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 Monday - Tuesday, July 14 - 15, 2003
Today's statistics:Total Distance: 88.6 KM On the way out of Vienna this morning we stopped by the BMW dealer where we had the bikes serviced in order to get the maintenance records in the books for each bike stamped and signed - as usual, we forgot to get this taken care of when we picked the bikes up on Friday afternoon. We really enjoyed our time in Vienna and were reluctant to leave but there are so many other places to go and things to do and see. So we headed east to Slovakia. On the way we drove thorough a small town just west of the border called Hainburg. Upon arriving at the town, we found that we were to drive through the old city gate tower, as Jim is shown doing below. The size and apparent strength of the tower is pretty impressive, don’t you think?
Fortunately a woman in the lobby of a building we had entered where an insurance company was located stepped forward as she was passing by and did a bit of interpreting for us. She then led us around the corner to another office where, with her help, we found a lady who spoke English. But, she had no idea how we could arrange insurance with her company. By this time it was after 5:00 PM and it was time for her to go home. So we mad arrangements to contact her in the morning to determine what she could learn about her company being able to provide 3rd party liability insurance for the bikes. The following day we were given the address of company who could provide the insurance we needed. So, we went for a bit of walk and got our insurance. Not without bit of work though. The woman who filled out the papers of the insurance had to do it twice. She thought we needed insurance for automobiles and it wasn’t until the work was completed and we were out of the building that her coworker who had been doing the translation of our request realized that she had filled out the papers for cars, not motorcycles. So, she had to redo all her work and we then caught a bus back into the center of the city and were able to get to the tourist information center in time for a walking tour of the old town in the early afternoon. See the Bratislava page in the Slovakia section for more information. Wednesday, July 16, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 244.9 KM We left Bratislava this morning and headed east and then a bit north. Late in the afternoon we entered the most northern portion of the Carpathian Mountains. Our plan is to spend a few days exploring the mountains and enjoy them - after being in Budapest, Vienna and Bratislava for the last week it is really nice to be back in the mountains. Today’s ride took us through lots of agricultural areas. We think it is safe to say that agribusiness is alive and well in Slovakia. Lots and lot of fields of wheat, corn, alfalfa, peppers and sun flowers everywhere. We stopped for the night in a winter sports area where there are several ski lifts and lots of trails for cross country skiing. Areas like this are so peaceful in the summer - not many people about and it is really quiet. Thursday, July 17, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 116.9 KM A short ride today because we wanted to explore the Voyske Tatry (High Tatras), the only true alpine mountains in Central Europe. This area is also the northern most portion of the Carpathian Mountains. We had a nice “walk about” but did not find much worthy of a photo - we could see the valley below but the air was so hazy that all attempts at pictures failed. Friday, July 18, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 155.4 KM A short ride to the town of Levoca - a walled town that dates from the 13th century. There are several Renaissance buildings in the town center which were the main attraction for our visit. Once that was completed we stopped for some lunch at a little road side stand and had a baguette with ham and veggies and peppers. Good stuff! The we headed further north and then west and into Poland. The border formalities went very smoothly - this was the first border crossing we have made where the people in the next country wanted to see proof of insurance for the bikes. The border guard told us he would be keeping our passports until we returned from the kiosk with proof of insurance. He then led us to the kiosk on the other side of a building next to where we were and within 30 minutes we were on our way. We may be in a new country but we continue to ride in the Carpathian Mountains. We rode to Zakopane and decided to get a room for the night because the weather had been threatening rain all day. Several times we were riding on wet roads behind the storm that was moving to the west in front of us. We decided that we did not want to enrage the rain God’s by setting up our tent tonight. And, we have been really lucky with the weather - why tempt fate? And, it has finally cooled off a bit. The temps today never made it above 25 degrees C (77 degrees F). Jim actually had to zip up some of the ventilation openings on his jacket as we headed toward the border. We found a very nice (new) small hotel in the mountains on the way to Zakopane - so we will visit the town tomorrow. The area we have been in for these last two days is used very heavily in the winter months for skiing, snow boarding, etc., etc. - a winter sports mecca. But on a small scale compared to the Alps in France, Germany and Austria and the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Utah, USA. See the Carpathian Mountains page in the Slovakia section for more information. Saturday - Monday, July 19 - 21, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 110.1 KM We woke up to rain - a “soft day” as they say in Ireland - heavy overcast and lots or mist in the air. It rained all night. While we were eating