I open my eyes and see myself at Ben-Gurion Airport. Trying to understand if it's true. Just yesterday I was marrying my son in Kfar Saba, and now I am here drinking an ice-coffee with Shmil in our way to Germany.
Yes, this is true. This is how things came out. In the afternoon next to the wedding, we were at the airport travelling to Germany, and in our maps and agenda the 100-year commemorative BMW Motorrad Days, and a tour through part of the North of Germany and West Czechia for 12 days.
Our flight was late by 1 hour, so we arrived to Frankfurt late as well. From Frankfurt to the train to Darmstadt, where we would take the rental bikes from our friends at MCD - Motorrad Center Darmstadt. We arrived around 22:00 to the hotel and went right out to a Donner Kabab (for the Israelis, Shawarma) for dinner.
With full stomachs, it is time to sleep and get ready for the big day to come, when we will receive the bikes and begin our tour.
5/7/2023 - Darmstadt and Goettingen
We woke up early, had breakfast and got ready to travel to MCD. Our friend Manfred made contact and said he would get the car from MCD and take us there. at 9:15 he was at our hotel, and 15 minutes later we were at the shop.
It was good to see Manfred again. Last time I saw him was when I bought my last BMW R1250RT in January 2020, just before COVID19 crisis began. At that time, we did a great trip with MCD's van (and my new bike inside) from Darmstadt, Germany to Ancona, Italy, via Switzerland, in order to avoid all the salt in the roads of the places that could have snow at that time.
Since then, we had COVID worldwide, I got a new job, and the work trips became rare, so it became almost impossible to visit MCD and him.
After talking a little, we got the bikes, arranged our luggage in (and on) them, and got ready to get on the road. At the last moment we noticed that Shmil's BMW Connected app was not transferring the maps to the bike's LCD screen again, just like in Portugal last year. "Two different bikes, the problem must be in the phone" - I said, and all of us, including Manfred and the technical manager of the shop began to test.
We tried everything, with no result, and then I said to them: "It's a long shot, but it is the only thing we haven't tried yet. The only difference between Shmil's phone, my phone and your phones is that the phone has Hebrew as its main language". I changed the main language of the phone to English, and then the miracle occurred - everything worked perfectly. "It's the fucking language!!!", I shouted, and that brought everybody to burst in laughing.
With full stomachs, it is time to sleep and get ready for the big day to come, when we will receive the bikes and begin our tour.
5/7/2023 - Darmstadt and Goettingen
We woke up early, had breakfast and got ready to travel to MCD. Our friend Manfred made contact and said he would get the car from MCD and take us there. at 9:15 he was at our hotel, and 15 minutes later we were at the shop.
It was good to see Manfred again. Last time I saw him was when I bought my last BMW R1250RT in January 2020, just before COVID19 crisis began. At that time, we did a great trip with MCD's van (and my new bike inside) from Darmstadt, Germany to Ancona, Italy, via Switzerland, in order to avoid all the salt in the roads of the places that could have snow at that time.
Since then, we had COVID worldwide, I got a new job, and the work trips became rare, so it became almost impossible to visit MCD and him.
After talking a little, we got the bikes, arranged our luggage in (and on) them, and got ready to get on the road. At the last moment we noticed that Shmil's BMW Connected app was not transferring the maps to the bike's LCD screen again, just like in Portugal last year. "Two different bikes, the problem must be in the phone" - I said, and all of us, including Manfred and the technical manager of the shop began to test.
We tried everything, with no result, and then I said to them: "It's a long shot, but it is the only thing we haven't tried yet. The only difference between Shmil's phone, my phone and your phones is that the phone has Hebrew as its main language". I changed the main language of the phone to English, and then the miracle occurred - everything worked perfectly. "It's the fucking language!!!", I shouted, and that brought everybody to burst in laughing.
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The way to Goettingen was done with Germany's fast roads. There wasn't much to do, few other options, at least not that we knew or could find. We followed the GPS, which was set to find the most winding roads, and there is where it took us too. A fast road, two or three lanes in each direction, and a lot of trucks filling the rightmost lane.
At the end, we were happy that this happened. We arrived in Goettingen at around 13:30, and went to walk in the old city, which was just a 10-minute walk from the hotel. Arriving there, we discovered that we had come on a special day: the day of the Goettingen Run. It comes out that once every year the city commemorates the Goettingen Run. They do a run of 5.4 Km which is equivalent to three turns around the old city of Goettingen. The run is for regular people, not professionals, but those go on these as well, and are easily recognized in the front of each group. After 5.4 kilometers, they have a celebration at the center of the old city and go to the restaurants around them.
Besides that, Goettingen is a very interesting place: a small city, with a new quarter and an old/university quarter full of bars and interesting places to visit.
We saw the end of the run, part of the celebration, and then sat in a biergarten to eat our dinner. It was an interesting afternoon, very well used, and helped us to enjoy a town which, originally, was supposed to be only a point on the map at which we would stop to sleep in order not to need to do 550 Km in one day. Goettingen is a very interesting place: a small city, with a new quarter and an old/university quarter full of bars and interesting places to visit.
At the end, we were happy that this happened. We arrived in Goettingen at around 13:30, and went to walk in the old city, which was just a 10-minute walk from the hotel. Arriving there, we discovered that we had come on a special day: the day of the Goettingen Run. It comes out that once every year the city commemorates the Goettingen Run. They do a run of 5.4 Km which is equivalent to three turns around the old city of Goettingen. The run is for regular people, not professionals, but those go on these as well, and are easily recognized in the front of each group. After 5.4 kilometers, they have a celebration at the center of the old city and go to the restaurants around them.
Besides that, Goettingen is a very interesting place: a small city, with a new quarter and an old/university quarter full of bars and interesting places to visit.
We saw the end of the run, part of the celebration, and then sat in a biergarten to eat our dinner. It was an interesting afternoon, very well used, and helped us to enjoy a town which, originally, was supposed to be only a point on the map at which we would stop to sleep in order not to need to do 550 Km in one day. Goettingen is a very interesting place: a small city, with a new quarter and an old/university quarter full of bars and interesting places to visit.
6-8/7/2023 - Berlin
We woke up early, and around 9:00 were already on our way to Berlin. For this day we had planned to go through small roads out of the main roads where all the trucks are and did that for a good time. However, around 12:30, a very heavy heat came down over us. Temperatures were high, riding was difficult, even with the screen of the helmet open... We saw that we still had 4 hours to go, compared to 1:20 hours if we took the highways from that moment on. So, we decided to choose the highways. I can now say it was an excellent choice.
Arriving in Berlin, we discovered that our hotel, the Dieter Bohnhoeffer Hotel Mitte, didn't have air conditioners. It is incredible, but in Germany of 2023 we can still find hotels that don't have air conditioning. I could expect this in small villages, but not in Berlin. Talking to the girls in Israel, we decided that we couldn't stay three nights there with these temperatures, so we decided to shorten our stay to one night and find another hotel for the other two nights. We notified booking.com, which contacted the hotel and got their approval, and found another hotel for the other nights, the H4 Berlin Hotel. Then we went out to visit the center of Berlin, the place where we can find the Bundestag, the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial (and museum), along other interesting places.
It was my first visit to Berlin, so seeing these places was an important deal for me. The Bundestag and the Reichstag were regular visits, especially because everything around the Reichstag was being reformed and the place looked like a big construction site. The holocaust memorial struck strong at me and brought me the understanding that I was at the center of the most horrible thing that happened in human history, and the main victim were my people, the Jews. Brandenburg Gate was another interesting place, mainly because today it is a gate separating nothing from nothing else, and the busy tourist activity there. I know about the history of the place, but it was interesting to me to see what was happening there: people walking in all directions, a lot of shops and cafes, etc...
