Buster & Paul's 2014 Eurotrip

[Black Pig]

Back in April, my pal Paul and me travelled around europe for 12 days.. and here's what happened. Day 1 was simply me riding from home to McDonalds at Berwick, where I met up with Paul and continued on to the ferry port.

Nothing special here except the rain, unrelenting,

We arrived at the ferry port, got sent into the bike lane, where Paul was ushered on board within the first 10 minutes. But not me, or the 15 or so other bikes that had subsequently joined the queue.

After about an hour we were ushered on board - freezing - and wet through.

In to the cabin, showered, changed and off for some scoff and a few beers - start as we mean to go on...

The ferry beer prices a re a bit steep at a fiver a pint, so I bought a bottle of Jim Beam black cherry and got a wee ticking for drinking it in the ships bar. Can't see why though as the sign says no food or drink purchased ASHORE to be consumed .. anyway.

Disembarked the next morning which was a reversal of the previous day, me and the others were off pretty promptly -about 9.15 or so and Paul rolled off at 10.30 .. he was not a happy monkey..

Anyway, we fuelled up and set off for Kiel. Now this leg was one of the worst of the whole trip, it seemed to go on forever.

We had decided to take this route s we could ride along that epic dyke.. Mistake BIIIIIG mistake, it was blowing a hooley all the way across. Still we did it.

Unremarkable views.







Off the dyke we passed a load of Tulip fields, the colours were incredible.





However, not long after that we got snarled up in an epic 4/5 mile traffic jam at roadworks, fortunately at this point the rain had stopped and it was beginning to warm up too. However, it still took us an hour to or so to get through it.

Once we were clear of this, the remainder of the journey was pretty unremarkable but interminable..

It was gone 8pm when we finally arrived at Kiel yout hostel. So we didn't get to see much of Kiel, we went out for kebab and beer then back to the hostel met some drugged up person of concern on the way back but he turned out to be harmless enough.

 

[Black Pig]

Okay then, up bright and early the next morning to visit the German WW2 Submariners memorial.

It's in a place just along the coast from Kiel in a place called Laboe.

The first thing you see is this huge great ginagarous tower, then most bizarrely a WW2 Submarine... On the beach.

The memorial is dedicated to those who were lost during the war. The Boat, U995 started life in 1943 patrolling the waters around Norway and at the end of the war it was given to the Norwegian navy, who operated it until the late 1960's. They then gave it back to Germany to be turned into the museum that it is today.

Brought back quite a lot of memories as my first boat wasn't a million miles form this.

The memorial tower.




Memorial tributes from around the world in the subterranean hall of remembrance.



Scarves with the just a few of the names of those lost at sea, left by families.



There were also loads of huge ship models, featuring ships and submarines throughout history



View from the top.







One of the propellers from the German battleship 'Prinz Eugen'. You can't actually get the scale from the picture, but it is massive..



Then after seeing all of the stuff in the memorial hall we went on to the boat itself..









The two Diesel generators, these are run to recharge and float the batteries when the boat is either surfaced or snorting at periscope depth.

These were the main way of replenishing the ships atmosphere, the air for the diesels is drawn in from the boat, fresh air is then induced via the snort induction mast. The air on these boats is always foul and oily and greasy, as there is no way of producing air when dived, unlike modern boats, nor is there any form of air purification.



This is the telegraph repeater sited in the Diesel Room, this is the one that was used to repeat back the order to the telegraph in the control, to acknowledge the propulsion order.



Crew bunk, typically senior rates PO + CPO (Sergeants + Staff Sergeants)



Auxilliary machinery and trim pump. They use this pump to move water around inside the boat in internal tanks to retain neutral, level bouyancy when dived.



Looking up the Conning tower, the shut hatch is the upper hatch which actually takes you into the fin and gun positions.



Foreplanes, Afterplanes and Steering - Left, right, up and down, on this boat the planesmen faced the ships side, quite counter-intuitive really.



The sonar room - eyes and ears of the operation, when dived.



The Wireless (WT) room



Two of the officers bunks



The bunks in this picture would have been a post war addition, All the way through the cold war we had additional bunks in the weapons compartments, I have slept amongst the warshot torpedoes on a couple of boats.







Next stop Berlin.

