Best of Europe 1101 - what a trip!
20 Jun 2011
Best of Europe
- of course we have to start in Germany... Munich!
Our "Best of Europe" Tour is a 1 week trip around Southern Germany, parts of France, Switzerland and Austria and then back to Munich... lot´s of countries within a week, or?
Day 1 - Arrival to Munich
It doesn´t matter where you are from, you just should show up at our base hotel in Erding, close to Munich. Here we have our welcome briefing and all our beautiful motorcycles are waiting for you!
After our first dinner together and of course a couple of German beers.... we went to bed - tomorrow is our first riding day!
Day 2 Munich - Rothenburg
Ready to go - Sunshine in the morning
We are a group of eleven riders from the US, Canada and even Australia and we will have a great week in Europe!
On our first riding day we ride through the romantic Altmühl valley, later on to the medieval town of "Rothenburg ob der Tauber".
After a couple of hours the weather changed already and we had to put on our rain gear... here somewhere along the road.
Half an hour later we had beautiful sunshine...
Somewhere in Bavaria we spotted a huge beer tent - look what happened inside:
look at the glasses! 1 Liter ! - and it is only 3 o´clock...
Eeeehhh - welcome to Germany!!!
Anybody wants a beer???
(Some words about the beer tent, we had only coffee there, actaully it was quite good too...)
Finally we made it to Rothenburg - the best preserved medieval town of Germany.
After our early dinner we went for a guided city tour at night with the original nightwatchman of Rothenburg - highly recommended!
Mark and Jaqueline, here with the nightwatchman
Day 3 Rothenburg - Heidelberg
What a beautiful city tour last night... our Nightwatchman was great!!!
Today we are going west, first we have a little stop in the village of Langenburg, later on we visit the Monastery of Schöntal, have a look:
leaving Rothenburg...
what a charming place...
Mr. Hohenlohe - the Duke of Langenburg!
Schöntal Monastery
in the afternoon we got heavy rainfall, so we decided to go direct to Heidelberg to enjoy this world famous place!
...do you like our little guesthouse? It is only 400 years old...
Heidelberg castle - what do you think?
Day 4 Heidelberg - Ribeauville/France
After a nice dinner and a couple of beers in maybe Heidelbergs oldest student bar "Roter Ochs" we slept very well last night. Today we are going South, entering the Black Forest with its amazing scenery, before we finally end up somewhere across the border - France is just around the corner...
First stop at Mummelsee - here are some local beauties!!!
Neil likes the scenery - have a look:
Later on we went to Bad Peterstal where we had local food...
Everybody enjoys the German blood saussage!!!
After lunch a couple of hours through the Black Forest twisties before we had to find our way to France, which was quite a challenge.... we left Germany with 12 bikes and arrived in Ribeauville with only 4 motorcycles... Ask your friends at home what happened...
Ribeauville is wonderful!
But finally we all made it and had a great evening in a local restaurant!
Day 5 - Restday in Ribeauville
So today is our so called rest day, what means we spend 2 nights in the same hotel - without packing... but of course we will go for ride! If people don´t like to ride, they just can enjoy Ribeauville.
Gottfried will lead a group around the beautiful Alsace Region... let´s see if he can keep the group together...
Gottfried explaining the Route...
here they go... we will see how many come back today...
Modern Art!
look at the wine country in the back...
just beautiful... what should I say...
After a couple of hours of riding they really came back as a group - great!
Day 6 Ribeauville - Schaffhausen/Switzerland
Okay, ready to Rock´n Roll? Today we will explore the best road of the Black Forest, but first we have to find our way back to Germany...
let´s go...
Okay, we made it easy over the border into Germany... here the good roads started after Emmendingen. Incredible little mountain trails, still paved but very narrow - just perfect!
What a view - Look how the locals enjoy the Black forest:
And here you can see how we enjoy...
Wish you were here.....
look at the map - here is the black forest!
Should I have another one???
The old "Hexenlochmühle"
tooooo many choices - which one should I take???
Motorcyclists from all over Europe come to the black forest, here even some bikers from Greece!
Lake Schluchsee, a couple of hours later...
Gottfried prepared a great Picnic for us - with his Original Tyrolean hat!
And finally another nice day ended in Schaffhausen, right at the biggest waterfall of Europe - the Rheinfall
Happy People - or???
Day 7 Schaffhausen - Warth(Austria)
Today we are leaving Schaffhausen, right on the other side of Rhine river is Germany, so we will cross the border several times just to take some pictures from both sides... There are no serious border control anymore, sometimes the just put a sign, because after several crossings you really don´t know in which country you are....
somewhere at the Rhine river...
actually it doesn´t matter where we are - it is so nice everywhere!
going east to the "lake of Konstanz - the Bodensee"
and of course "Coffee"
the "Skippers"
Annemarie and Jaqui
finally we are riding into the Alps, just going south we reach the so called "Säntis" with over 2500 meters a good beginning... the scenery is unbelievable - have a look!
not our riders... a 50 ccm bike club, funny or?
so we rode around the "Säntis" and then down into another valley. There we left Switzerland, crossed Liechtenstein and entered Austria - all this within 15 minutes.... how can you know in which country you are???
here at the "Furkajoch" on a tiny little pass road...
lots of bikes around...
countless turns - we wish you were here...
what else do you need?
Day 8 Warth - Munich
Last riding - is it really true???
After a wonderful sleep in the middle of the mountains we start our engines for a last time - today we ride back to Munich!
But before we leave the Alps, there are still some curves left...
Our hotel - what do you think?
Lake Plansee - really nice!
motorcycles all over... here Mark and Jaqui
Finally back in Germany, Bavaria!
looks really nice, Castle Linderhof King Ludwigs "weekend house"...
and a little bit further, our last stop at lake "Staffelsee", perfect for a beer!
Original Weisswürste with Brezel and sweet mustard - perfect!!!
(the beer is alcohol free of course, and it is really not tooooo bad...)
Hey guys - we made it!!! Thank you for a wonderful trip!!!
--- Jens and Gottfried ---