We woke up early, and around 9:00 were already on our way to Berlin. For this day we had planned to go through small roads out of the main roads where all the trucks are and did that for a good time. However, around 12:30, a very heavy heat came down over us. Temperatures were high, riding was difficult, even with the screen of the helmet open... We saw that we still had 4 hours to go, compared to 1:20 hours if we took the highways from that moment on. So, we decided to choose the highways. I can now say it was an excellent choice.
Arriving in Berlin, we discovered that our hotel, the Dieter Bohnhoeffer Hotel Mitte, didn't have air conditioners. It is incredible, but in Germany of 2023 we can still find hotels that don't have air conditioning. I could expect this in small villages, but not in Berlin. Talking to the girls in Israel, we decided that we couldn't stay three nights there with these temperatures, so we decided to shorten our stay to one night and find another hotel for the other two nights. We notified booking.com, which contacted the hotel and got their approval, and found another hotel for the other nights, the H4 Berlin Hotel. Then we went out to visit the center of Berlin, the place where we can find the Bundestag, the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial (and museum), along other interesting places.
It was my first visit to Berlin, so seeing these places was an important deal for me. The Bundestag and the Reichstag were regular visits, especially because everything around the Reichstag was being reformed and the place looked like a big construction site. The holocaust memorial struck strong at me and brought me the understanding that I was at the center of the most horrible thing that happened in human history, and the main victim were my people, the Jews. Brandenburg Gate was another interesting place, mainly because today it is a gate separating nothing from nothing else, and the busy tourist activity there. I know about the history of the place, but it was interesting to me to see what was happening there: people walking in all directions, a lot of shops and cafes, etc...
BMW Motorrad Days
In the next morning, the first thing we did was to travel to the airport to fetch there the most important thing that was missing from the beginning of the trip: our wives!!!
The girls had decided to arrive only on Friday, and directly to Berlin, for two reasons: first, because my wife did not want to leave our son alone with his newly-wed wife immediately after the wedding (it is difficult to release :-D), and secondly because they felt that these first two days were pointless, just a trip to reach Berlin for the BMW event. Well, they missed the Goettingen experience!
Their flight arrived on time, we got them and took her to our new hotel. There, we received the rooms, and the girls went to rest a little, while Shmil and me went to the BMW Motorrad Days 2023 event, in order to try to register for all the activities that interested us there and understand the mapping of the event grounds.
The ride to Messe Berlin was complicated. Not only did I miss an entry and that made us travel around 20 minutes more than needed, but upon arrival we discovered that we had set the GPS not to the event grounds, but to a train station near it, called Messe-Sud. After many turns, we finally managed to find the right place, and parked the bikes at the parking lot.
Inside the event, the first thing that struck us was that we couldn't register for activities to be held on the next day, only for the same day. Considering that last time we were in the BMW Motorrad Days (2019, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen) we could register to the activities more than one month in advance, via the internet website, this gave us the feeling that BMW went 10 years back in time in this organizational detail.
Anyway, I decided to register for the same day on the only activity that I was supposed to do without the girls: doing a test-ride on the R18, the BMW monster. I chose the biggest model of all, the BMW R18 Transcontinental. Shmil decided to do it too (he was not interested in the beginning), and we registered for 17:30 on the same day. After that, we went around to see what was being shown in the event.
At 17:30 there we were for our test-ride. I was surprised to acknowledge that the test-rid was not a 10-minute ride within the exposition grounds as I thought, but a 1:45 hour tour with a guide in Berlin. We took our bikes and went out of the Messe Berlin. At that time - big traffic jam of people returning home from work. We were four bikes and the guide: Shmil, two young guys from Hamburg that had never been to Berlin, and me. After some minutes at the traffic jam, he called us all to get closer and proposed that, because of the traffic jam, we change the itinerary to get to another part of the city. "Listen" - I responded to him - "None of us has any idea of where we are going, so you don't even need to tell us, wherever you go we are after you". The guy laughed and took us to the most beautiful city-forest I have ever seen. Couldn't imagine that there could be, inside a city like Berlin, such a beautiful and big forest. The trip was great, we enjoyed the bikes (or should I say the elephants?) and returned to the Messe grounds with a very wide smile in our faces, which (at least in my case) were not erased from the faces until we went to sleep that evening.
About the R18: I usually ride a BMW R1250RT at home, which weighs 289 Kg with fuel and oil. For this tour, I rented the BMW K1600GT, weighing around 80 Kg more than my bike. But the R18, with its 430Kg, is a hell of an elephant! With the boxer engine and its vibrations, it makes it the only BMW Motorrad machine where they force you to hold it with the two hands, one pressing the clutch and one pressing the brake, to turn it on, otherwise it can jump and fall. I guess that only someone who has ridden a Harley Davidson can understand how heavy that is. The bike is very enjoyable when it is travelling, but difficult to hold in a vertical position in a traffic jam. At least until you get used to the weight. I don't feel it is fit to the Israeli traffic, and I am interested to know if it is succeeding in the Israeli market.
Well, after the experience, we happily took our bikes and travelled to the hotel, where we met the girls after they had some rest and went out for dinner. The hotel was only a few blocks from Alexanderplatz, and this meant we had a lot of options. At the end we chose the Hofbrau Munich in Berlin (a Bavarian Biergarten which I knew from Munich from many years ago), which was just one block from the hotel, and had a wonderful evening there.
In the next morning, the first thing we did was to travel to the airport to fetch there the most important thing that was missing from the beginning of the trip: our wives!!!
The girls had decided to arrive only on Friday, and directly to Berlin, for two reasons: first, because my wife did not want to leave our son alone with his newly-wed wife immediately after the wedding (it is difficult to release :-D), and secondly because they felt that these first two days were pointless, just a trip to reach Berlin for the BMW event. Well, they missed the Goettingen experience!
Their flight arrived on time, we got them and took her to our new hotel. There, we received the rooms, and the girls went to rest a little, while Shmil and me went to the BMW Motorrad Days 2023 event, in order to try to register for all the activities that interested us there and understand the mapping of the event grounds.
The ride to Messe Berlin was complicated. Not only did I miss an entry and that made us travel around 20 minutes more than needed, but upon arrival we discovered that we had set the GPS not to the event grounds, but to a train station near it, called Messe-Sud. After many turns, we finally managed to find the right place, and parked the bikes at the parking lot.
Inside the event, the first thing that struck us was that we couldn't register for activities to be held on the next day, only for the same day. Considering that last time we were in the BMW Motorrad Days (2019, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen) we could register to the activities more than one month in advance, via the internet website, this gave us the feeling that BMW went 10 years back in time in this organizational detail.
Anyway, I decided to register for the same day on the only activity that I was supposed to do without the girls: doing a test-ride on the R18, the BMW monster. I chose the biggest model of all, the BMW R18 Transcontinental. Shmil decided to do it too (he was not interested in the beginning), and we registered for 17:30 on the same day. After that, we went around to see what was being shown in the event.
At 17:30 there we were for our test-ride. I was surprised to acknowledge that the test-rid was not a 10-minute ride within the exposition grounds as I thought, but a 1:45 hour tour with a guide in Berlin. We took our bikes and went out of the Messe Berlin. At that time - big traffic jam of people returning home from work. We were four bikes and the guide: Shmil, two young guys from Hamburg that had never been to Berlin, and me. After some minutes at the traffic jam, he called us all to get closer and proposed that, because of the traffic jam, we change the itinerary to get to another part of the city. "Listen" - I responded to him - "None of us has any idea of where we are going, so you don't even need to tell us, wherever you go we are after you". The guy laughed and took us to the most beautiful city-forest I have ever seen. Couldn't imagine that there could be, inside a city like Berlin, such a beautiful and big forest. The trip was great, we enjoyed the bikes (or should I say the elephants?) and returned to the Messe grounds with a very wide smile in our faces, which (at least in my case) were not erased from the faces until we went to sleep that evening.