 

[Black Pig]

After we left the Submarine memorial, we went straigh down to Berlin, this was a pretty unremarkable 230 mile motorway jaunt, however, some fun was to be had on a no speed limit road. I managed to wring 201KMH out of the Spyder, it just would not go any faster, obviously the Hayabusa beat that ... easily.

The drivers were a bit creepy though, they drive at max chat right up yer arse and sit there until they can get past, your ****ed if anything happened and you have to throw down an anchor. Unfortunately as all the destinations were so far apart we had no choice but to go on the motorways everywhere we went.

So, getting to Berlin and finding the Hostel was a doddle, The hostel was pretty good except there were no locks on the lockers, however, you could buy one for a fiver, so I did. (Bugger carrying everything around with me.)

Berlin is a city with a deep and chequered past, it is also a city full of remorse, yet it still manages to be a 'forward looking' city. There is so much to see and do in this place, we, however, couldn't do much in a single day, especially when I still find walking a bloody challenge. Anyway we had a wander about on the first evening to get our bearings and find some fodder, so we had the obligatory 'Wurst' both plain and currywurst. I must say.. very nice fast food.

The city was awash with pedal yourself tourbikes, beer bikes, Trabants and street vendors selling all sorts of ****e at exorbitant prices, like the German motorbike helmets fo 45 Euros, fake Russian hats for similarly stupid prices and all kinds of other genuine fake merchandise. Everywhere you went, people were selling genuine bits of the Berlin wall - Yeah right!

Outside the Hostel, which was dab in the middle of Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg gate.


The Spyder got the flies...


Next visit was Checkpoint Charlie, where we had a McDonalds and a beer. Whilst we sat watching the tourists paying money to pretend US soldiers so they could pose for a photo.

TBH they didn't look much like soldiers and the uniforms they were wearing were, well, rubbish, anyway the tourists seemed happy with it all.


Echoes of a bygone era in what used to be East Berlin.






All around the city where the wall used to stand they have marked the roadway with these cobblestones, this table straddles the old wall, and where Paul was sitting would have been no-mans land..



All over the city, the electrical/communications junction boxes have been graffiti'd, very artistic graffiti, not the moronic 'Dave was here@ ****e our inventive youth come up with...Artistic stuff like.....


After sitting watching the totty at Checkpoint Charlie, we went to see the Brandenburg gate, on route we passed the memorial to the European Jews murdered during the second world war. The museum itself is underground and is guarded and only limited numbers are permitted at any time, so we skipped it. But here are the concrete blocks that sit on top of the museum.


Then on to the Brandenburg gate, which had an Easter fair going on one side..


A couple of views on the way back to the hostel, where we got free beer, because I let the receptionist have a wee shot on the Spyder...


Well after a couple of fairly quiet nights in Berlin, we were off to Oswiecim (Auschwitz).

 

[Black Pig]

So, the next morning, we checked out and jumped on the bikes for a 350 mile hike down to Oswiecim, just by Krakow in Poland.

I must say this was an epically long and boring journey, 350 miles of motorway. When we crossed the border into Poland the road difference was obvious, we had to slow down to 50-60 and even then we still got the fillings rattled out of our heads. They were even worse than ours! Anyway about 50-60 miles in and the surface began to improve, obviously it is an ongoing project.

Once we got on to the better road surface the trip was far more enjoyable and I have to say from what I could see, Poland is a really nice country, there are the obvious signs of 'rebellious youth' being a country not long out of communism, such as the graffiti which displays the arrogance of new found liberation.

But you know.. I really liked it.

Eventually (7 hours later we got off the motorway and started to head towards the town and we passed this place. With is cool artwork all over the place.









Turned out to be a bike leather clothing shop, they had some really cool gear in and I was going to pop back and get myself a leather jacket the following day, however, it got forgotten about. Anyway they didn't stock any actual bike kit as we realised that Paul needed a new front brake light switch as he was riding without a working brake light ... oooeer. He did give us the address of a main dealer, but it so happened that the road it was on was closed for rebuilding.

We found closures in a couple of places and my twat-nav was having a bit of a challenge dealing with them..