breakfast it started raining very hard and as we packed the bikes it continued. Hard to complain really; this is the first time in two months we have had to start the day in the rain. The really sad part of this was the impaired visibility due to the low clouds and rain and as a result we were deprived of views of the beautiful area we were in. After a few hours on the road which had incredibly heavy traffic headed south while we rode north, we arrived in Krakow. Krakow suffered from unbelievable pollution under communist rule due to the huge steel works that were built by Joseph Stalin just six miles east of the city. The people of Krakow have worked incredibly hard for the past 10+ years to repair the damage that was done to all of the buildings in the city from the huge amounts of acid rain that the pollution from the steel works produced. On Monday we will ride 60 kilometers west to the town of Oswiecim - Auschwitz in German to view the museum that has been established at the site. We will also visit another Camp while there - Birkenau which was part of the Auschwitz operation; Birkenau was responsible for the extermination of more than 1.5 million people during WW II. See the Krakow page in the Poland section for more information. Tuesday, July 22, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 147.5 KM We left Krakow this morning and rode to Oswiecim - not taking the most direct route. A sunny and hot day. When we arrived at the Auschwitz Museum we decided to take a tour with a guide. After the fact, we are not sure the guide was worth the investment. She did not provide any information beyond what was posted in and around the buildings at either Auschwitz I or Auschwitz II (Birkenau). We think that it would be better to walk about at your own pace. We each have seen numerous programs on television as well as movies that included lots of pictures and information about these camps. Never the less, we were not prepared for what we were about to see. The sheer scale of Birkenau is hard to comprehend. Even though we had seen pictures and movie footage taken at the camps during the war and after the war we were not prepared for the size of the site. At the height of operation more than 8,000 people a day were executed at Birkenau. Most people who arrived at the camp were sent straight to the gas chambers. But many were quite literally worked to death as slave laborers. We had learned last year when we visited Dacu in Germany, which was the prototype for the death camps, the initial prisoners in all of the camps were the political dissidents that did not agree with HItler’s policies. Then it was the sick, lame and deformed who were added to the extermination list. And, of course, anyone of Jewish decent. Jim has decided that anyone who uses the word hate should be immediately sent to the Auschwitz Museum to see the what hate does. We have been at odds with the current administration in the US with its policies about the people who have been incarcerated at Guantanimo Bay in Cuba and the way the administration is slowly taking away the liberties that all people in America have always had - we don’t see any difference in what the Bush administration is doing and what Hitler did when he started. See the Oświęcim page in the Poland section for more information. Wednesday, July 23, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 222.3 KM A rainy start to the day when we left the campground this morning. We arrived at the border for the Czech Republic and were through in less than 2 minutes. But, we could not find anyone on the Czech side who spoke English or understood that we needed to purchased 3rd party Green Card insurance for the bikes. We rode on and stopped in a small town to exchange money and found an ATM and got some Czech Korun. And, we found a place to eat lunch right next to the ATM. We had a very nice lunch - Pork and potato salad for Jim and pork ribs and cole slaw for Verna with a 1.5 liter bottle of water; all for less than $2.00 US. We rode on and arrive in Brno shortly after 3:00 in the afternoon and found a place to stay. After lunch the sun came out and the temperature went up above 36 degrees centigrade - the first thing we did after arriving was to jump into the shower. Then we caught a bus into the center of town to do a bit of exploring. The ride back to the hotel was an adventure. Just before we got on the bus it started to rain so hard the gutters in the street were overflowing. We also learned that our bus ran in a circular route and we got the scenic tour on the return to the hotel because we were only three stops from the center of town on the way in and 34 stops on the return. The city is quite nice and the rainbow at sunset as we rode around the town on the bus was very pretty. Oh yes, there was some graffiti spray pained on a wall that seemed rather appropriate given our experience yesterday. Someone had written “Adolph Bush?” on a wall. We could not agree more. Thursday - Friday, July 24 - 25, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 379.5 KM Two days travel reported as one because we never reached our destination for Thursday. Our travels on Thursday came to a halt when we stopped at an Interspar store to purchase our evening and morning food supplies when we were about 20 kilometers from our intended camp for the evening. When Verna parked her bike a gentleman who was mounting the motor bike parked next to her pointed at the rear wheel of her bike and exclaimed something that we did not understand. It did not take much to determine what he was concerned about. The oil from the final drive of her bike was running all over the wheel and ground. Again. We had this same problem in April of last year when we were on the island of Corsica. The Crown Wheel Bearing in her final drive had self destructed, again.