About the R18: I usually ride a BMW R1250RT at home, which weighs 289 Kg with fuel and oil. For this tour, I rented the BMW K1600GT, weighing around 80 Kg more than my bike. But the R18, with its 430Kg, is a hell of an elephant! With the boxer engine and its vibrations, it makes it the only BMW Motorrad machine where they force you to hold it with the two hands, one pressing the clutch and one pressing the brake, to turn it on, otherwise it can jump and fall. I guess that only someone who has ridden a Harley Davidson can understand how heavy that is. The bike is very enjoyable when it is travelling, but difficult to hold in a vertical position in a traffic jam. At least until you get used to the weight. I don't feel it is fit to the Israeli traffic, and I am interested to know if it is succeeding in the Israeli market.
Well, after the experience, we happily took our bikes and travelled to the hotel, where we met the girls after they had some rest and went out for dinner. The hotel was only a few blocks from Alexanderplatz, and this meant we had a lot of options. At the end we chose the Hofbrau Munich in Berlin (a Bavarian Biergarten which I knew from Munich from many years ago), which was just one block from the hotel, and had a wonderful evening there.
In the next morning, after breakfast, we took the girls and the motorcycles, and went to the BMW Motorrad Days event, this time with them.
I have to admit I had my fears that the event would not interest them. But they surprised me with how much they enjoyed being there.
First thing we did was to enter the queues to register to the two activities we were interested in doing: The first of them was for the girls, the "riding without a license" experience, a first experience on riding a motorcycle by yourself when you have never done it before. The activity was in a closed area at the exposition guide, and the only pre-requisite for doing it was NOT having a motorcycle driving license. The other activity was a visit to the BMW Motorrad factory in Berlin. So, we divided, the girls went to register for their activity and Shmil and I stayed in the longer queue for the factory visit. We agreed that the first group to finish their registration would come to the other group to say at what time they were planned to have their activity, so the other group did not register for the same time.
Louisa and Lily managed to register for the "Riding without a license" experience at 11:30 in the morning. Shmil and me were less lucky: when we were only four places before our registration, they closed the registration for that day. Since they were not receiving registrations for the next day, our options were between coming in the next day to be in the line again or forgetting this activity and leaving for Dresden in the morning as planned. We decided to keep the plan and leave for Dresden.
After we were done with the registrations, we began to walk around the exposition halls. Lily and Louisa quickly found some shirts to buy for us and for them at the Wunderlich booth, and later Lily found more shirts for me at BMW shop booth. We also found some parts from Wunderlich and from BMW that we might be interested in buying, but in the end (and after many consultations with Manfred) we decided not to buy them.
At 11:30 we were at the girls' activity place for them to get dressed and prepare for their license-less driving. The people organizing the activity dressed them to the very detail of the equipment (riding pants, jacket, gloves, riding shoes and helmet) and led them to the small track there. They couldn't do the experience together, only one after the other, because there was only one bike that fitted their height. They were too short for the other bikes. So, Louisa was the first, and Lily waited for the next round.
I have to admit I had my fears that the event would not interest them. But they surprised me with how much they enjoyed being there.
First thing we did was to enter the queues to register to the two activities we were interested in doing: The first of them was for the girls, the "riding without a license" experience, a first experience on riding a motorcycle by yourself when you have never done it before. The activity was in a closed area at the exposition guide, and the only pre-requisite for doing it was NOT having a motorcycle driving license. The other activity was a visit to the BMW Motorrad factory in Berlin. So, we divided, the girls went to register for their activity and Shmil and I stayed in the longer queue for the factory visit. We agreed that the first group to finish their registration would come to the other group to say at what time they were planned to have their activity, so the other group did not register for the same time.
Louisa and Lily managed to register for the "Riding without a license" experience at 11:30 in the morning. Shmil and me were less lucky: when we were only four places before our registration, they closed the registration for that day. Since they were not receiving registrations for the next day, our options were between coming in the next day to be in the line again or forgetting this activity and leaving for Dresden in the morning as planned. We decided to keep the plan and leave for Dresden.
After we were done with the registrations, we began to walk around the exposition halls. Lily and Louisa quickly found some shirts to buy for us and for them at the Wunderlich booth, and later Lily found more shirts for me at BMW shop booth. We also found some parts from Wunderlich and from BMW that we might be interested in buying, but in the end (and after many consultations with Manfred) we decided not to buy them.
At 11:30 we were at the girls' activity place for them to get dressed and prepare for their license-less driving. The people organizing the activity dressed them to the very detail of the equipment (riding pants, jacket, gloves, riding shoes and helmet) and led them to the small track there. They couldn't do the experience together, only one after the other, because there was only one bike that fitted their height. They were too short for the other bikes. So, Louisa was the first, and Lily waited for the next round.
As you can see in the pictures, there was a teacher there that taught them the basics of riding, and held the bike until they felt secure to open the throttle and travel a little faster (in their case and in many others I've seen, never. But there was a girl that at some point felt secure enough and travelled faster and by herself, and the teacher just ran after her without holding her).
The smiles on their faces after that experience reminded me of Shmil and me the previous day after riding the R18. Louisa declared that she was very afraid, and Lily said that although she was not afraid, she couldn't open the throttle more to see if the bike would stabilize as I told her.
We had some lunch at the event grounds (sausages, hamburgers, beer), saw some acrobatics shows and the Wall of Death show nearby. Near the main building, we also saw the "Police Rodeo", where an experienced policeman tried to teach the techniques to do slow maneuvers with heavy bikes like the BMW RT. And we continued walking around the partners' booths, where a lot of things were going on, including a detailing both where people could bring their bikes to, and they would dismantle the plastic and do some nice detailing art to get the bike more beautiful.
Now let's rewind a little: while we were in the line for the "Ride without a license" experience, Lily saw a pair of BMW riding shoes that were really beautiful. She decided that she wanted those shoes and got Louisa with her for new riding shoes. We verified at the BMW equipment booth there at the event, and they only had from size 40 and up. We spent part of the day researching for those boots and communicating with our friend Manfred about them, and his response was that he found the boots in the BMW catalog, but they were marked as a future product for November 2023.
Well, since they couldn't buy the shoes there, they began to try to convince Shmil and myself to buy them for ourselves. The boots cost was 231 Euros at the event instead of 240. A high price for a pair of riding shoes, almost double the price of the last Alpinestars shoes I had bought, but they really looked beautiful. Shmil was the first to be convinced to try them, while I was holding my position quite well. After he tried and said they are extremely comfortable (he doesn't like riding shoes in general, so I had to believe him) I decided to try them. They were made of some kind of textile and rubber, and despite that, had all the protection in the right places. And they definitely were amazingly comfortable. So, I decided, and we both left the shop with new boots.
We continued walking around the event and looking around, until at some point we decided that we had covered it all and left to see some other points of Berlin that we hadn't seen. We visited Checkpoint Charlie and the last remains of the Berlin Wall. Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991), as named by the Western Allies. East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop emigration and defection westward through the Border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from East Berlin into West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. On 26 June 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited Checkpoint Charlie and looked from a platform onto the Berlin Wall and into East Berlin. After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the American guard house at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction. It is located in the Dahlem neighborhood of Berlin. About the Berlin walls there's not much to say. It is an impressive monument, and the most impressive part is all the paintings by artists on one of the sides of it. It was not easy to find, the GPS took us around our tails all the time, until a Berliner explained to us that the wall really had passed where we were, and we should search on the GPS for the "paintings on the Berlin wall". After that, the GPS took us directly there.
After the visit, we returned to the hotel. From there, we went to Alexanderplatz for a visit at the Uniqlo shop (for the girls) and a Donner Kabab nearby.
I was amazed to see Berlin for the first time: a modern, vibrant city, which, just like Tel Aviv, does not stop or sleep. There is always something happening in Berlin, it its restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. I expected to see some place with a heavier atmosphere, and was very positively surprised. Now I can understand why so many Israelis move to live there, to study there, etc. It is busy, it is eclectic, it is strong, it is beautiful. I like places like this.
