Dienstag, 10. Juni 2014

Epilogue 2014

Seeing the sights of Istanbul was a little spoilt by rather cool and rainy weather. But as most of the major attractions were indoors that didn't matter too much. We spent the first evening together with Jean-François, a motorcyclist from France whom we'd met on the border and who's right now on his way to Vladivostok. We had so much to talk about - the evening was way too short! And on our second night we had the pleasure to be shown around the city by Serpil, an english teacher and her friend, where we got to see some some less touristic areas. Thanks again!

That might be a good point to also express gratitude to the english language that made it possible to have conversations with so many people from different countries! English, you're great! Thanks!

Still, the riding part was not yet finished in Istanbul, like we had originally planned, because turkish custom regulations made it impossible to leave the bikes in the country for a longer period. So we had to take them back into the EU where our greek friends Lina and Babis were already expecting us in the city of Thessaloniki and they're going to host our bikes an entire year until 2015. Very big thanks again for that! In the end it was not easy to say goodbye to our dear, reliable travel companions that had performed so perfectly well. No problems at all, high fuel efficiency and even overloading them a bit with two people and lots of luggage did not make any impression on them. Thank you bikes!

We'll be back for sure!











Donnerstag, 5. Juni 2014

From Athens to Istanbul

After we'd picked up the girls in Athens we took our third day off riding to have look at the city. On the following day we finally left Athens and travelled all together north through the beautiful  Parnass. We made a sightseeing stop in Delphi where we had to do some serious hill climbing in full motorcycle wear to get to see the whole area. It was absolutely worth it!  The next riding day ended in Thessaloniki and we finally met our hosts Lina and Babis, who will be hosting our bikes for 12 months in their garage. Later on also Giannis and his wife Ralu joined us and we had a fantastic evening together with tons of excellent food. Very nice! Thanks again, you're great guys!

After Thessaloniki we did another two stages with several wet portions until we finally reached Istanbul. The traffic is as crazy as we had imagined and additionally we had some difficulties in finding the appartment we had rented. When we ended up in front of Nisantasi university a huge crowd of students gathered around us after a short while. Everybody was very interested in our journey and finally with the help of their professors wo could solve the address problem. Thanks to all of you!

The next two days are reserved to look at this giant city.