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14 Oct 2009
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: South Wales
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Poland Trip Aug 2009
Monday August 3rd:
Luggage loaded, oil checked, petrol tank full, check google routes, ferry tickets, map Docs.
Last call to Pete to check the trip is still on.
Tuesday August 4th:
Alarm goes off 03:30, last time I saw 03:30 it was nearly time for bed.
I allow myself 1 snooze (8mins).
03:38 alarm goes off again, kiss sleeping wife, look in on sleeping baby, time to get dressed – check out of the window – hey! It’s not raining!
On with the leathers and boots, get bike out from garage, text arrives from Pete so its time to go.
Gentle pootle to the M4 Jn 28 roundabout where we arranged to meet and up onto the pavement to wait for him. As planned I hear the sound of his Termignonis at 3:59, he drives past at 04:00, I follow.
I pass him at the end of the slip road and we settle into the first leg – steady 80 – 85.
Approaching Swindon we catch up with the weather, drizzle more than rain, doesn’t seem worth stopping for waterproofs – Pete already had his on.
Reading Services – still drizzling but the sky ahead looks brighter so not bothering with waterproofs – the wind should dry me off. Pete pulls alongside (we always fill up together, I fill he pays and vice versa), I can see the grin through his helmet, if it got any wider his whole head would flip off the back!
5 mins and we’re off, we are booked on the 09.30 boat out of Dover but would like to be on an earlier one.
Off the M4 at Jn10 for A329 then M3 then M25. Its still only about 05.30 so the M25 is fairly clear and the speed limits aren’t lit up – that’s good.
Onto the M20, we soon come up behind two lorries, one on the inside lane doing 55mph the other on the outside doing 55.0000001mph. We filter past the irate car drivers then follow for about 2 miles – I can hear Pete’s blood starting to boil, that’s it – down 2 cogs, hard shoulder, I’m clear.
07:30, fuel light comes on on the downhill into Dover. We pull into the 2nd garage. The grin is still there!
07:40 we are at the Sea France gate – ‘I can get you on the 08:10 sailing for a tenner each’ – sounds a bit steep, last time I went they did that for free and Pete says it’s free on the Chunnel. We pay and then it’s the lidless ride to lane 156 to wait. 3 other bikes come in just behind us, 2 guys off to do the Milau bridge and another on a BMW GS, we only had time for quick hellos before we are called onto the boat, crew tie us down, time for brekky.
10.45 (Euro time) a little filtering through the lorries and we are out into French daylight – country No.3, no hassle at immigration and off to the autoroute. Less than 30 mins. later we’re passing Adinkerke – no stopping for cheap booze or fags, but the queues to get off the autoroute were about 2 miles in each direction.
One quick fuel stop in Belgium then into Netherlands then Germany – country No. 6 – not bad before lunch!
Last fuel stop of the day we get the directions out and make fresh notes, 45 mins. later we pull up outside the Goalfever Guesthouse in Essen, no U turns, no stopping to re-read directions!
Check in, bikes secured, quick shower, shorts on – time for a  . Maybe we should have turned left, but it was a 3 mile walk until we found a bar! Still the was cold and a reasonable price.
I think we had 4 kleiners (little ones) each then decided it was time to eat, we had seen a restaurant on our way to the bar so decided to give it a try – good food and less than 10 Eu a head including a and a coffee.
Back to the guesthouse, another couple of s and a look at the map and directions then early night.
Miles 493.6
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15 Oct 2009
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Wednesday August 5th:
Woke about 6:30. Sh*t, shower – feck shaving I ain’t gonna be kissing anyone for over a week!
On the road by 07:00. ‘Daddy can we have a black car, they’re the fastest!’ They don’t hang about on the autobahns! Loads of BMWs, Mercs and Audis whizzing past – must have been doing well over 200kmh (130mph) all black!
It had to be done, head down – I got my 1000 Monster up to 140mph on the clock, still had about 1500 revs left before the limiter, so may have been a little quicker in 5th – will be putting a bigger rear sprocket on soon. Plenty of roadworks on the autobahn so we caught up with the BMs, Mercs and Audis by filtering!
By the side of the road we noticed a couple of rather daunting buildings – and there was a bear statue – I guess that was the old border to East Germany.
Same trick as yesterday – 50 miles out from Berlin at last fuel stop – re-check directions, we rode straight to the door of the Odyssee Globetrotter Hostel. Off street parking again, bikes secured, shorts on, time to become tourists. Well, after a of course.
Follow the blue touristy signs – we found the Brandenburg Gate
Then onto one of the few remaining sections of the wall – most of it has been destroyed but a little has been kept as a reminder and they are creating a museum/memorial thing close by and have posters up around the site giving a lot of the story of the wall and its victims. The wall itself is only about 7 ft high and 6 inches thick – I started to think ‘how could this have caused so much grief for nearly 30 yrs, then realised it wasn’t the wall but the 5 or more metres of NO MAN’S LAND on either side with look-out posts and machine guns’.
