Planning the next bit

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We have finally begun to plan our itinerary for the oncoming trip in 2015 that will lead us from Thessaloniki, where we stored the bikes after this year's Balkan tour, to central Asia. We're getting more and more excited when dealing with all the foreign names - these places seem so incredibly far away! Yet we'll be heading there in a few months time...

For next year's destination Kyrgyzstan, we will have to deal with the Caspian Sea. We can cirumnavigate it to the north via Russia, to the south via Iran or cross it by ferry to either Turkmenistan or Kasachstan. The most interesting option is for sure to travel through Iran but not surprisingly at the same time the most difficult one with regard to custom formalities. But thanks to my greek friend Giannis we have found a very helpful guy in Iran who'll handle the iranian border procedures for us. For a smooth approach he recommended to enter Iran from Armenia, so we've adjusted our itinerary accordingly. Once we're in the country we'll head as far to the south as we can get, because some of the major attractions like Persepolis and Shiraz are situated 1000 km to the south of Teheran. But since we're not quite sure about how our time schedule is going to work we have a good option to shorten the travel distance at this point - to skip the southernmost point of our planned route could save us up to 4 or 5 days of travelling time, if needed. But the infrastructure in Iran is supposed to be in very good condition so we're optmistic that we'll be able to see a big part of the country. Then, after having travelled through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, we're planning to finish this year's tour in Kyrgyzstan (see also map below). We haven't found a storage solution yet, but hopefully this issue is going to be resolved within the next weeks.

To see a map click here.

UPDATE 12. October 2014
Great news! Thanks to the help of Patrik from muztoo.ch we have finally found a place to store our motorbikes after the next ride in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. He even offered us assistance in dealing with kyrgyz customs. That is really a big relief, thank you very much!

Preparations for 2015 have begun

I am very happy to announce that a new rider will join the tour next year. He is a colleague of mine and we've already biked some tours together. Welcome Mario!

Total mileage 2014: 6056 km

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!

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.

We've got company!

We're very pleased that my girlfriend Solène and her sister Laure will join us this evening here in Athens and ride to Istanbul with us!

On est vachement content qu'on profitera de la ravissante compagnie de Solène et Laure dès ce soir! Elles nous accompagneront jusqu'à Istanbul. Bienvenues les filles!

Riding the Peleponnes

Three days of riding across the Peleponnes lie behind us and they've been quite varied. On the first day we'd chosen a route right through the mountains that included also some offroad parts. Beautiful views everywhere! When we met a turtle in the middle of the road trying to cross it in a turtle-typical speed we decided for her that this was simply too dangerous and sped up the endeavour by carrying it by hand to the other side. I hope she was grateful, though she didn't give the impression!

On the day after there had been a significant change in weather unfortunately, and driving through the misty mountains one could have mistaken the scenery for Scotland. The last kilometres were actually through the rain, our first encounter since we started. The day ended in the local tavern and in spite of the language barrier we got all the food and drinks we wanted. Nice!

On our third day on Peleponnes the weather programme was switched back to the usual sunshine so we could enjoy riding this magnificent road between Kosma and Leonidiou that passes through the "grand canyon" of the Peleponnes. Absolutely spectacular! We finished early after a short riding day and took an afternoon off to look at the historical site of Mykene.

Tomorrow we'll drive to Athens.

In case someone hasn't noticed yet, you can see more pictures by clicking on the link on the right hand side that says "PHOTOS"!

Adriatic ... continued

After we'd entered Montenegro for the second time we enjoyed a fantastic ride through the beautiful bay of Kotor and along the adriatic coast into Albania. We were pleased to find out that three other motorcyclists were staying in our hotel in the city of Shkodër. One of them was Pete from Australia who's travelling with his wife through Europe. He happened to have just ridden through Albania and Greece and could give us a ton of recommendations. We then spent the evening in town with the other two riders Hans and Rudi from Austria and Germany. We ended up in the city centre watching the final match of the UEFA cup together with hundreds of soccer-passionate Albanians.

The next day we followed the route that Pete had suggested and he had not promised too much! The adriatic coast is spectacularly beautiful no matter which country. We just couldn't stop riding before we reached Greece. Right now we're in the north of the Peleponnes taking a break to enjoy the sun on the beach and do some maintenance on the bikes.

Small detour off the beaten track

After having enjoyed so many kilometres of the beautiful croatian coastline we were up to a little change and took a turn into Bosnia Hercegovina. We stopped for lunch at Mostar, famous for it's bridge, and were amazed to find the little town buzzing with big crowds of tourists. Temperatures of more than 30 degrees made exploring the place a little unpleasant in our heavy motorcycle wear so we did not stay very long. The remaining 120 km to Sarajevo through beautiful scenery passed by quickly. We had imagined the town completely different and enjoyed the multicultural atmosphere very much. On the other hand you can still find many signs of the civil war so the impression you get is somehow ambiguous.  Of course we couldn't miss to take a look at the place where Franz Ferdinand was shot almost exactly 100 years ago.

The next day led us into the mountains of Montenegro through Durmitor national park and that was truely one of the most fantastic rides I've ever had! We took a small road that went up to almost 2000 m and the beauty of the scenery was overwhelming! Joining a bigger road later on we were surprised to find the roads of Montenegro as smooth as a babies' behind, as we say in german! Not wanting to miss Dubrovnik we took a final turn into Croatia and visited the historic town centre in the evening. It is in an incredibly perfect condition almost like a scenery built for a movie!
Today's plan is to make a 180 degrees turn and head for Albania.

Croatia - a real beauty!

When we woke up in Ljubljana on the morning after the rainy day we were very pleased to find the find the sun shining again. But packing our bikes our mood got a little spoilt - there had been an attempt to steal Christian's bike! The ignition lock had been damaged but luckily without doing real harm to it.

So we left Slovenia behind and after we had entered Croatia I let my old friend Tomtom do the lead using this awesome "windy road" routing feature that takes only small roads and the result was absolutely convincing! Lots of corners and great views! We spent the night near Rijeka at a private accomodation hosted by a very friendly couple. Then the next day's ride along the adriatic coast was what every motorcyclist dreams about! Perfect roads, gorgeous scenery and sunshine all day long ending in a nice hotel directly on the coast. Today the nice conditions continued and we've now arrived to Split. The evenings here can be pretty exhausting - huge piles of meat have to be eaten every time...
Tomorrow we'll be heading for Bosnia.