest pass was a priority.  Instead of the famed Stelvio pass which was about 2800 meters high, we planned our route over Bernina Pass through Davos, which was about 2300 meters.

After eating breakfast, uploading some pictures and doing a bit of writing we hit the road in the late morning. It didn't take long for the sun to turn back into rain.  As we climbed in elevation, the rain turned cold, and eventually to light snow in the highest elevation.  Brayde had her heated gear running full blast, and I wore every piece of thermal gear I had, but was still cold.  Luckily the snow never accumulated, and the temperature warmed to about seven degrees Celsius as soon as we started dropping elevation again.  The rain never let up all day, but my Klim and Brayde's BMW waterproof gear performed flawlessly, never leaking.  We didn't let the bad weather get to us, we've done our share of riding in the rain, and the roads were still breathtaking.

After crossing over the higher elevation passes of the Alps, we decided to visit the very small country of Liechtenstein. We parked the bikes in a garage, and wandered around Vaduz, the capitol city, where the castle that the prince lives in is located. The rain continued on, and we were soaked from walking around.  A quick lunch and a search for a hotel confirmed, that Liechtenstein was one of the most expensive countries to travel in, and we wouldn't be able to afford lodging there.  The owner of the sandwich shop suggested riding 50 kilometers to Austria, and finding lodging there since it was much cheaper.  We took his advice, threw our riding gear back on over our soaked clothes, and headed to Austria.

After visiting many hotels that were all booked up, or closed for the season, we finally found lodging. Just across the border, we snagged a decent room in the town of Feldkirch, named after the old church in the field that happened to be right by our hotel.  This is where we'd stay and dry off for the night.  In all the rain and cold, we forgot to take any pictures of Liechtenstein or Feldkirch. 

-Matt

Lago di Como to Sondrio

Feeling well-rested and ready to enjoy more of what northern Italy had to offer, we pack our belongings all the way back to the bikes and take off on some of the twistiest roads yet. The curvy nature is fun and interesting. Coming around a blind corner to meet a big truck or tour bus head-on is not. We're all in 1st or 2nd gear and looking out for each other, though, so it works out.

I read about two neat, little lake towns on either side of Lago di Como that follow a suggested driving route, so that's where we're headed. This includes another short ferry ride, too! After wandering the streets and steps of Bellagio and eating pizza lunches (check out Matt's interesting choice below on the left, complete with fried egg and hot dogs), we jump on the ferry to Varenna.

The promise of amazing views, castle relics, and a working falconry at Castello di Vezio takes us up more twisties above Varenna. Despite the fact that when we finally found the castle, it was only open for about 20 more minutes, it did not disappoint. The falconry display was unfortunately closed, but there was a cool big owl at the entrance, and the views really were spectacular. Plus, we got to see an olive tree grove!

We really wanted to stay at an agriturismo for the night, but this was one of the few times when traveling without plans didn't work out so great because it turns out reservations are required. Oh well--you win some, you lose some. So, we ended up in Sondrio for the night, where Matt got to try out a döner pizza. At least it wasn't a complete loss!

- Brayde

Views from the castle