The smiles on their faces after that experience reminded me of Shmil and me the previous day after riding the R18. Louisa declared that she was very afraid, and Lily said that although she was not afraid, she couldn't open the throttle more to see if the bike would stabilize as I told her.
We had some lunch at the event grounds (sausages, hamburgers, beer), saw some acrobatics shows and the Wall of Death show nearby. Near the main building, we also saw the "Police Rodeo", where an experienced policeman tried to teach the techniques to do slow maneuvers with heavy bikes like the BMW RT. And we continued walking around the partners' booths, where a lot of things were going on, including a detailing both where people could bring their bikes to, and they would dismantle the plastic and do some nice detailing art to get the bike more beautiful.
Now let's rewind a little: while we were in the line for the "Ride without a license" experience, Lily saw a pair of BMW riding shoes that were really beautiful. She decided that she wanted those shoes and got Louisa with her for new riding shoes. We verified at the BMW equipment booth there at the event, and they only had from size 40 and up. We spent part of the day researching for those boots and communicating with our friend Manfred about them, and his response was that he found the boots in the BMW catalog, but they were marked as a future product for November 2023.
Well, since they couldn't buy the shoes there, they began to try to convince Shmil and myself to buy them for ourselves. The boots cost was 231 Euros at the event instead of 240. A high price for a pair of riding shoes, almost double the price of the last Alpinestars shoes I had bought, but they really looked beautiful. Shmil was the first to be convinced to try them, while I was holding my position quite well. After he tried and said they are extremely comfortable (he doesn't like riding shoes in general, so I had to believe him) I decided to try them. They were made of some kind of textile and rubber, and despite that, had all the protection in the right places. And they definitely were amazingly comfortable. So, I decided, and we both left the shop with new boots.
We continued walking around the event and looking around, until at some point we decided that we had covered it all and left to see some other points of Berlin that we hadn't seen. We visited Checkpoint Charlie and the last remains of the Berlin Wall. Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991), as named by the Western Allies. East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop emigration and defection westward through the Border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from East Berlin into West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. On 26 June 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited Checkpoint Charlie and looked from a platform onto the Berlin Wall and into East Berlin. After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the American guard house at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction. It is located in the Dahlem neighborhood of Berlin. About the Berlin walls there's not much to say. It is an impressive monument, and the most impressive part is all the paintings by artists on one of the sides of it. It was not easy to find, the GPS took us around our tails all the time, until a Berliner explained to us that the wall really had passed where we were, and we should search on the GPS for the "paintings on the Berlin wall". After that, the GPS took us directly there.
After the visit, we returned to the hotel. From there, we went to Alexanderplatz for a visit at the Uniqlo shop (for the girls) and a Donner Kabab nearby.
I was amazed to see Berlin for the first time: a modern, vibrant city, which, just like Tel Aviv, does not stop or sleep. There is always something happening in Berlin, it its restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. I expected to see some place with a heavier atmosphere, and was very positively surprised. Now I can understand why so many Israelis move to live there, to study there, etc. It is busy, it is eclectic, it is strong, it is beautiful. I like places like this.
9/7/2023 - Dresden
We woke up very happy from the wonderful day we had before. At 8:00 we were at breakfast and at 9:30 we were leaving our hotel and Berlin, going South in the direction of Dresden. We had 194 Km to do until there, and around 13:00 we were arriving at our hotel there. The weather during the trip was very hot, so we decided to sleep a little at the hotel, and to leave at 16:00 to see the old city of Dresden.
Dresden is said to be the most bombed city in Germany by the allied forces during WWII. Then the city stayed in East Germany during the times of the division of the country. After reunification, the city is considered to be one of the cultural centers of Germany.
When we arrived at the historic center of Dresden at 16:30, we were all starving, and the first thing we did was eat a good "Linner" (Lunch + Dinner). After that we walked for around 2.5 hours at the historic center, and at the end we sat by the river that crosses it to drink something until almost sunset. It was a lovely afternoon, but I would say that Dresden was the least interesting city on our tour.
One interesting thing: this was the first day I rode and walked in my new BMW shoes. For many months I had been suffering from a muscle problem in my left foot, and I was trying to deal with it in a number of diverse ways including physiotherapy and other things. From the morning I felt I was stepping in a different way than I usually do. By the end of the day, I had no pain anymore, and it continues like this until the day of this writing. During the continuation of the tour, I praised my wife every day for convincing me to spend the 231 Euros and buy these shoes.
We woke up very happy from the wonderful day we had before. At 8:00 we were at breakfast and at 9:30 we were leaving our hotel and Berlin, going South in the direction of Dresden. We had 194 Km to do until there, and around 13:00 we were arriving at our hotel there. The weather during the trip was very hot, so we decided to sleep a little at the hotel, and to leave at 16:00 to see the old city of Dresden.
Dresden is said to be the most bombed city in Germany by the allied forces during WWII. Then the city stayed in East Germany during the times of the division of the country. After reunification, the city is considered to be one of the cultural centers of Germany.
When we arrived at the historic center of Dresden at 16:30, we were all starving, and the first thing we did was eat a good "Linner" (Lunch + Dinner). After that we walked for around 2.5 hours at the historic center, and at the end we sat by the river that crosses it to drink something until almost sunset. It was a lovely afternoon, but I would say that Dresden was the least interesting city on our tour.
One interesting thing: this was the first day I rode and walked in my new BMW shoes. For many months I had been suffering from a muscle problem in my left foot, and I was trying to deal with it in a number of diverse ways including physiotherapy and other things. From the morning I felt I was stepping in a different way than I usually do. By the end of the day, I had no pain anymore, and it continues like this until the day of this writing. During the continuation of the tour, I praised my wife every day for convincing me to spend the 231 Euros and buy these shoes.
10/7/2023 - Karlovy Vary
Dresden was an interesting place to stop, visit and sleep, but our real destination was Karlovy Vary, in the Czech Republic - or Czechia, as they want to be called now.
Our trip plan, which could be of 200Km, was extended to 220Km for visiting Terezin, the place where the Terezinstadt guetto and concentration camp was. In fact, I had an initial plan to extend it to 280Km in order to visit the Pekelné Doly (Hell's Mine, also known as Bikers Cave), but unfortunately this was a Monday, and Mondays are the only day in the week in which the cave is closed. Pekelné Doly is an old, deactivated mine which was taken over (legally) by a motorcyclist's club and transformed into a motorcyclist's cave. You can travel inside the cave with your motorcycle, stop at distinct parts of the cave, including one big hall which was transformed into a bar and a restaurant. I was told the only ones with access to the restaurant are club members, but hoped we would at least seat at the bar. Then I saw that on Mondays they are closed and gave up on that.
It is incredible to see how, at the moment you cross the border from Germany to Czechia, the land sights change almost immediately. What was completely plain begins now to be hilly and twisty. Ride some more kilometers and the double road becomes a simple road, and everything becomes more natural and exceptionally beautiful. We continued travelling until Terezin, where we parked for a visit at the Ghetto and Concentration Camp. There is a museum, some monuments, an area set like a big mass grave (I don't know if it is a real mass grave, or just a monument as well) and the building of the crematories. Yes, for all those who say that Terezinstadt was just a ghetto, the crematory room is there to tell the whole story, with its 6-8 furnaces. Maybe smaller and slower than others in the Nazi extermination machine, but it was definitely a concentration and extermination camp.
Dresden was an interesting place to stop, visit and sleep, but our real destination was Karlovy Vary, in the Czech Republic - or Czechia, as they want to be called now.
