Great story and pics, thanks for sharing
Brought back memories from when I was in Bratislava and Budapest on my trip before Christmas last year
Very different to Yakima? Well when I was there in '88' and way haha
Ride safe and keep it coming

Wayne

__________________
The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

May 28
The weather was threating rain again and we wanted a down day so we were tourists in Cluj. Cluj-Napoca is the second largest city in Romania and the unofficial capital of Transylvania. The city has the typical eastern European city evolution but of note, the patron saint is Michael the Arch Angel and that church is in the city center. A picture of that was posted yesterday.

Cluj is the main cultural center of the country and when we were there, The Transylvania Interational Film Festival was there. Almost all the films were sub-titled in English. When we tried to get a ticket to see one, we discovered they were sold out for the evening. The tickets to see the movies were $2 to $4. The town buzz was that Sophia Loren was in the city to accept an award as part of the festival.




Some of the Film Festival posters

As we do, we wandered around the town to take it in.


Something to do with the Film Festival


Could this be Romulus and Ramus? Not sure of its signifigance

The hotel we should have stayed at -- much less expensive.


Some Transylvania architecture.

There were some interesting arts and crafts. The crafts were from specific areas of Ukraine and all were-made items. But even though we looked at something that would fit the grandkids, living on a motorcycle for a month doesn’t leave many storage options.


Something for the grandkids?





Craft Fair booths


The hotel was nice, and we had underground parking. We were strong for the Ukraine border crossing and the drive to L’viv.

View from our room

May 31

We walked around in the rain. It was kind of nice. The city has interesting and varied architecture from the various political influences.

We changed hotels, got caught up on chores and had dinner with Anna and Magnus.

New hotel


View from new room


Parking for the bike


A bus stop right in front of hotel. Constant packed buses...


...and trams.

Magnus is 8 and is impressed with Netflix of Mike’s ipad and the bike.

Magnus thinking about the bike in his future.


Dinner with Ena and Magnus

June 1


What shall we have for breakfast? It is like Forest Gump, “you never know what you are going to get.”

Then out on the square. The weather is much nicer today.





Chess is big in Lviv. Many tournaments are hosted in the city. It is also a pastime in the square where men sit on the park benches playing animated games with interested audiences. A women’s championship was hosted this year but we didn’t see any women playing in the square.


Playing chess in the square


Chess with an audience


Street art. She was really good. We wanted this artist to draw a picture of our grandchildren from a picture which we got printed at the Lviv-like Kinkos. But when we went back to the square, she was gone.


The ubiquitous McDonalds. Yes, we admit to going once in a while. Tonight, ice cream.

Anna was our guide to the high castle hill. While hiking up the hill we ran into some women who travel to various countries doing volunteer work...whatever the country needs. What a great opportunity to travel the world as a young person. It is better than waiting until you retire to become a traveler.


Anna and Beverly and the world travelers.


Mike and Beverly at the top


Women selling their produce on the street.


Cadets in Lviv


Mike getting a hair cut. Cost: $1.60 with .40 tip.



Architecture

June2

The Ukrainian police stop the other day has been on our minds. Mike sort of wanted to fight harder but he was thinking about Beverly standing outside while he was sitting in the car and Anna in Lviv would be waiting for us. Beverly wanted to be more intrusive with her camera but she was thinking about the police taking her phone which had some pictures on it that weren’t copied anywhere else. Though we think we did fairly well with the fine being dropped from $120 to $24, Mike wouldn’t allow them to have a passport and offered to go to jail, and Beverly did get some pictures. Anna said that police are now paid an adequate wage to combat the corruption like this. But unfortunately, that supposed transformation hasn’t filtered into the smaller towns yet. We concluded, for the current moment, that Beverly should have been right in there and taken more pictures. Hindsight isn’t 20/20 because we have no idea what would have happened had we acted more aggressively.

Now for today. We got an early start at 7AM to avoid the rain and thunderstorms forecasted for the afternoon. The 200mile drive to Krakow was nice and uneventful. The border crossing o Poland was routine – about 3 stops that took an hour. We were grateful that we were not in a car because it took an hour when we were able to jump to the front of the line. None of the cars appeared to have a problem with us doing that. Cars even moved aside so we could get our wide bike through the crowded lanes. The car line-up was long. We guess that it would have been at least a 3-hour wait had we stayed in line






Border


We experienced very light rain at the end of the trip. It wasn’t until after we arrived that the real rain started. We stopped in a town across the border to get some money. A city event like a fair with craft and food booths was going on. The streets were packed with cars. Mike parked the bike on the sidewalk, joining the many cars already there. We were walking across the street with the crowd when we noticed some police writing tickets for illegally parked cars. Mike went back and asked them if our “moto” was ok. At first they didn’t understand and thought it was a car. They motioned that it had to be moved. When they realized it was a motorcycle, they said “moto is good.”



