I love my motorbike and the Black Sea looked nice, so I rode there and back again with my dad. This is what we got up to in 5000 miles, three and a half weeks, fourteen countries and eleven capitals.
27/6/2013 Day 1 Dry
And we’re off! This is the plan: Ride to Romania, do the Transfagarasan road over the mountains, hit the Black Sea coast and see as many countries, capitals, people and things on the way as we can. “We” is dad and me. He’s on a Moto Guzzi Breva 750 and I’m on my Triumph Tiger 1050.
The ferry from Dover is at 1200 and we live in the Midlands so we start out at 0700. My brain is busy on the M40 thinking about work, women, life, the universe and everything, but after we stop for breakfast and the sun is shining on us round the M25, a mental peace descends that I only seem to be able to find on the bike.
The deck crew on the ferry are chatty. They like the Tiger and are suitably impressed by the scale of our plans. The crossing is millpond calm and it seems like we can see France almost as soon as we leave the harbour, but it takes a couple of hours before the orchestra of text message tones announces that we are in signal range of the continent.
We’ve got a bit of a thing about visiting capital cities, just to tick them off as done. It’s a slightly perverse thing to do really, because often we slog/weave/chance through terrible traffic, have a beer or a coffee, then slog/weave/chance straight back out again depending on our schedule. Perverse or not, once we are off the ferry at Dunkirk we head for Brussels.
One thing I dislike about Belgium is the high proportion of psychopathic axe murderers who seem to have driving licenses. So many people will drive right on your back wheel on the motorway even though you are doing the same speed as the vehicle in front. And I mean right on your back wheel. Tailgaters in the UK are amateurs by comparison. My usual tactic for this on the bike is to slow them down, then drop two gears and then make the jump to light-speed. But after doing that 3 times in 15 minutes it becomes apparent that my attempts to teach the country better driving manners aren’t working. What they are doing is shortening my own odds of making it to the end of the day. I switch to a more defensive mode.
It’s very difficult to judge what a city will be like as you ride in through the outskirts. Many are variations on the theme of bland, faintly depressing apartment blocks until you get to the show-piece middle bit. Brussels presented a good wow moment on the way in. A long road of particularly grey and uninspiring blocks turns a corner and reveals, down a long avenue, the mammoth art deco Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The 5th largest cathedral in the world, with its giant verdigris covered dome and pitched roof, makes a striking introduction to the city. We explore thoroughly, sometimes in both directions, the tunnels, roundabouts and slip roads of the Brussels ring road before settling on a pavement cafe for a beer, then doing the whole thing in reverse, heading for somewhere near Waterloo.
The camp site we find is grotty and unpleasant but we put up with it because we are tired and it is late. An awkward moment arises when a small child wanders up to me, asks for help to do up his trousers (I think, it was in French) and grabs hold of my hand while babbling and pointing at his crotch. Brilliant, the trip only just started and now I have visions of it soon ending with me in the special wing of a Belgian prison, due to linguistic misunderstanding. Happily, a responsible adult arrives, eyes me suspiciously, and takes charge of the child before this scenario has chance to play out. The grotty campsite is more than balanced out by the food we find. It’s a bit of a trek into the unknown but we eventually find a small family restaurant and start the trip in style with an outrageously good steak and Roquefort sauce so scandalously delicious that it makes me want to marry it. Just as I’m considering moving to the continent permanently for the food I remember the lash up they make of breakfasts here and scrap the idea.
28/6/2013 Day 2 Wet and grey start, drying
We start the day by visiting the battlefield at Waterloo. We climb the gigantic mound with a huge bronze lion on top to get to the vantage point which gives us a view over the battlefield, or at least as much of it as we can see through the sheets of fine rain. At the bottom they have created an indoor, painted panorama of the battle complete with sound effects. It’s surprisingly good and really gives a feel of being in the thick of the melee and cavalry charges, without all that unpleasant fear of sudden and violent disembowelment. We have a coffee in the Wellington cafe while watching the weather brighten and motoGP practice on the TV, then head south for Luxemburg.
Luxemburg City turns out to be much prettier than Brussels. It is a small city set around steep green gorges, laid out on several levels with immaculate gardens and beautiful architecture and bridges. We soak up this pleasantness over lunch and then head west for a prearranged meeting with friends in Germany.
The ride out of Luxemburg avoiding the motorway is beautiful. It’s as if they picked the nicest bit of western Europe and somehow convinced everyone else that they should get to keep it all as a country. Well played Luxemburg, well played. The perfect tarmac winds gently through glorious chocolate box countryside then quite suddenly turns into a small cobbled street which drops steeply through the pretty town of Wormeldange. Even at this early stage, I’m confident that this could be the best place name all trip. Here, we cross the Moselle river and are in Germany.
The climb back out of the valley is on cracked, potholed tarmac but the twists and turns afford views of the steep, sun soaked, vineyard covered slopes that we just left. A Luxemburg flag flies proudly from a tower at the top of the nearest slope as if to say to Germany on the other side “Look at us with our perfect tarmac and beautiful countryside.” However, Germany is no slouch when it comes to these things either and soon gets up to speed and serves us up some proper roads. Well surfaced long sweeping curves with the occasional reducing radius to keep us on our toes.
The meet is really a Yamaha SRX rally. A cult bike neither of us has, but of which dad had a few in the past and stayed in touch with the friends he made. We are staying at Motohotel GuS in Hoxel for a couple of nights. It’s run by Dutch couple Gerben and Susan (that’s the GuS bit) who do a great job of making everyone feel at home. At one point Susan sees someone pouring us beers with the traditional large continental head and says “No, no, fill it up! They are English.”
29/6/2013 Day 3 Wet and grey start, drying
We have two nights booked here with our friends, to give us the opportunity to explore the surrounding countryside, but dad’s visor ended up mysteriously destroyed at the end of the previous day so we are off into the nearest city, Trier, to look for a replacement. We take with us Lambert, a magnificently laid back friend from Holland to translate for us but he is surplus to requirements since all the staff in Louis (a motorbike accessory shop) in Trier speak perfect English. Dad’s new visor is quickly sorted so we set to exploring the Roman amphitheatre on the edge of the city. It is well preserved and part of a rich Roman history in the area. The pleasant city is located in the steep sided Mosel valley among extensive woodland and sandstone crags.
After lunch we go for an explore and end up chilling on the banks of the river back in Luxemburg where dad puts his jacket down on the grass. We just chat nonsense and soak up the sun and scenery. Canoes full of people come paddling past every few minutes and Lambert and I come up with increasingly random ideas of fun ways to sink them. By the time we decide to head back, we have evolved from simply throwing rocks, to launching flaming grizzly bears from giant catapults. In the meantime the local ants have evidently found something interesting in one of dad’s jacket pockets and have swarmed in by the hundreds. Most are removed a couple of miles later when they make their presence known by exploring the rest of the jacket but an unlucky few end up with a 25 mile walk back from the hotel.
The evening brings more beer and a barbeque and chatting with friends. The most awesome English accent award is romped away with by Rene, a Dutchman who has lived and worked in Ireland for years. Or at least it would be if such a thing existed. There are a few little awards dished out for other things such as furthest travelled and the like. At 71, dad wins oldest attendee but nods off part way through his own speech.
Tomorrow, we shall cross Germany in a single bound in a bid to make some easterly miles.
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