Our trip plan, which could be of 200Km, was extended to 220Km for visiting Terezin, the place where the Terezinstadt guetto and concentration camp was. In fact, I had an initial plan to extend it to 280Km in order to visit the Pekelné Doly (Hell's Mine, also known as Bikers Cave), but unfortunately this was a Monday, and Mondays are the only day in the week in which the cave is closed. Pekelné Doly is an old, deactivated mine which was taken over (legally) by a motorcyclist's club and transformed into a motorcyclist's cave. You can travel inside the cave with your motorcycle, stop at distinct parts of the cave, including one big hall which was transformed into a bar and a restaurant. I was told the only ones with access to the restaurant are club members, but hoped we would at least seat at the bar. Then I saw that on Mondays they are closed and gave up on that.
It is incredible to see how, at the moment you cross the border from Germany to Czechia, the land sights change almost immediately. What was completely plain begins now to be hilly and twisty. Ride some more kilometers and the double road becomes a simple road, and everything becomes more natural and exceptionally beautiful. We continued travelling until Terezin, where we parked for a visit at the Ghetto and Concentration Camp. There is a museum, some monuments, an area set like a big mass grave (I don't know if it is a real mass grave, or just a monument as well) and the building of the crematories. Yes, for all those who say that Terezinstadt was just a ghetto, the crematory room is there to tell the whole story, with its 6-8 furnaces. Maybe smaller and slower than others in the Nazi extermination machine, but it was definitely a concentration and extermination camp.
Nowadays Terezinstadt, right behind the village of Terezin, is set to be a less depressing and more comfortable place to visit, with a lot of green and big open spaces, but all this doesn't manage to prevent visitors from feeling the horrible things that happened there.
We continued our way to Karlovy Vary, and around 15:00 we were arriving at our hotel in the vicinity of the town, the Parkhotel Carlsbad Inn, at a town called Dalovice, in the district of Karlovy Vary. This is an important detail: although the hotel was in the district of Karlovy Vary, it was in a different village, and that made its price more accessible to us. Nevertheless, it was the second-best hotel we had during the whole trip (don't worry, you'll soon meet the first). The hotel was simply perfect, it had a Spa and Wellness center, an excellent breakfast, a bar where we could have drinks until late hours, free parking, and a lot of green around it (therefore the name Parkhotel). The only minus was that it took around 15 minutes to ride from there to the center of Karlovy Vary.
Now let's talk about Karlovy Vary: the place is a dream. Any additional word to this sentence is unnecessary. A small town with a center that remind me of my childhood summer vacations at the town of Teresópolis, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It also reminded me of a town which we passed through in my first motorcycle tour in 2010, Merano, in Italy. The whole center of the city is nowadays a pedestrian area, full of shops, bars, cafes, and restaurants. And at the center of all this the Hotspring Colonnade, with a geyser which can reach 12m height. Yes, from what I understood from the place, the geyser seems to be closed at night, so it accumulates pressure to get so high during the day for such a long time. Karlovy Vary is the city of the spas and springs, and this is the most important of all. Since the water that comes out of the geyser is too hot for most people, it is distributed to 5 bowls marked A, B and C where it is cooled down to temperatures between 30-50 Celsius, more proper to drinking therapies.
There are other spa centers at the center of the city (also called Colonnades), which are differently designed. In two of the photos, you can see the Market Colonnade in the background. We saw and took pictures of some of them but entered only this one, the next morning, when it was already open to visit.
Besides being the Spa city in Czechia, Karlovy Vary is also one of the two cities for breweries in Czecia. They have the best beers in the country. It was a pleasure to seat on one of those street restaurants, eat an incredibly good "linner" and drink one litter of local beer each of us. And after that, more walking around the place, to help the beer go down for us to be able to ride back to the hotel.
We continued our way to Karlovy Vary, and around 15:00 we were arriving at our hotel in the vicinity of the town, the Parkhotel Carlsbad Inn, at a town called Dalovice, in the district of Karlovy Vary. This is an important detail: although the hotel was in the district of Karlovy Vary, it was in a different village, and that made its price more accessible to us. Nevertheless, it was the second-best hotel we had during the whole trip (don't worry, you'll soon meet the first). The hotel was simply perfect, it had a Spa and Wellness center, an excellent breakfast, a bar where we could have drinks until late hours, free parking, and a lot of green around it (therefore the name Parkhotel). The only minus was that it took around 15 minutes to ride from there to the center of Karlovy Vary.
Now let's talk about Karlovy Vary: the place is a dream. Any additional word to this sentence is unnecessary. A small town with a center that remind me of my childhood summer vacations at the town of Teresópolis, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It also reminded me of a town which we passed through in my first motorcycle tour in 2010, Merano, in Italy. The whole center of the city is nowadays a pedestrian area, full of shops, bars, cafes, and restaurants. And at the center of all this the Hotspring Colonnade, with a geyser which can reach 12m height. Yes, from what I understood from the place, the geyser seems to be closed at night, so it accumulates pressure to get so high during the day for such a long time. Karlovy Vary is the city of the spas and springs, and this is the most important of all. Since the water that comes out of the geyser is too hot for most people, it is distributed to 5 bowls marked A, B and C where it is cooled down to temperatures between 30-50 Celsius, more proper to drinking therapies.
There are other spa centers at the center of the city (also called Colonnades), which are differently designed. In two of the photos, you can see the Market Colonnade in the background. We saw and took pictures of some of them but entered only this one, the next morning, when it was already open to visit.
Besides being the Spa city in Czechia, Karlovy Vary is also one of the two cities for breweries in Czecia. They have the best beers in the country. It was a pleasure to seat on one of those street restaurants, eat an incredibly good "linner" and drink one litter of local beer each of us. And after that, more walking around the place, to help the beer go down for us to be able to ride back to the hotel.
11/7/2023 - Karlovy Vary and Prague
We stayed only one night in Karlovy Vary, but due to the fact that we arrived quite early and could spend almost 5 hours at the center of the city in the first evening, and the fact that the town is only 128Km from Prague, our next destination, giving us some hours in the morning to spend there, we could have a good time there and enjoy the place very much.
In the morning we already placed all our equipment on the motorcycles and rode to the center of the city. There we walked a little more, and then found the tourist information office. We asked about places from where we could see the city from above, and they gave us two names - the first was Vyhlídka Tři kříže (in English Three Crosses Lookout) a reserve where no motorcycles or cars were allowed, so we needed to do a 1.5-hour track uphill in order to get there (and the same to go back down. The second was Goethova Rozhledna (in English Goethes Lookout Tower), an observatory tower to which we could get directly with the motorcycles. Obviously, we chose the second one, and when we were due with all that we wanted to see at the center, we jumped on the bikes and rode to there.
Getting there, the first thing to do was to get to the top of the tower to get the view. We went up the 150 stairs, took our pictures, and then back down. At the bottom of the tower there was a small cafe-bar, so we took the opportunity to have a cold drink because it was already very hot.
While drinking at the cafe, the girls noticed some movement at the edge of the hill, nearby. We finished our drinks and walked there. What we found was a Zip-Line of 321m that went from the top of that mountain, over the valley, to a specific point of the mountain in front of us.
"I am doing that", said Lily. "Me too", responded Louisa. Since the walk back would take nearly one hour and a half, Shmil and myself were left behind to take the motorcycles where they landed so that we could continue the trip. After getting an explanation of where they were supposed to land, they rolled down the line to the other side. Shmil and me, after filming their adventure, took the bikes and went to the landing place.
We stayed only one night in Karlovy Vary, but due to the fact that we arrived quite early and could spend almost 5 hours at the center of the city in the first evening, and the fact that the town is only 128Km from Prague, our next destination, giving us some hours in the morning to spend there, we could have a good time there and enjoy the place very much.
In the morning we already placed all our equipment on the motorcycles and rode to the center of the city. There we walked a little more, and then found the tourist information office. We asked about places from where we could see the city from above, and they gave us two names - the first was Vyhlídka Tři kříže (in English Three Crosses Lookout) a reserve where no motorcycles or cars were allowed, so we needed to do a 1.5-hour track uphill in order to get there (and the same to go back down. The second was Goethova Rozhledna (in English Goethes Lookout Tower), an observatory tower to which we could get directly with the motorcycles. Obviously, we chose the second one, and when we were due with all that we wanted to see at the center, we jumped on the bikes and rode to there.