Parked on the sidewalk


Going to the fair


All locked up


Ethnic food -- Polish sausage otherwise known as a hotdog.

Motorcycles really do get preferential treatment in Europe. Not just by the officials but by businesses and other drivers.



Bathroom with helmet holder


Bus lanes designated for motorcycles

We had wanted to get a place to stay right on the city square but there was no place for the bike. The city square is large and does not allow vehicles. Free parking is practically non-existent. Parking in garages outside the city square charge about 3Eu or more per hour. We opted to stay a little bit out of the center. It was within walking distance and easily accessible to public transportation.

We arrived at Hostel Extra, unpacked and headed for town. We had on our good rain-gear and plastic bag on the camera. The Salwater tram was traveling our route but we didn’t yet know how to find ticket machine. We did know that the fine for getting caught without a ticket was about $60 and they weren’t lenient with tourists.

Our Airbnb host provided some shelter for the bike.

On the way into town people were standing in the rain outside and across the street from the KAJKONIK pub. The people standing next to us told us to just wait. The Kajkonik is a character dressed up like a Tatar who once a year, parades through Krakow collecting ransom money and touching people with his mace for good luck. This has been going on for 700 years and is derived in some way from a story about repelling a Mongol invasion, and dressing up like the losers. It has become a Krakow Icon, hence the pub.


Something is going to happen soon



The festivities


Here is is -- Kajkonik






Walking around the square and town

We saw a sign in the square that said a bar was showing a soccer game, so it looked like an easy place to have a . We ended up in the middle of a bachelor party for Matt who was marring Holly. After the mandatory ribbing form older men to the groom to be on how he was giving up his freedom, we partied and talked about strategies for his business. These guys are body builders who sell vitamins, and want to market to travelers who might want custom packages of supplements shipped around the world to supply people as they travel. The and the party took over and we didn’t finish the business plan.


We chose this bar for the soccer game



and found a Bachelor party

It was still raining and about 9:30. The place to buy tram tickets was supposed to be easily seen at every stop by the square. We didn’t see any. We decided that since you are supposed to be able to buy a ticket on the tram, that is what we would do. We got on but the driver was behind a locked door, no one else was in our car and the tram took off. We didn’t figure out how to get a tram ticket until the next day. No fines tonight.

Back home to bed.

June 3
The big event for the day was to tour the salt mines. The salt mines at Wieliczka. The salt mines have been in operation since the 13th century and were discontinued only 10 years ago. Miners would stay in the mine for weeks at a time and like the coal mines at home, they used pit ponies and canaries. The work was difficult, hence the saying “another day in the salt mines” to describe a hard day.


This man showed us how to get a tram ticket.

We went down around 400 wooden stairs ao start the tour and then down even more and came up an elevator

[

These stairs made from salt


Down into the mines even further







Salt mine tour



The miners tour – we didn’t do


We met these Canadians on our way to the salt mine tour. We rode the train back to town with them.
We also learned how to get a tram ticket from this man

After the salt mines we walked around town and the square.





Another bachelor party


"Be safe in Krakow." We found this in a souvenir shop


Tram back home after picking up breakfast. Pack up for early start to Auschwitz.
Individual tours of Auschwitz needed to be booked weeks in advance. The choices we had were to take a tour from one of the many tour companies, or go early and be there by 9:00 and get an early entrance. Our hotel Krakow was booked for tomorrow night so we decided to go early and get a hotel in Oswiecim near the museum.

June 4

Arrived at hotel, dropped off our stuff and took a Taxi to the Auschwitz museum on the advice of the hotel.


The tour took close to 4 hours and was well done.


Our guide, Jana, was excellent. She may have done that presentation every day but it didn't sound like it.

A dark cloud hangs over us from the experience. One can read, study, watch videos, and so on but the feeling of the place is penetrating. The seeds of racism and bigotry can grow to be hideous if not weeded early. Enough said. Here are some pictures:



The entrance gate. What it says is "Work will set you free."



Mike at the gate with barbed wire and a watch tower.









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We returned to the hotel.