They man we were speaking to on the phone who was coordinating things for us as directed by the ADAC then needed to make arrangements for a place for us to spend the night. By the time the bike was loaded it was after 6:00 PM and it was too late to take it to a BMW dealer and we needed a place to stay. He explained that he had made arrangements for us to spend the night in the town where the bike would be kept overnight. So, Verna got into the van and off it went. Jim then followed the first van on the scene whose driver proceed to race down the highway to catch up with the van that had the bike inside. The van Jim was following was a Mercedes passenger van with the rear seats removed - much too small for one of our bikes to fit into. The van with Verna’s bike inside had the name of some company on it but nothing associated with motor bikes. We rode north and entered the town of Týn and then rode through several side streets. We had no idea where we were going. Then the pavement came to and end and we were on a gravel road. Suddenly there was a brand new house on the right side of the road, and then another new house that had a Honda sign on it. It turned out the the people who had been sent to collect the bike were from a Honda Motorcycle dealer. We were then given a tour of this new Honda facility. It turned out that the upstairs was a beautiful house complete with swimming pool. The daughter of the owner, who had arrived with the first van and was obviously the boss, met us as we arrived. She spoke good English and told us that we were invited to spend the night in the house. She and her father lived in the house next door. The house with the shop was used only for guests. Incredible. And the house was a work of art.
We learned that the Honda Dealership was Václav’s hobby - the large van into which Verna’s bike went was from his “real” job which is running a company that produces parts for coffee makers. The next morning we were on the road at 8:00 AM and were at the Prague BMW dealer at 10:30 AM where we spent most of the day. The vast majority of our time was spent working with Rastislav Frešo, Service Manager, AuTec Group, a.s., General Importer of BMW, Czech Republic, Jeremiášova 5, CZ-155 00 Praha 5. As luck would have it, the warranty on our bikes expired in June of this year. We were not happy about having to pay for the repair of Verna’s bike due to the same thing having been repaired in April of last year. Mr. Freso was very nice and after we explained that the bike had this same problem fixed last year he said he would speak with BMW in Munich.
We then left the dealership and Verna took the Metro while Jim rode his bike into Prague. As luck would have it we had planned to arrive in Prague on Friday and had reservations at a hotel through Sunday. Saturday - Sunday, July 26 - 27 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 379.5 KM We decided to leave Verna’s bike in the shop until Monday rather than pay the parking fees the hotel wanted for each bike. This meant that we would stay another day in Prague and pick the bike up Monday morning. What we had hot counted on was all of the hotels in Prague being booked solid because the Rolling Stones are in town to perform Sunday evening. We spent several hours on Saturday trying to find a place to stay that would also offer a safe parking place for the bike. Fortunately we found one not too far from our original hotel. See the Prague page in the Czech Republic section for more information. Monday, July 28, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 201.7 KM We arrived at the BMW dealer shortly after 10:30 in the morning - Verna via the Metro and Jim on his bike. We then spent the next five hours dealing with the service manager about payment for the bike. This was a very instructive process. We learned a lot about BMW’s idea of customer service. Even though Jim and the service manager had each spoken on the phone with the service manager of the BMW shop in Ajaccio, Corsica, BMW Munich was insisting of a fax of the work order that the shop in Ajaccio has written for the warranty repair of Rand’s bike in April, 2002. It seems that France BMW had entered the date of the repair in their computer system incorrectly when the work was completed - they entered the year as 2001, not 2002. Jim was told that the service manager in Ajaccio had agreed to fax a copy of the work order to the service manager in Prague, but the fax never arrived. And, contact by telephone with the BMW dealer in Ajaccio was never made again. Jim tried several times as did the service manager in Prague but no one answered the phone. A fax was sent to Ajaccio in hopes that this would get a copy of the work order faxed to Prague. It seems that BMW guarantees any repairs they make for two years. If we could get the confirming document from Ajaccio, BMW would pay for the repair. When we could not make contact with Ajaccio the service manager in Prague told Jim he would have to pay for the repair. After the hole in the ceiling was repaired from Jim’s ballistic explosion a phone call was made to Munich so Jim could speak with the customer service representative in Munich who was demanding the confirming paper. To this day we do not