Next – Checkpoint Charlie –
OK done history, time for tea – could we find anywhere that sold wurst (German sausages) could we heck, there was Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Italian, everything except German. Eventually stopped at one place and asked if he could do us something? Yes.
On then to a quiet little local bar for a couple, then back to the hostel for the final 2 before bed
Miles 355
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16 Oct 2009
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Thursday August 6th:
Poland here we come.
Up and off early as usual, weather has been great since we left UK so would rather be drinking than riding by 2pm.
Foggy start and not too sure of directions in the city so just tried to head SSE judging only by the direction of the satellite dishes. It worked we were soon on the autobahn towards Cottbus.
I nearly got wiped out by a big black Audi cutting back in too close after overtaking me (at about 140mph).
Stopped for petrol about 40 miles out of Berlin and had a chat to a couple of Polish wingers heading for a Treffen in Czech Republic. I asked why they were going through Germany? – ‘The roads are better’
Soon we came upon a tailback, filtered for about 5 miles, got to the front and were greeted by a policeman and a scene of carnage. He explained that the driver of the now wrecked car appeared to have fallen asleep at the wheel, veered to the left, flipped and rolled. 2 dead, no other vehicles involved.
The crash investigators were already measuring the skid marks.
We were only held up about 20 mins.
40 miles later I realised what the wingers meant – the first 30 miles of the E40 once you cross the border into Poland are terrible – really bumpy – I wished I’d mugged the guy in Dover for his BMW GS! I soon noticed that all the traffic was driving on the left, so I copied and found it was better – a little.
Cool electronic roadsigns in Poland – giving air temp. and road temp – just like at GPs with track temp.
We had arranged to text Tomek and Graznya from Wroclaw so they could meet us at the Gliwice.
We actually went another 30 miles before I texted Tomek so we were only about 30 mins from Gliwice.
It turns out that this text didn’t arrive until Friday afternoon – so Tomek wasn’t waiting for us at the Gliwice turn off as we’d expected. We stopped and I texted both of them, Graznya replied you can either wait and Tomek will be along in 30 mins or drive on into Bytom where Tomek will wait ‘by the table’.
We drove on into Bytom, didn’t see any table, (I still don’t know what she meant by ‘table’), didn’t see Tomek and continued to drive another 5 miles towards Krakow. I decided it was time to pull in and phone. Tomek had seen us ride past but had been unable to catch us in his Smart. I eventually gave my phone to a ‘stranger’ to explain where we were. 10 mins. later Tomek arrived and led us to their home.
Hugs and handshakes then unloading the bikes and putting them in the garage then getting changed then lunch – with – and time to catch up – we hadn’t seen each other since Faro 2004 so plenty of news both ways.
That evening Tomek took us out (by car) to Gliwice (Graznya was confined to quarters for medical reasons) for a couple of s with the Firebirds of Silesia. We chewed the fat for a couple of hours – their English was amazing – our Polish is crap – I had crammed up on ‘hello, please, thank-you, yes, no and how are you’ just before we left an we already knew na zdrowie from our first meeting with Graznya in 2003 at Faro.
Miles 342.2
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19 Oct 2009
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Friday August 7th.
Auschwitz and Birkrnau.
Tomek drove us to Auschwitz, took us to the entrance, paid for us to get in, then left us. Graznya had told us that all Polish children visit whilst in High School and it was too soon to go back.
We were taken around by an English speaking guide, he constantly refered to ‘The Nazis’rather than ‘The Germans’ so there is clearly a distinction in the minds of the Polish people which I found hard to understand.
Auschwitz is horrific, Rafal from the Firebirds summed it up very well the evening before – that it was a place of extermination and annihilation rather than a prison.
Most countries have history of cruel tortures and punishments, but Auschwitz (and Birkenau) were there purely to destroy people.
The tour lasted about 3 hours including the visit to Birkenau.
I understand why they don’t want to go back. I won’t, ever, nor will Pete.
Everyone should go, once.
I’d suggest over 21 only.
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19 Oct 2009
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After Auschwitz and Birkenau Tomek took us – via the ‘scenic’ route to Krakow, 2nd city of Poland and hometown to Pope John-Paul II. The Polish road network appears to be under a major (re)-construction – ready for Euro 2012 football. We found about 30 miles of toll motorway – the toll booths were fully operational – just the road was only about 75% constructed – rip off!
We had dinner close to the castle (where there lives a dragon – at least according to the tourist shoppes).
We also saw the house where JPII lived when he was Bishop of Krakow including a lifesize picture of him in the window.
Nearby, in the park, is an exhibition of all the countries he visited as Pope – over 100 visits.
Bought jewelery for wifey – she might let me go again!
Miles 0
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19 Oct 2009
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Registered Users
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: In Ireland and loving it !
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HI
if you are heading south you should ask your friend to guide you down to Morskie Okno, in the direction of Zakopane, might not be a great time to be riding in Pland weather wise but it is pretty cool.
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