Home Again

Now that we are back home, here is a wrap up from the trip.
The bikes performed really well, no problems apart from the color, I can see why they rented them, they could never have sold them with that sparkly blue and purple paint job.

I will add a video of autobahn riding later when I have it put together.

Here is a salute to the people who made it possible,

Anne and Kelly.

Thank you!

And to my riding buddy Jeff, never complained about anything, even when I made him eat that giant pizza!
OR
That giant Wiener Schnitzel!

That is another one crossed off the bucket list.

More Travels with Norm real soon.

 

Ready to head home

A rainy morning in Munich, looks like winter is about to start here.
We are on the way back to sunny SoCal.
We have a few pictures of crazy stuff we saw on our trip.




The red light district kinda sorta in Munich.




Men's room in Innsbruck.




Beer vending machine in the hotel in Innsbruck.




On a bike in Bressanone.




10 Euro ($12.25 each) beer in St. Marks square Venice.




On the banks of the Danube.



A welcoming sign in Faak Am See.




Full English breakfast in Austria?




Bongs 20% off.




And these were the choices of bongs.




This is a picture of the Sofitel in Munich, the hotel is just outside the main train station.




This is a picture published in Life magazine in the 1930s, at that time the hotel was called the Post,


More from the airport.

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Location:Munich

Last Night in Europe

Here we are at the end of our European motorcycle tour, everything went really well.
Our first day out of Munich to Salzburg was in heavy rain, the second day was wet on the road but not raining, after that we had nothing but sunshine.

It has been all in all a fantastic trip. Jeff and I spent a year planning and booking the trip and it all went well. Each hotel was ready and expected us, there were no surprises, just a really good experience.

I am going to claim a new worlds record, I have spent two weeks in Europe and have not got a speeding ticket (well not that I know of)

Tomorrow I will post a new blog with some of the strange and crazy things we have seen.





All the best,

Norm.


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Location:Munich

Monday

We went out for dinner last night in the old part of town.
This time I was the one who had something that I just had to finish.

Before






After





It had to have been the biggest ice cream I have ever eaten!

The hotel, Die Grauner Baum, is very large and is in fact several hotels combined.




Whilst they have done a very good job of modernizing and adding features, there are some things that just defy fixing. The sound insulation for example, the church bells start at 6 and there is no way that you will not hear them.
The plumbing is very loud.

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Location:Bressanone

Cortina to Bressanone

We walked around Cortina this morning and found a lot of car club type activity.
The Ferrari owners club were there showing off the cars and maybe a bit of ego!





We ran into two guys wearing tee shirts, one said Cor and the other said Tina, they were from, wait for it, the Cortina owners club.

We chatted for a while and they were surprised that I got the connotation, I told them about a Cortina parked next to our hotel. See below.





This was an iconic car of the 1960s, if you had a Cortina 1600 GT you were the cats ass back then.
Of course the motorcycles parked next to it have bigger engines.
In fact that Cortina engine would not run the A/C on my truck.

We rode out by Lake Misurina with 14 hairpin turns in short succession.
Big old Harleys, poor handling, no performance at low revs, not ideal, but what else would we ride?

The scenery was absolutely stunning,we came out through the Dolomites into a long valley and headed to Bressanone.




We stopped at a ruined 15th century castle, largely because we thought that there might be a useable 15th century rest room.




No such luck, we had to ride on to the hotel.
OK it was not far away, but Ms. GPS got us into a pedestrian only zone, fortunately a young guy came and asked where we were headed, he gave us directions out of the zone.




Down town.






The main drag.

Norm

More from Innsbruck tomorrow.


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Location:Bressanone

Evening in Cortina

We went out for dinner, Jeff wanted typical Italian pizza, we found a really nice place.
Unfortunately the worst kind of British tourists were there, 12 of them at one table, and Dougie was holding court. Anne can explain that one too.



The food was very good.
Before!



In fact Jeff had a whole big pizza to himself.

After.




I just had a small house salad and a yoghurt.


We ended up in a beer STUBE and met a very nice young couple from Colorado.

We drank a few brewskies together and shot the breeze for a while.




Tomorrow we head out for Bressanone or Brixen, depending if you are Italian speaking or German speaking.

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Location:Cortina D'Ampezzo

At the top

Having a brew at the ski hut.
What view!










More if we make it down OK.
This mobile hotspot makes it possible to blog from anywhere.
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Cortina

We are headed up the mountain on the Faloria cable car.



It goes up to 2113 meters, or 6900 feet.


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Leaving Venice

El is all dressed up and ready for the trip to Cortina D'Ampezzo.




The hotel is fantastic, very modern and with all facilities such as A/C and elevators.





The restaurant was available on the patio in the evening and was very good.




There is also a full bar, very important.



More from Cortina later.

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Location:Mestre

Public Transport

No not Venice beach!
The other one.
We took the bus from the hotel to the transport center in Venice this is where the railroad, busses and cabs are all in one place.
We walked around the entire island of Venice, not something to do if you cannot walk or handle steps too well. Every time you come to a canal, which is about every hundred yards, you have steps up and steps down over a bridge.

Of course everyone who has not been to Venice will tell you how smelly and fly ridden it is, well I've been here four times and never found it so.
Jeff can attest that today it was very hot and the water has no smell at all.




The Rialto bridge.




Piazza San Marco.




Piazza San Marco waiting for a beer.




OK now we have a beer and a snack, Jeff is not paying attention to the pigeon on the table who is now eating the snack!
Zoom in on the picture to see the pigeon.




We met up with El's brother who was leading a tour around Venice.




This boat was tied up alongside the wharf just south of Piazza San Marco, it is registered in Douglas Isle of Man and is called Felicitia West.
You can charter the boat for between $190,000 and $200,000 a week.






Check it out.




Jeff outside Harry's Bar, famous for Bellinis.
This was just after Jeff had received a good luck charm from a pigeon, probably the same one who ate our snack earlier.





Just another busy day on the Grand Canal.





Public transport Venice style.



A little bar restaurant Anne and I visited on our last trip to Venice, the Artblu Cafe.





We took the water bus (vaporetto) back to the transport center and the regular bus back to our hotel.

Tomorrow we leave for Cortina D'Ampezzo.
This is only a one hundred mile ride, but it is a great altitude change.

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Location:Venice