understand why he would not authorize the repair and let the service manager in Prague work on getting the piece of paper - and let us go on our way. When this idea was presented the gentleman in Munich, a Mr. Walraf at BMW AG, he was not interested. Great customer service, eh? When asked why we should have to spend who knows how many days sitting in the BMW show room while we waited for this piece of paper to be faxed when his service manager had already confirmed with the service manager in Ajaccio that the repair was performed last year he told Jim that he had to have confirming paper work before he could authorize the repair. So Jim told him that we would be “Camping” in the BMW showroom until such time as he or his service manager in Prague could get the paper because we certainly were not going to pay for the repair because someone pushed the incorrect key when entering a date in a computer. Jim then left the service managers office. About 5 minutes later the service manager came out of his office and told us BMW was going to pay for the repair. Why do we have to go through these things? Any rate, we got on the road about 3:15 in the afternoon and rode south to the campground we were headed for when the Crown Wheel Bearing on Rand’s bike failed last Thursday. We got the tent set up between rain showers and fixed dinner in the small building that most European campgrounds provide for cooking - complete with stoves and hot and cold water. Tuesday, July 29, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 47.9 KM It rained all night. Fortunately it stopped raining while we packed up our gear but there is nothing like stowing a wet tent. Not a lot of mileage today - mostly sight seeing in two small towns. It was raining on and off all day - we decided to get a hotel for the night rather than fight the wet tent. See the Moravia and Bohemia pages in the Czech Republic section for more information. Wednesday, July 30, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 266.6 KM We woke to blue skies and sun shine - and a dry tent; we had spread it out in the hotel room in order to get it dried out. We rode north west toward the Poland border and stopped in a giant campground just before the border for the night. Thursday, July 31, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 138.5 KM
We got our revenge as we rose at 6:00 AM to get the bikes packed. And did we concern ourselves about the level of the noise we made? Not too much! The good news is that the rain did not start until we were putting the finishing touches on getting the tent stowed. Then it was a quick bite for breakfast and we were on the road. As stop of gasoline to use up the last of our Czech money and we found ourselves at the border for Poland. An easy crossing because our Green Card insurance was still valid because we knew we would be coming back into the country and purchased 30 days when we entered Poland two weeks ago. We never did find a place to purchase green card insurance in the Czech Republic. We arrived in Wroclaw (Breslau) just before noon, found a place to stay and set our to find some lunch and do some sight seeing. See the Wroclaw (Breslau) page in the Poland section for more information. Friday, August 1, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 237.1 KM It was nice to see blue skies and sunshine when we woke this morning. We rode north to the town of Wolsztyn to see the last steam locomotive “work shed” in Europe. As we rode north we left the rolling hills of the south and arrived at the huge Polish plain. Corn and wheat everywhere, as far as the eye could see. We found several locomotives that are operational and many that are just, sadly, parked and rusting away. There is a round table and a work shop where several locomotives are under repair. We saw two on the tracks with coal in the tenders so we assume that they are operational. From there we turned ourselves east and started our ride to Warszawa (Warsaw). We stopped when we reached Poznan and got a hotel room late in the afternoon rather than ride into the rain and lightning that were between us and Warszawa and headed our way. We were planing on camping on the east side of Poznań but the storm put us off. After we were settled in the hotel room we read a little bit about the campground we had planned on stopping at - we are glad we are not there. It is another huge place, larger than the one we were in a few nights past, and gets very crowded on the week ends. Just as well that we checked into the hotel. Oh ya, did we mention that the temperature is up again and has been when it is not raining. The European heat wave this summer continues - 37+ C (96 F) on our bikes today. See the Wolsztyn page in the Poland section for more information. Saturday - Monday, August 2 - 4, 2003Today's statistics: Top of PageTotal Distance: 381.0 KM A lot of farm land to travel through today. We are now in the central plain of Poland and all we saw today was corn, wheat and sugar beets. Well, there were woods, villages and other vehicles. Speaking of other vehicles, we have a new number two on our list of counties that have the worst drivers. Poland has displaced Spain and takes the number two position of worst drivers