Getting there, the first thing to do was to get to the top of the tower to get the view. We went up the 150 stairs, took our pictures, and then back down. At the bottom of the tower there was a small cafe-bar, so we took the opportunity to have a cold drink because it was already very hot.
While drinking at the cafe, the girls noticed some movement at the edge of the hill, nearby. We finished our drinks and walked there. What we found was a Zip-Line of 321m that went from the top of that mountain, over the valley, to a specific point of the mountain in front of us.
"I am doing that", said Lily. "Me too", responded Louisa. Since the walk back would take nearly one hour and a half, Shmil and myself were left behind to take the motorcycles where they landed so that we could continue the trip. After getting an explanation of where they were supposed to land, they rolled down the line to the other side. Shmil and me, after filming their adventure, took the bikes and went to the landing place.
From there we continued to Prague, on a small but very boring road which took us through the 128Km to get there in around 2.5 hours. We arrived at our hotel in Prague around 14:00 and took our room at the hotel.
Here I have to talk about our hotel in Prague, the Cube Hotel. This was the best hotel we had in the whole trip. A modern hotel in an old building (we later discovered that they are actually a group of old buildings connected to form one hotel, with an excellent restaurant and breakfast, and a crew of people that do ALL they can to make the guests happy. It is difficult to explain how sympathetic they were to all requests, and how the smile on their faces lit up our days (we were there two nights). The hotel is also only a 10-minute walk from the Clock Plaza, in the center of old Prague. It is in the middle of everything. We very much recommend this hotel to anyone planning a visit to Prague.
In the evening, at 17:00, we walked to the old city and walked around there for many hours, until after 22:00 when it got dark. We dined at the old town, walked around many of the city attractions, from the Clock Plaza to Wenceslaw Square. At the avenue that leads to Wenceslaw Square, called Na Prikope, which is a hotspot for pickpockets, someone almost tried to grab Shmil's phone from his hands, but luckily, I noticed that beforehand and shouted to him to protect the phone, what also surprised the thief (who seemingly hasn't understood that we were together) and made him walk away.
Prague is a genuinely nice and lively city, but this issue with the pickpockets is incredibly stressful and kind of spoils the whole experience. It is not nice to walk all day with your hands in your pockets and taking care that something would not be stolen from you. More than 20 years ago when Lily and I were there, we were testimonies to such a case, which happened so fast that we couldn't react to it. It is for me incredible that we were back 20 years later, and nothing has changed, we almost don't see police on the streets and the city hall, or the police have done nothing to make the city more secure. It is about time for this to change. Nevertheless, it is a very enjoyable city, and visiting there is definitely a must. Just take care of leaving everything you don't need at the hotel, and of protecting the things you took with you to the streets from the hands of these thieves.
Here I have to talk about our hotel in Prague, the Cube Hotel. This was the best hotel we had in the whole trip. A modern hotel in an old building (we later discovered that they are actually a group of old buildings connected to form one hotel, with an excellent restaurant and breakfast, and a crew of people that do ALL they can to make the guests happy. It is difficult to explain how sympathetic they were to all requests, and how the smile on their faces lit up our days (we were there two nights). The hotel is also only a 10-minute walk from the Clock Plaza, in the center of old Prague. It is in the middle of everything. We very much recommend this hotel to anyone planning a visit to Prague.
In the evening, at 17:00, we walked to the old city and walked around there for many hours, until after 22:00 when it got dark. We dined at the old town, walked around many of the city attractions, from the Clock Plaza to Wenceslaw Square. At the avenue that leads to Wenceslaw Square, called Na Prikope, which is a hotspot for pickpockets, someone almost tried to grab Shmil's phone from his hands, but luckily, I noticed that beforehand and shouted to him to protect the phone, what also surprised the thief (who seemingly hasn't understood that we were together) and made him walk away.
Prague is a genuinely nice and lively city, but this issue with the pickpockets is incredibly stressful and kind of spoils the whole experience. It is not nice to walk all day with your hands in your pockets and taking care that something would not be stolen from you. More than 20 years ago when Lily and I were there, we were testimonies to such a case, which happened so fast that we couldn't react to it. It is for me incredible that we were back 20 years later, and nothing has changed, we almost don't see police on the streets and the city hall, or the police have done nothing to make the city more secure. It is about time for this to change. Nevertheless, it is a very enjoyable city, and visiting there is definitely a must. Just take care of leaving everything you don't need at the hotel, and of protecting the things you took with you to the streets from the hands of these thieves.
In the next morning, at 8:00, we were at the ground level enjoying the excellent breakfast of the hotel and discussing what we wanted to do. Since the four of us had been in Prague in the past, Louisa and Lily decided they wanted to go to a shopping center there, called Palladium and fill the last cubic millimeters that we had in the boxes of the motorcycle. Shmil and I decided to go to Petrin Tower and take a look at Prague from the mountains.
We left them at the shopping center, agreed that we would meet for lunch, and left for Petrin Tower. The way there was beautiful - the first part was on those paving stone roads where cars divide the road with the trams, and the second part a short, twisty road going inside the mountain forest.
We arrived to Petrin Tower, and only then we understood that the 150 stairs that we climbed in Karlovy Vary. Well, there were 299 stairs to go up there. We took some air (a lot of air) and began the climbing. Every now and then we could see a bench to sit and recover to continue, and we did use one of them. In the middle of the way there was a platform, from there we took our first pictures. But from that height, they weren't as impressive as the ones we took from the top.
After that we drank a soft drink to recover from the exercise, and decided we wanted to go to the funicular station to take a picture of the funicular way downhill. We asked someone in which way we could travel to the funicular station, and he pointed the way. We took the motorcycles and began travelling - for our surprise, after 150 meters we were there. It took more effort and more time to get and wear the helmets, and to remove them and put them back in the boxes than it would take to go on foot. Just that this friendly person forgot to tell us that.
At the funicular station, another disappointment there wasn't any angle (except maybe from the roof of the station, which we did not try) in which we could take a picture of even see the train line. So, without any other thing to do there, we decided to go back to the bikes and travel to the Prague Castle.
We left them at the shopping center, agreed that we would meet for lunch, and left for Petrin Tower. The way there was beautiful - the first part was on those paving stone roads where cars divide the road with the trams, and the second part a short, twisty road going inside the mountain forest.
We arrived to Petrin Tower, and only then we understood that the 150 stairs that we climbed in Karlovy Vary. Well, there were 299 stairs to go up there. We took some air (a lot of air) and began the climbing. Every now and then we could see a bench to sit and recover to continue, and we did use one of them. In the middle of the way there was a platform, from there we took our first pictures. But from that height, they weren't as impressive as the ones we took from the top.
After that we drank a soft drink to recover from the exercise, and decided we wanted to go to the funicular station to take a picture of the funicular way downhill. We asked someone in which way we could travel to the funicular station, and he pointed the way. We took the motorcycles and began travelling - for our surprise, after 150 meters we were there. It took more effort and more time to get and wear the helmets, and to remove them and put them back in the boxes than it would take to go on foot. Just that this friendly person forgot to tell us that.
At the funicular station, another disappointment there wasn't any angle (except maybe from the roof of the station, which we did not try) in which we could take a picture of even see the train line. So, without any other thing to do there, we decided to go back to the bikes and travel to the Prague Castle.