.....and then had a little quiet time in our own minds in the spa in our hotel. The segue just doesn't seem right.

June 5
Today we decided to push on to Berlin. It is 350 miles and the forecast is for thunder showers. We got on the highway, set it at 80 mph and rolled. Not very exciting bike riding but duty calls. We got caught in a few squalls but generally did OK.

The freeways are in surprisingly great condition. It is a surprise because a few years back when we did our Scandinavian-Russia-Baltic tour, we took a ferry from Lithuania to Kiel Germany. The ferry was full of trucks from Poland. We were told that trucks like to take the ferry because the roads are so bad in Poland. That certainly was not the case in our experience.


Polish Freeways


We met some other bikers at one of the road stops. Of course we had to check out the bikes. The analogy of dogs sniffing any new dogs they meet, I am told, is inappropriate. They were part of a club known as the blue knights. This is an international club of police bikers. One of the guys had a friend and fellow club member from Chicago. He was happy to tell us that, and took pictures of our bike. They gave us some badges.


The Blue Knights with Beverly, Mike and our bike


A gift from the Blue Knights

We stopped at a gas station to spend the last of our Polish Zloty and have lunch.

This is what you can buy with 9 zloty: 2 s.


Our favorite -- A stand up lunch.

There are no border stops in the EU zone so we sailed into Germany.
We made it to Berlin and found our place to stay. Yuli and Marcus are our Airbnb hosts.


Back to Germany


Parking just outside our Airbnb building.

Berlin apparently has no specific downtown core like many European cities. We walked around the neighborhood, had falafel at a sidewalk diner and went home to work on this blog.

Talked to Neil MacDonald who is a guy from New Waterford living close to Berlin. We will meet him tomorrow.

June 6

Our place was about 30 minutes from the Rotes Rathaus (Berlin’s red town hall) where we would meet Neil MacDonald. We bought a day pass for the transit system with a goal of meeting Neil and then starting our tour of Berlin.
Neil is active on the New Waterford and St Agnes Facebook sites and lives in a town not far from Berlin.

We arrived at Alexanderplatz and walked around. Berlin was mostly destroyed during the Allied Invasion in WWII. It was the headquarters of Nazi Germany so it was a target. The city has a new modern look and the building activity is significant.


Alexandria Bus/train station


Mike in Alexandriaplatz


Lunch on Alexandriaplatz


Beverly @ Rathaus


The Rathaus


Some features in Berlin are like Seattle.


A very tall tower in downtown. In Berlin it is a TV tower. Seattle has the Space Needle.


Seattle has so many cranes that it is sometimes referred to as the state bird. It looks like Berlin has even more.


Seattle has Bertha, the boring machine.

We met Neil and stopped for a . The stories of people and events in New Waterford started, the was good and the discussion took its own course. We talked a little about Berlin and what we had done outside New Waterford but it was mostly 4 hours about growing up there. My accent got thicker as we spoke and Beverly just watched.


Mike and Neil

After Neil left to take the train home, we took the local bus to some of the tourist highlights. Berlin was two distinct cities separated by “the wall” so it doesn’t have an old town core like many of the European cities.


Our bus


The 100 and 200 buses




An expanded sort of bicycle power


Brandenburg Gate




It is getting late

After a long day we took the train and bus back to our place. We stayed in an area of Berlin called Moabit. Berlin is a city of 3.5M people and although we were inside the ring road, we were still a 30 minute train ride from the tourist area.

June 7

Our goal for the day was to learn about East and west Berlin and visit “the wall” The Berlin wall surrounded the city of West Berlin to restrict travel to the west and was the symbol of the cold was that lasted from 1961 to 1989.

Artists of the cold war period were invited to paint on the wall as a memorial. The blank area shows that some artists refused and didn’t want that time to be remembered.







Kissing picture of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German president Erich Honecker. It was referred to as the deadly love.



For us, it was a great posing opportunity.


Our modern day equivalent on a wall in Lithuania. Trump and Putin.

Check point Charley was the main border crossing for Allied Military.
The wall was constructed through streets, parks and residential areas.


Then



Now


Beverly and Amy who we met on the streets of Berlin. Amy works for a tour company. She is from Birmingham and has only lived here for less than a year but still refers to the East and West.


Beverly sitting on where the wall once was. This bricked line shows up in many places in Berlin

Wall museum and a park in the death zone on the East side of the wall. Many East Germans were killed trying to get to West Germany.


The wall and the death zone

We visited lots of other sites and saw many things:



It might have been fun to stay here.