So we eventually got checked in to the guest house, however, when we arrived they had gone home... we were a wee bit late, still the chickadee came back out to us within half an hour, and as the sun was shining.. it didn't matter. I booked a twin room here and the chickadee gave us two singles for the same price. It was bloody brilliant! A shower in the corner and everything (£10.00 per night)



That night we went out to find something to eat, however, we could only find the 'Oriental Express' so we says" Chinese it is then", however, they didn't sell Chinese food it was kebabs and sausages and stuff like that. I had a kebab which was at best... Dubious.. We couldn't find a pub neither and everyone we asked didn't know what we were after, so we bailed and went back.. Good job I'd stashed some whisky for the trip..

Anyway, next morning was off to Auschwitz..

 

[Black Pig]

Today we went to Auschwitz, for those of you that have never visited, I apologise, but there are no words to describe the overwhelming feelings despair that I felt during parts of this visit.

It was truly harrowing to find out some of the things that one person can do to another, seemingly without flinching..

I will briefly describe some parts of it but I really can't deliver the same amount of information that our tour guide did.

This is not what you could even remotely call pleasant or enjoyable but it is edifying.

Firstly, the famous "Work makes you free" gate, where somewhat bizarrely, loads of people deem it apt to stand beneath and strike 'funny-look at me poses' FFS! Anyway I managed to grab a shot without an emptyheaded insensitive tourist in it.



Just to the right of the gate was where the Nazi's would shoot prisoners, before the inception of the 'death wall'.



Some general views of the camp, the actual architecture is not unattractive but that is because it was built before the war as a Polish Army garrison, it was the Nazi's who turned it into a place of horror.











Then we went inside one of the accommodation blocks and there are photographs of every single inmate that the Nazi's murdered, these were all Polish political prisoners, Gypsy's, Homosexual and other dissident's.

There is just a few Jews on this wall, that is because, they didn't start shipping Jews here until 1942/3 and even then, there were very few imprisoned here, I'll get to that in a wee while.

Some of the victims..





A view of the communal toilet, I'll show another one later it shows how the Nazi's strove to strip people of their basic humanity.



The men got mattresses as they were expected to put a 12 hour work day in.



The women got...



A couple of years into the growth of this camp they introduced bunkbeds into these rooms, instead of just straw on the floor, however the bunks had no mattresses, that being said, it was still luxury in comparison with what they managed to achieve later.

Next we move onto the death wall, it was a court yard in between two blocks, what happened here, was purely evil.

The guards held kangaroo courts in one of the block houses and then passed sentence on the prisoners, the prisoners were then led away to strip naked, so they could wash their clothes (which were re-issued), then sent off to their designated fate, some of them were sent to 'standing cells' which were 1 metre square cells about 2 metres high, where the nNazi's would send up to a dozen people to stand in them for up to four days the only ventilation was a 12cm hole. Or they would be sent to a sensory deprivation cell which was completely backed out with no light and soundproofed where they would be sent alone for days on end.

Or there was the starvation cell, which was just a cold concrete box, where they were sent with no food or water until they died..

This picture shows the death wall, you can see three posts on the left hand side of the picture, well originally there was a whole row of these posts. The prisoners had their hands tied behind their backs then the wrist bindings were hung from the hooks at the top of the posts, causing the prisoners shoulders to be torn apart back to front, after being hung for a day or two, they were taken down and stood up against the back wall and shot.

The lucky ones didn't get hung they were just shot sraight away, in front of all the hanging prisoners.

You will notice that the block windows were screened, that was to prevent anyone else from seeing/suspecting what was going on, thus preventing riots.



The breeze blocks are not original, at the end of the war the Nazi's smashed all the bullet damaged section of the wall away in an attempt to hide their actions.

It was in the basement of one of these blocks that the first experiments with Zyklon B gas were trialled, in the early experiments the prisoners could take up to 4 days to die.


We then moved into the one remaining gas chamber, there was originally 5, A riot by the inmates in one of the chambers cuased it to blow up in 1944, the nazi's destroyed the other 3 in an attempt to deny them. This one is in Auschwitz, not Birkenau where the main extermination programme was conducted.

The chamber.



The hole where the gas was inserted, then subsequently ventilated.



The furnaces where the bodies were cremated, they used rams to push the bodies in so the furnaces didn't have to be cooled. Tragically all of these actions were carried out by "Sonderkommando", inmates who were detailed off to do this, after a few weeks they themselves were gassed and cremated and new ones brought in.




