Deane & Norm's Motorcycle Trip in
Northern & Eastern Europe and Scandinavia
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Deane & Norm's Motorcycle Trip in Northern & Eastern Europe and Scandinavia |
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July 25, Vienna, Austria to Prague, Czech Republic 316 Km (196 Miles) |
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Another beautiful day for riding. We started from Vienna with overcast skies and not too heavy going-to work traffic, so after a couple of wrong turns we were out of the city. The overcast stayed with us most of the day, but was light and we had no rain. We rode on two-lane roads much of the way, through beautiful farmland. There was wheat in both harvest gold and brilliant green. The land was rolling and nearly level, but one section was particularly beautiful because of new vineyards. These were planted in an area of particularly steep small breaks in the overall fields. Absolutely gorgeous!! Another crop that we had seen, but not with such large fields, was Sunflowers. On our route today these were blooming and the fields were huge. Very pretty sight! Coming into Prague (Praha is the European spelling) the traffic was fierce, and the city quite large and difficult to get through. We had quite a time finding our hotel, called the "Albatross Boatel". With that name, one wonders what we might be getting into. However, it is a floating motel and restaurant on the big river, "Vitava" that runs through Prague. Our day was a short one, and we just took it easy in the afternoon.. Damage and attempted theft on one motorcycle! When we were packing up on the motorcycles day before yesterday, we discovered that one hard-bag latch was damaged on Deane's motorcycle. We had seen an indication of this when we packed up in Budapest, but on that morning we were packing up in fairly heavy rain, and so we just used Bungee cords to keep it closed on the road. Discussing and analyzing it more today, we decided that an attempt was made to get into this bag, two nights ago, in Budapest. Deane had taken out the things he needed for the night, and locked up that empty bag on the motorcycle. We had parked both motorcycles in a small court yard at the hotel where we were staying in Budapest. However, we thought at the time that while the small court yard had an iron gate to close, it was not being closed at night by the motel staff. We have now come to the conclusion that the thief used a pry bar to try to break the latch, and seeing that the bag was empty, gave up and didn't try any of the other bags. We had been told by some other motorcycle renters that they wouldn't let their rented motorcycles go into the eastern Europe countries because of theft. But Stefan Knopf was willing to let us rent his two bikes, because of our experienced backgrounds of riding in many places So we have been extra careful and will have to continue our vigilance. (Tonight we arranged a space that the manager at the Boatel thought would be the safest.) Border Crossings again. Today we crossed the border between Austria and the Czech Republic. Much like the previous border crossings, the border guards had the blinds on their kiosks shut and nobody was around. So, once again, we just drove through, on our way to the next country. |
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