We stopped for a late dinner, not because we were hungry, but because we couldn’t move any more.


We did a lot of this in Berlin. It was very easy to get around.



We did a lot of this too. This first pedestrian crossing figures in the world to wear hats originated in East Germany 50 years ago. Surviving a post-reunification attempt to have them removed, the jaunty figures have since gained cult status.


These guys did NOT want their picture taken. But it is our adventure so here they are. Our "24 hour pass" as referred to in one tourist office purchased last night ran out at 3AM. Really, it is a day pass (not 24 hours) regardless at what time you purchase it. We were busted.


A little laugh while we were walking around.


When we arrived to our place, we had a glass of wine with Yuli and Marcus. Yuli is studying to be a pediatric surgeon and Marcus is a psychoanalyst. They are a very cerebral and friendly couple. We were very comfortable at their house.


Our place in Berlin


Our room -- books an bike helmets


Mike with Yuli and Marcus

The next day, our goal was to drive 550km to Sundern to visit Marta and Uwe, our friends we met in Norway on a motorcycle trip.

June 8

We were on the road by 8:00am. Berlin is a big city and it took us 45 minutes to get out of the city.

The road to Sundern is mostly Autobahn, so 130km/hour and a stop every hour and a half and we were there.

We arrived about 4:00 to Ferienhaus Blome. Our Airbnb hostess was Hildegard who welcomed us and showed us around. We had the whole house to ourselves. It was quiet with a nice patio. Great place to rest and just hang out if we had the time.



This is where we stayed

We met Marta and Uwe. We have kept in touch and the visited us last year in Washington.


Uwe at Mount Rainier last year

We had dinner at a local hotel that had a sister hotel In Kenya. It was African night.[/B]

Berlin! I love this city, I have been a few times. The first was in 1984 when I was in the Military and the wall was up. I was stationed in Spandau
I hope you managed to get up to the Tower, you get a 360 views the city and there was a restaurant up there too.
Keep up the good work Mike

Wayne

__________________
The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

June 8,
Today,we went to Munster with Hike, Uwe,s sister, Uwe and Marta.. Munster is a very old city but many of the old buildings were damaged in the war. The city is noted for the many political negotiations taking place here and especially the Spanish Dutch Peace Treaty which established the country of the Netherlands.

Munster is a university city with 50,000 students and is the bicycling capital of Germany. 45% of the distance traveled in the town is by bicycle.


bikes


and more bikes









We visited Martin who is Uwe and Marta’s brother in law and Hike’s husband. His company sells seeds to the European farmer community. They have facilities for testing different strains and fertilizers and sprays. Very interesting and definitely no GMOs.

Marin gave us a tour of the fields of various strains of different grains.






That night we ate at a local restaurant that has been in the family for many generations.


At dinner with Uwe, Marta, Hike and Martin.

June 9

After breakfast with Uwe, we went back to our place to do laundry, some blog work and other errands. It is hard sometimes to fit in the time to do the day to day stuff on the road.

We stopped at a store near their house that sells only local goods: jams, mustard, honey, produce, dairy etc. They were taking the horses including two young ones born in April and May across the street to the pasture. It was fun to watch.






Uwe is the president of a sailing club and has been running it in different capacities for 15 years. He needed to stop by and take care of a little business. We went out to see the boat. The sun was shining and there was a little breeze……











We drove up to the local ski hill and climbed the TV tower for a 360 view. We didn't go up in the Berlin tower but we did see this one.



The area around Sundern is forested with lots of rolling hills, yet every square inch is used.


Mike and Uwe coming down. The viewing platform is halfway up the tower.

That evening we had a family dinner with the family. Uwe’s family live together in a complex of 4 dwellings. Helga, Uwe’s mother, still works as a tailor. Thomas, Uwe,s son is a carpenter, but he builds and installs prefab buildings. Hike works in a bank, and Marta runs a doctor’s office. Jan is Hike and Martin's son. The hospitality was wonderful and we were privileged to be part of their family for a few days.


Back Row: Uwe Marta Martin
Front Row: Jan Mike Helga Hike Beverly

June 11
Today we are off to Heidelberg for the last leg of the trip. Uwe and Marta took their bike and drove the first 45km with us. It was like old times in Norway.




The trip to Heidelberg was 150 miles, half on the autobahn. An easy day riding. We stopped in at Stephan’s, talked to some bikers who were starting their trips, went to dinner, and went to our place to sleep as long as we could.