This is as close as we were allowed to the commandant's house, where he lived with his wife and three children, his name was Rudolf Hoss, I'll save him for the end..



Next we were lead to buses and then taken over to Birkenau..

That all too familiar, infamous gate.



This is where the mass murder of the Jews took place, the Final Solution as it was known. Here is a picture of the time showing the victims being seperated into two groups male and female, they were then sub-split into workers and non-workers, for thousands of families it was the last time they saw each other.



In this picture we see a Nazi splitting the male group to his left went the workers, who typically worked until they died, to the right were the people destined 'To go to the other camp' but to get there, they had to go through the showers.

This is the reason there were so few Jewish prisoners, they got of the train, they were 'sorted' and the ones not destined to work were sent directly to the gas chambers and furnaces. 2000 people were murdered each day.



Here we have a picture of the model made of the gas chambers at Birkenau, the first picture shows the undressing room where everyone was stripped before being moved into the showers.



And then this shows the actual chamber, the chamber was fitted with fake shower heads so that the victims didn't suspect anything as they were being led in. Above you can see the furnaces that were fed by the 'Sonderkommando', it was one of these that was blown up by revolt.



Many of the murdered victims stolen posessions.







For those that didn't go direct to the chambers, they were kept in this type of 'accommodation', I think the guide said around 6 people to each 'shelf'.



The toilet blocks where there was no flushig/sewer facility, the victims were hearded in give 5 minutes to complete their ablutions, then hearded out - ready or not - there was a detail left behind who had to clean this facility by scooping all of the waste into buckets and then disposing of it down cesspits, and yes the cesspit was also used as a tool for punishment, victims were made to stand/swim in it.

A far cry form the toilets in Auschwitz..



A view from the end of the line, this was right between two of the gas chambers.



The ruins of the gas chambers, these were destroyed by the murderers in an attempt to conceal what they had been doing.







There were several ponds around the place, these were dug as pits in which to dispose of the murder victims ashes.



And the last surviving cattle truck, synonymous with this act of utter evil..



Rather bizarrely, after the war the vast majority of the 'soldiers' involved in this mass murder were permitted to return to normal lives and live out their days in relative peace, all except a small handful.

One of that small handful was Rudolph Hoss, who ran away and hid at the end of the war, He was the camp Kommandant. He was tracked down and arrested in South America where he was brought back to Auschwitz and hanged..
Here... right outside the only remaining gas chamber.

 

[Black Pig]

After our day at Auschwitz we went back to the hostel and on out to a local pub, where I drank myself into oblivion and made freinds with a small group of lovals who kept plying us with some form of Czech vodka.

I don't think either of us managed to operate a camera that evening..

Anyway next morning off we pop to jolly old Prague, unfortunately in this part of the country there were no major roads so we traveled through towns, housing estates and at one point the twat nav wanted us to go through a dirt track.. ermmmmmm no chance! so I kept going until it picked up another route, eventually after covering just 30 miles in an hour we got spat out onto a motorway and had the whole road to ourselves.






....and on to Prague, we pulled into the outskirts of the city and it was roasting hot and the traffic was stop-go for about 40 minutes, we eventually arrived at the hostel only to find that I was supposed to confirm the booking two days before, which I hadn't done, still they could fit us in anyway.

We had reached a point where we were about to shoot the whole plan and just scarper.. There was a waitress working in the restaurant right beside the hostel and she kept popping out to feed us horror stories about Prague, we were parked in a residents zone and the police are round every five minutes, and they don't just give you a ticket they take your vehicle away.. and so on, she was also on about how you shouldn't put anything down as within seconds criminals will materialise from within the road surface and steal it.. Paul was paranoid enough, but this was even making me a bit concerned. Anyway right before we bolted the hostel owner arrived and explained that he couldn't put u in this hostel but in another around the corner. We asked about parking and he said there was a park around the corner but it was £25,00 per night each, which was more than the hostel, so I said bugger that we're gonna bolt, then he asked me about my blue badge. Then lead us to a blue badge bay right outside the cop-shop - Winner!



Well, the hostel was a bit of a hole, ****ey mattresses, ripped bedding, all kinds of stains on the carpet, still it was cheap and they even managed to rip us off for an extra £15.00, £7.00 for some invisible tax and a magic £8 in the currency conversion, they made their own figures up..