the of counties we have traveled. We are constantly amazed at the chances people take when driving a car or truck. Today Jim was almost hit by a car who pulled in in front of his bike after passing him and narrowly missed his front wheel - by maybe four inches; and that is being generous with the distance between the car and his wheel. We did see two ancinent scenes today. Both appeared to be head on collisions - front end damage to each vehicle. We are terrified every time we go around a corner because we fully expect to find a car or truck facing us in our traffic lane. This did happen to us in the Czech Republic - once. And we know that there will always be idiots on the highway who do such stupid things. But here, it is not just one person like we encountered in the Czech Republic - here it happens constantly. It is almost as bad as our number one country for the worst driver award. The only place we have been where we have seen more unsafe passing on two lane roads is Italy. We set out for the town of Toruń a bit northeast and 150 kilometers away. When we arrived we did a bit of sight seeing and had lunch. Then we rode southeast with Warszawa (Warsaw) as our destination. We arrived late in the afternoon and discovered that the local BMW dealer is opposite the hotel on the other side of the street. Good - we need to purchase a few liters of oil for the bikes. In the gasoline stations we have been unable to find any 20-50W API SG or SH motor oil since we left Hungary. We had lots of high clouds today so the temperature was down a bit and it was nice to ride without feeling like we were in a sauna. The only other way to beat the heat is to ride without our protective clothing - something we are not willing to do. See the Warsaw page in the Poland section for more information. When we leave here we will head north into the Baltic Countries and then return to Poland on our way south and visit Gdańsk and the north coast of the country. This makes a nice place to end this page and start a new one for the next portion of our Eastern Europe adventure - from Tallinn we head south through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. We will ride into Berlin when we leave Poland. See the Eastern Europe - Page 3 page to continue with our Eastern Europe adventure. |
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We arrived in Bratislava shortly after 1:00 PM in the afternoon. After getting settled in a hotel where we felt the bikes would be safe in their secured, locked garage, we exchanged some money and found a place to eat lunch. We then began our search for a place to buy 3rd party liability insurance for the bikes. Unfortunately there were no places at the border to purchase insurance and there was not anyone there who knew where we could purchase insurance. The one border guard we found that could speak some English suggested that we try to find a place in Bratislava.
We spent the next three hours working with the German Automobile Club (ADAC) which we have purchased breakdown coverage from to make arraignments to have her bike towed to a repair facility. After some initial confusion about our telephone number we finally received a call from the local Czech company who ADAC had contacted and they sent two men with a van to pick up her bike. Too bad the van was too small for the bike to fit into. We then waited another hour for another van to arrive into which we loaded her bike. Not a pretty sight to see your bike lashed down inside a van.
After a few beers we were left to fend for ourselves with Verna’s bike inside the van locked in the shop garage along with Jim's bike. We had our dinner, watched a bit of television and felt like a King and Queen in this lovely house. And, it was so nice to have more than one room to move through. We have to say thank you to Václav Hodný (2nd from right), his chief mechanic Karel (left), Pavel (right) who took Verna and her bike to Prague in the van and Václav’s daughter Míša for all of their kindness in making us welcome and helping make what was a very bad day into a great day that we will always remember fondly. 
He returned and we reviewed the service history of the bike and discovered that the repair had been entered into BMW’s master computer system as having been made in April of 2001. We were very happy that we had kept all of the information on the web site about the problems we have had with the bikes. We showed him the picture of the broken bearing from the last failure located in 
This campground was one of the noisiest we have ever been in. Lots of concessions on site with more than 10 separate stands with seating for beer drinkers. And, a disco in one area and a live performer in another who managed to make his volume go even louder AFTER the disco shut down for the night. And, then there were our neighbors - who thought nothing of slamming car doors and talking at the top of their voices while they partied into the night. This picture of the campground show about one third of the area it covered. The section with the “cabins” is off to the right and covers about the same area as can be seen in the picture. There are more tents and trailers beyond the trees in the distance in the center of the picture.