Enjoy it, Tommy & Rosa!
Last Update 3rd of November 2007 Germany | |
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Hi from Schallstadt near Freiburg in the South of Germany! |
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426. Home again | |
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Tommy’s family spoils us, two weeks we stayed in the best room of „Gasthaus Hirschen“, the hotel of Tommy´s brother. First time back home we are busy finding an apartment, buying a car and visiting friends. Finally Tommy gets a good deal with an old Volkswagen and we move to Schallstadt, a small town 20 km away from our old home town Denzlingen. The apartment is wonderful, maisonette with a double garage and new built! For Rosa it´s very comfortable, because the train station is only 5 minutes by feet and it take her 15 minutes by train to go to work. For Tommy it´s the same distance like from Denzlingen to go to work – 15 minutes by car. Only two weeks at home and Rosa begins to work again, the first two weeks only half a day to acclimatize… We move in steps to our new apartment, at weekends or in the evenings and Tommy begins to work again as well. We were lucky to get such an easy new start! Everybody´s life is still exciting, we are happy about little natural things like a hot shower or a quiet night. Our travel nerves are still present, especially as some traveler friends visit us, before they go on the road again. |
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425. Some visits on the way home | |
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We met Bernd in New Zealand, where he worked to safe money for his „overland“ trip home with his BMW motorcycle. Two days we stay and enjoy good food, beer and chat. Next overnight stop is only 30 km away – there we visit the parents of Alex and Gerda, the nice guys we met in New Zealand as well. They live in Auckland and helped us with accommodation and custom problems. The parents brought an important document from their last visit in Auckland, the „Carnets de Passage“, and we want to pick up these documents to get the deposit back we paid before we left Germany 27 months ago. (We had to pay 1200,- Euro each as a security deposit to bring our motorcycles to several countries – now we get the deposit back, because we bring our motorcycles back to Germany.) The documents have been in New Zealand, because we left New Zealand before our motorcycles, so customs needed still the documents. But Alex and Gerda kept the documents for us! |
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424. Back to Germany | |
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With tears in the eyes we get to the German border – in our thoughts our departure 27 months ago and the certainty, that our trip around the world will be soon history… |
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423. Slovakia and Czechia | |
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We say good bye to Magosha and Wojtek and wish them good luck and a great time on their travels. Wojtek gives us an old map to show us the nicest routes through Slovakia and Cyechia. We love these countries! No traffic, beautiful mountains, nice winding roads, cute little wooden houses! The last days on our trip we always stay overnight in small hotels, enjoying the great food and a soft bed. |
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422. Poland | |
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We planned to stay somewhere overnight in Lithuania, but we keep going and after a long day ride we find a nice campground near Augustow in Poland. Next day we sleep in an quite expensive hotel because of a heavy storm in Chynow. Then we visit Magosha and Wojtek, the couple we met two years ago in Russia. At that time we travelled together for a couple of days and during the last two years we kept in touch by email. They prepare another trip to Sibiria and Mongolia – in two days they going to start their trip with a BMW R1200GS! Two days we stay with our Polish friends, though they are busy with their preparations, they are very good hosts – we have a great BBQ, watch pictures of our meeting in Russia and they give us one of their books, they wrote about their trip around the world. One day we visit Auschwitz, a very sad and bad place of German history. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps. The complex consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz I, the administrative center; Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an extermination camp and Auschwitz III (Monowitz), a work camp. The first two of them have been on the World Heritage List since 1979. 1,1 million had died at Auschwitz, about 90 percent of them Jews from almost every country in Europe. Most of the dead were killed in gas chambers using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and cruel medical experiments. |
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421. Riga, Latvia | |
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Riga´s old town is UNESCO World Heritage Site as well – like Vilnius and Tallinn, the other capitals of the Baltic republics. Riga has 900.000 inhabitants and is the biggest capital of the Baltic republics. |
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420. Island Saaremaa | |
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We arranged by email to meet Pit and Pat, the couple with the big motor home, we met in Cesis. They invited us for dinner, which sounds good and they are nice people with the same interests. The way to the island is great, and we often stop to take photos - there´s a palace, which is used as a school house now and ruins of a monastery, where we stop for photos. We take the ferry to Island Muhu, this small island we have to cross to reach the bank to Island Saaremaa. Saaremma is the biggest island of Estonia, you can find here 35 different species of orchids, there are forests, swamps and at the coast cliffs, dunes and reed. |
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419. Tallinn | |
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Priit, the friendly campground owner we met near Sillamäe, suggests us a cheap hotel 20 km away from the city centre of Tallinn. The owners are friends of him and we get a special price for the room. |
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418. Russian border, monastery and National Park | |
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First we go to Narva right at the border to Russia. There you can see the two castles of Estonia and Russia, it’s a great spot. Next stop is Kuremäe, where’s a russian- orthodox monastery with a small cathedral, which looks like afairy- tale castle. We do some detours to the coast line and ride through Lahemaa National Park to Tallinn. Tallinn is the capital of Estonia. Here we want to stay some days to update eventually our website and visit the city. Next update will be from our home in Germany, where we want to be end of June/ beginning of July. First we have to find an apartment and work, then everyday lifes begins again… |
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