Well despit the waitresses horror stories neither of us were robbed of our vital organs nor were the bikes touched, so in all, it proved to be a really good days sightseeing.

On to The Old Town Square....







Then Wenceslas Square..





...and yes they do still have C&A in Prague...







Then into evening..





The Astronomical Clock






















CHEERS!!



Oh, yes and would you bloody well believe it..Nothing, NOTHING is sacred..

 

[Black Pig]

The next stop was due to be Basel, in Switzerland, however, the thought of doing 400 miles one day, 300 miles the next and another 200 after that was a wee bit too daunting. Therefore, we binned Basel (well, not literally...) and went to Stuttgart instead, Paul was desperate tto spend some money in Heine Gerick shop.

We ended up staying in a town called Backnang, I have absolutely nothing to say about this place as we went straight to the hotel (via a Heine Gericke shop- where we witnessed a guy trying on crash helmets, he would put the lid on, bugger off round the block on his bike, come back, try another and so on. The wee honey working there even let me walk out the shop with a top box to try it on the Spyder - no issues at all. A far cry from the UK!)
Anyway the hotel was really nice, even looked as if it had been recently refurb'ed but due to the onset of biblical rain we went to the AUCE Chinese buffet over the road, had a couple of beers and went off to bed..

Separately..

Obviously..

Oh I forgot to mention, this hotel was only about £25.00 per night and it even had an underground car which was locked at 5pm, we were given a key for the shutter just in case we wanted to do some sub-sea riding..

Next morning, up and at 'em another motorway muncher away up to Han-Sur-Lesse in Belgium and en route we passed through Luxembourg. After, of course, another hour session at a Heine Gericke shop, this one south of Stuttgart.

I don't know if anyone here has been there before but my impression from a brief ride through was Rough as feck, it was like an independently named council scheme in Manchester...

Our only stop in Luxembourg, where Paul seemed to pick up a monkey hitch hiker, which was funny as, because when he passed me on the motorway, the monkey was waving..







Then on to Han-Sur-Lesse, where we were hoping to recreate that epic night we spent in Itera de La Vega, in Spain a few years ago. But sadly not, instead of the youthful dynamic backpackers out to have a great night out, our hostel was full of middle aged ramblers - all female might I add, but not a mob you would want to tangle with.

So we contented ourselves with wandering around the village trying to find somewhere to get some scoff and a couple of beers, which we did but none of it was really noteworthy.

We did spend a few minutes eyeing up a load of British motorbikes in hotel car park.

And that was about it.

Some pics of the wee town, the big sculpture thing was outside the hostel and it was made od all bits of, well, scrap really. Quite cool though.
















The next morning was "pack up and piss of to the ferry day, a very unexciting 200 mile trip to Ijmuiden, then an overnighter at sea.

So, all in all, it was a great trip, the only slight downside was the last two stops were just one night stopovers without any sightseeing, still we managed to cram a lot in to 10 days.

My total mileage from front door and back was 2602 miles.

 

[SDM]

WOW!!!:yes: Looks like you had one h:cus: of a trip! I am absolutely GREEN with envy!!!:firstplace:

 

[ARtraveler]

Fantastic trip and pictures. Thank you so much for sharing these with us. :2thumbs::2thumbs::2thumbs: :yes::yes::yes:

 

[PrairieSpyder]

Thanks for posting all of this. I was in Europe in 2000. I saw Auschwitz, too, & was quite moved. It is truly amazing what people are capable of. In Berlin I stayed at a hostel in E Berlin & it was a good one. At that time there were still bombed outbuildings full of rubble. They were also stil in the process of converting old apt buildings to be more modern. A Norse guy at the hostel was apt hunting & could get one for about $200/month but he'd have to haul coal for heat.

 

[Chupaca]

Thanks..!!

wow..emotional and yet beautiful. Wet and wild..thats the way to tour about. The pictoral view was great for us...thanks..!! :2thumbs: hyea:

 

[Yazz]

Awesome road trip! :2thumbs:

Thanks for sharing it with us!!!

 

[SpyderAnn01]

I had a lot of fun reading about your journey. Thanks for sharing.

 

[AbNormy]

thanks

So moving i'm sharing this thread with others that don't ride spyders....thank you for posting all the great pics!