From Wikipedia:
Prague Castle (Czech: Pražský hrad; [ˈpraʃskiː ˈɦrat]) is a castle complex in Prague 1 within Prague, Czech Republic, built in the 9th century. It is the official office of the President of the Czech Republic. The castle was a seat of power for kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman emperors, and presidents of Czechoslovakia. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept within a hidden room inside it.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle in the world,[1][2] occupying an area of almost 70,000 square metres (750,000 square feet), at about 570 metres (1,870 feet) in length and an average of about 130 metres (430 feet) wide. The castle is among the most visited tourist attractions in Prague, attracting over 1.8 million visitors annually.[3]
More details at Wikipedia.
Besides all the official government parts, there are four churches inside the castle. We visited one of them, the St. Vitus Cathedral. A beautiful piece of architecture and art. After that, we walked around the castle area and decided to walk away. Since it was already nearly 13:00, it was time to meet the girls for lunch. We arrived to the mall at approximately 14:00 and met them at the food court. There each one chose what he wanted to eat, and we sat together. It was the first time in this trip that I ate American fast-food (a Double-Whopper from Burger King) and although it was good, I didn't miss eating these things. The good part was that, as usual with Burger King, I had free refills of my drink, and I needed this after all the stairs in the morning.
We finished eating, eating andd to the hotel around 15:00 to rest a little. Lily and I took the opportunity to go out to buy her sister something that she needed. During our walk there (5 minutes from the hotel), we identified a branch of Starbucks in the way, so during the way back we stopped there for a drink. Lily had something that she saw on another branch somewhere, and I took a strange, pink drink that until this moment I am yet to know what it was made of.
We rested a little and went out to visit Carl's Bridge (or Charles' Bridge as tourists usually call it). We crossed the bridge by foot, walked around the other side of the bridge through an unknown and less popular area of Prague, and found a cafe that we had seen from the bridge - well, it wasn't a cafe, but a luxury restaurant frequented by Hollywood stars and other high society members. Not for our pockets, but it gave us the motivation to find another restaurant by the river, for dinner. So, we crossed the bridge back to our side, and found a wonderful place exactly by the river. We ordered everything we wanted, and at the drinks part Lily ordered a drink called "Sex on the beach", something that immediately became a joke between the waiter and us. Well, after the satisfying meal and some sex on the beach, we went back to the hotel, for some relaxation in the garden and a good night of sleep.
We finished eating, eating andd to the hotel around 15:00 to rest a little. Lily and I took the opportunity to go out to buy her sister something that she needed. During our walk there (5 minutes from the hotel), we identified a branch of Starbucks in the way, so during the way back we stopped there for a drink. Lily had something that she saw on another branch somewhere, and I took a strange, pink drink that until this moment I am yet to know what it was made of.
We rested a little and went out to visit Carl's Bridge (or Charles' Bridge as tourists usually call it). We crossed the bridge by foot, walked around the other side of the bridge through an unknown and less popular area of Prague, and found a cafe that we had seen from the bridge - well, it wasn't a cafe, but a luxury restaurant frequented by Hollywood stars and other high society members. Not for our pockets, but it gave us the motivation to find another restaurant by the river, for dinner. So, we crossed the bridge back to our side, and found a wonderful place exactly by the river. We ordered everything we wanted, and at the drinks part Lily ordered a drink called "Sex on the beach", something that immediately became a joke between the waiter and us. Well, after the satisfying meal and some sex on the beach, we went back to the hotel, for some relaxation in the garden and a good night of sleep.
13/7/2023 - Cesky Krumlov
Next morning, right after breakfast, our Prague chapter is over, and we regretfully say goodbye to Cube hotel and sit on the motorcycles. Our destination: Cesky Krumlov.
The beginning of the way from Prague to Cesky Krumlov was beautiful. Small roads, small intersections, a good part of it inside a forest. Until at some point we noticed that it was the second time we were passing in the same place. All because of a piece of closed road. We understood that the GPS was trying to get us back to the closed road and had to change the parameters of the GPS to get us going again - no more "avoid main roads" setting that day. The GPS responded and took us to a main road that looked like it had just been finished. Three lanes in each direction, something not regular in that part of Czechia, and a speed limit of 130Km/h. It looked too good to be true, but there was traffic on the road, so we were calm. At some point, after some 50 Km, we wanted to drink something, and nothing - the only service station that we found - and stopped at - was still being built. Then we understood that the road really had been opened in the last weeks. We continued on it, then it ended, and we turned into a smaller road, back to the good old 70Km/h that we knew so well.
Around 15:00 we arrived at our hotel. The hotel was interesting, a house that was some hundred years old. The owner told us that the building is 200 years old, and the wooden stairs are still the original stairs. Many other parts of the building were still original in my opinion. The rooms did not have air conditioning, but the weather was cooler at that place, and we were supposed to stay there only one night, so this was not a problem. The biggest problem was that we were the only guests at the hotel and the owner had put us on the 3rd floor - no elevator. When we asked if she could move us to a lower floor, she responded "these are the rooms you ordered on Booking.com". We tried to discuss this with her, claiming that nothing on Booking says that they are third floor with no elevator, but we could not move her from her position, so in the end we gave up and took our things up. Today I can say that the facilities of the hotel are good, but we weren't well treated there, definitely. But we didn't want to waste time. We just threw our things in the room and went out to visit Cesky Krumlov. It was 16:00, and we had until 22:00 for the night to come.
Cesky Krumlov is a pearl. You can see the way the city is built in the map on the first picture. The river makes a 180-degree turn, and between the two sides of the river is the whole old city. Everything as if it has gone out of a fairy-tale. We ate our "linner" and walked for hours there. We also ate as a desert a special thing, remarkably similar to the Hungarian Kürtőskalács (also known in Romania as Kiortosh), but there in this part of Czechia they use it as a cone for ice-cream. Delicious!!!
We also visited the Cesky Krumlov synagogue (the building with the David Shield on its top and its windows). They were having an event there, so we could not come in. But it was interesting to see that there was an active synagogue there.
Night came and we went back to the hotel (a 4-minute walk from the old city), and went to sleep early to get ready for the long day we had ahead of us.
Next morning, right after breakfast, our Prague chapter is over, and we regretfully say goodbye to Cube hotel and sit on the motorcycles. Our destination: Cesky Krumlov.
The beginning of the way from Prague to Cesky Krumlov was beautiful. Small roads, small intersections, a good part of it inside a forest. Until at some point we noticed that it was the second time we were passing in the same place. All because of a piece of closed road. We understood that the GPS was trying to get us back to the closed road and had to change the parameters of the GPS to get us going again - no more "avoid main roads" setting that day. The GPS responded and took us to a main road that looked like it had just been finished. Three lanes in each direction, something not regular in that part of Czechia, and a speed limit of 130Km/h. It looked too good to be true, but there was traffic on the road, so we were calm. At some point, after some 50 Km, we wanted to drink something, and nothing - the only service station that we found - and stopped at - was still being built. Then we understood that the road really had been opened in the last weeks. We continued on it, then it ended, and we turned into a smaller road, back to the good old 70Km/h that we knew so well.
Around 15:00 we arrived at our hotel. The hotel was interesting, a house that was some hundred years old. The owner told us that the building is 200 years old, and the wooden stairs are still the original stairs. Many other parts of the building were still original in my opinion. The rooms did not have air conditioning, but the weather was cooler at that place, and we were supposed to stay there only one night, so this was not a problem. The biggest problem was that we were the only guests at the hotel and the owner had put us on the 3rd floor - no elevator. When we asked if she could move us to a lower floor, she responded "these are the rooms you ordered on Booking.com". We tried to discuss this with her, claiming that nothing on Booking says that they are third floor with no elevator, but we could not move her from her position, so in the end we gave up and took our things up. Today I can say that the facilities of the hotel are good, but we weren't well treated there, definitely. But we didn't want to waste time. We just threw our things in the room and went out to visit Cesky Krumlov. It was 16:00, and we had until 22:00 for the night to come.
Cesky Krumlov is a pearl. You can see the way the city is built in the map on the first picture. The river makes a 180-degree turn, and between the two sides of the river is the whole old city. Everything as if it has gone out of a fairy-tale. We ate our "linner" and walked for hours there. We also ate as a desert a special thing, remarkably similar to the Hungarian Kürtőskalács (also known in Romania as Kiortosh), but there in this part of Czechia they use it as a cone for ice-cream. Delicious!!!
We also visited the Cesky Krumlov synagogue (the building with the David Shield on its top and its windows). They were having an event there, so we could not come in. But it was interesting to see that there was an active synagogue there.
Night came and we went back to the hotel (a 4-minute walk from the old city), and went to sleep early to get ready for the long day we had ahead of us.
14/7/2023 - Nuremberg
Morning came, we ate our breakfast at the hotel, and left in the direction of Nuremberg.
Nuremberg was initially planned to be just like Goettingen, another point on the map on our way to Darmstadt. The initial idea was to sleep there, visit it a little to get some of the history of the place, and continue. But it became a different destination because our friend Manfred, from MCD, decided to take his motorcycle and meet us there with his wife Bettina. We already knew the couple from their visits in Israel and were looking forward to seeing them.
The ride to Nuremberg was the most beautiful riding day we had until that point in our trip. 330Km of a beautiful ride through the mountains and the exuberant forests of Czechia and Germany, done in approximately four hours. Every time we stopped for refreshments it was difficult to hold our breath and not shout "what a paradise!!!". Especially during the time that we were still in Czech territory, but also most of the time after we passed the border to Germany, the scenery was fantastic and the curves in the road thrilling. It was the ride of the trip.
In the last miles we joined the highway, and then back to the trucks and the traffic. But it was definitely a great riding day.
We arrived to our hotel (also a good hotel, the Novina Tillypark), got our rooms and went to rest a little. Manfred made contact and said he would be arriving at 16:00, so we had around one hour. Around 16:30 we met and went to visit the historic center of Nuremberg. After that, to sleep since we still had some 260Km to do to Nierstein in the next day.
Morning came, we ate our breakfast at the hotel, and left in the direction of Nuremberg.
Nuremberg was initially planned to be just like Goettingen, another point on the map on our way to Darmstadt. The initial idea was to sleep there, visit it a little to get some of the history of the place, and continue. But it became a different destination because our friend Manfred, from MCD, decided to take his motorcycle and meet us there with his wife Bettina. We already knew the couple from their visits in Israel and were looking forward to seeing them.
The ride to Nuremberg was the most beautiful riding day we had until that point in our trip. 330Km of a beautiful ride through the mountains and the exuberant forests of Czechia and Germany, done in approximately four hours. Every time we stopped for refreshments it was difficult to hold our breath and not shout "what a paradise!!!". Especially during the time that we were still in Czech territory, but also most of the time after we passed the border to Germany, the scenery was fantastic and the curves in the road thrilling. It was the ride of the trip.
In the last miles we joined the highway, and then back to the trucks and the traffic. But it was definitely a great riding day.
We arrived to our hotel (also a good hotel, the Novina Tillypark), got our rooms and went to rest a little. Manfred made contact and said he would be arriving at 16:00, so we had around one hour. Around 16:30 we met and went to visit the historic center of Nuremberg. After that, to sleep since we still had some 260Km to do to Nierstein in the next day.
15/7/2023 - Nierstein
We woke up at 7:00, as usual, and at 9:00 we were already after breakfast and with the equipment on the bikes. Manfred had prepared an itinerary from Nuremberg to Nierstein going almost all of it through small roads and towns, with only about one hour of highway near the end of the ride. So, he led the bunch this time.
Riding after him through the small roads and farming communities was something priceless. You learn to appreciate the simple life you see around you. We visited Rothenburg after approximately 1.5 hours of riding, where we made a stop to visit the beautiful historical town they have. After the visit continued, making one more stop to drink something about two hours later. Around 16:00 we were arriving to our hotel in Nierstein. Manfred and Bettina, who lived nearby, told us to be organized around 18:00 because we had a reservation for dinner.
We had a gorgeous dinner at a local Italian restaurant and went to walk by the Rhein River. I can't remember the exact time, but I think we walked there for around 2 hours, because it was already getting dark when we turned around to go back. We stopped at a local ice-cream place and enjoyed a good ice-cream, so important on these hot days. And from there, we went to the hotel to sleep. We agreed with Manfred that we would meet the next day at 12:30 to go to MCD and return the bikes, and from there to the airport.
We woke up at 7:00, as usual, and at 9:00 we were already after breakfast and with the equipment on the bikes. Manfred had prepared an itinerary from Nuremberg to Nierstein going almost all of it through small roads and towns, with only about one hour of highway near the end of the ride. So, he led the bunch this time.
Riding after him through the small roads and farming communities was something priceless. You learn to appreciate the simple life you see around you. We visited Rothenburg after approximately 1.5 hours of riding, where we made a stop to visit the beautiful historical town they have. After the visit continued, making one more stop to drink something about two hours later. Around 16:00 we were arriving to our hotel in Nierstein. Manfred and Bettina, who lived nearby, told us to be organized around 18:00 because we had a reservation for dinner.
We had a gorgeous dinner at a local Italian restaurant and went to walk by the Rhein River. I can't remember the exact time, but I think we walked there for around 2 hours, because it was already getting dark when we turned around to go back. We stopped at a local ice-cream place and enjoyed a good ice-cream, so important on these hot days. And from there, we went to the hotel to sleep. We agreed with Manfred that we would meet the next day at 12:30 to go to MCD and return the bikes, and from there to the airport.
The next morning came, and after breakfast Lily and I decided to go and to a Rhein walk by ourselves in the morning. We walked for around one hour, she posed for some pictures, and returned to the hotel. At 12:30 we were ready to leave, and Manfred came with the car. We put the equipment (and the ladies) already in the car and rode after him to MCD. We were surprised to meet Achim (the business owner) there, who decided to take us to the airport himself. So, we finished organizing our luggage in the suitcases that were left at MCD on the first day, said goodbye to Manfred and left with Achim to the airport. We were there around 14:30, and our flight (to which we were already checked in and only needed to check the luggage) was at 18:00, so we had plenty of time to do tax return, check the bags in, and have some coffee or drinks before we moved into the closed part of the terminal, after the border police.
It was a dream time. The BMW event was awesome, both for Shmil and me, and surprisingly also for Louisa and Lily. The roads were magic, and the places we stopped to look or to sleep there were excellent and beautiful. The hotels, with a few exceptions (the first hotel in Berlin and the hotel in Cesky Krumlov) were excellent. And as usual, the company was great.
It was also great testing again the K1600, with its strong and smooth 6-cylinder engine and a Reverse gear. It is a great bike, but I still prefer the thrilling vibrations of the boxer engine of the RT. Regarding the R18, it is definitely an interesting bike, but in my opinion built for the big, open roads in the USA or Germany. It wouldn't be comfortable in Israel. So, for the time being, I will stay with the RT.
Thanks to Shmil and Louisa for the nice company throughout the whole journey, to Manfred and Bettina for the great last days, and especially to my wife Lily for being there with me. As I said to them all at the closing dinner in Nierstein, I must have done something good in this world to be blessed with such a group of special people around me.
MAP OF THE TRIP
It was also great testing again the K1600, with its strong and smooth 6-cylinder engine and a Reverse gear. It is a great bike, but I still prefer the thrilling vibrations of the boxer engine of the RT. Regarding the R18, it is definitely an interesting bike, but in my opinion built for the big, open roads in the USA or Germany. It wouldn't be comfortable in Israel. So, for the time being, I will stay with the RT.
Thanks to Shmil and Louisa for the nice company throughout the whole journey, to Manfred and Bettina for the great last days, and especially to my wife Lily for being there with me. As I said to them all at the closing dinner in Nierstein, I must have done something good in this world to be blessed with such a group of special people around me.
MAP OF THE TRIP
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