The bone church, Tjeck republic and home……

We´re on the ferry back home now.

We left Croatia and has done a fair amount of bike riding each day. Arrived to Kutna Hora east of Prague on sunday afternoon/early evening and the reason for us being in Kutna Hora, the bone church, had just closed for the day. So we found a hotel, had dinner and looked at the city before hitting the sack.

Visited the bone church rather early monday morning and we got in just before a buss load of chineese tourists arrived. Interesting place. Don´t remember the story completely but someone took sacred soil from Palestine to the church many hundred of years ago and lots of people wanted to get buried there because of this. And when the grave yard could´t fit more graves people started to stack up bones from dead people inside the church instead. And later these bones where organized by people working at the church and now it pretty much look like they´ve created christmas decorations from human bones and skulls. Odd but interesting place. I´ll post a link to the church later so you can read the history yourselfs. I don´t remember exactly…… Some pics……:

Ok. There is a web link on this sign. www.kostnice.cz

A pic from the grave yard.

The first thing you see when entering the church.

And to the right…..

I don´t know how many people there is in this pic but it must be quite a few.

Howdy.

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I call him “George”.

Tina stayed in the church and took some more pics while I walked out to our bikes. 60 over excited chineese tourists arrived within minutes later after they´ve visited the church and they started to take pictures of themselves next to the bikes and quite many also tried to sit on Tinas bike so that their fellows could take pictures of them on the bike. I got scared that they might tip the bike over so I had to tell quite many of them to please leave the bikes alone but that didn´t do much good since not many of them understood any english. They instead surrounded me and took their pictures with me in it… Total chaos. And all of a sudden their tour leader blew in a whistle and they all got on their bus and left within seconds later. And there I stood puzzled and confused…..

Tina arrived and we soon left to head north into Poland. Tina forgot to take off the disk lock from her rear wheel before starting her engine. I saw what was about to happened just when she was about to drive off so I yelled at her and she turned the engine off and unlocked the disk lock. Really easy to forget a thing like this but the result from a mistake like this can be anything from hurtful to expensive. I hardly ever lock my bike when going into museums or restaurants. I tend to leave my bike jacket, helmet and everything else on the bike and I often even forget to take the ignition key from the bike too so my bike is really easy to steal. I´m such a “knickedick”…… 😉

Tina communicating with bulls……

Tina taking a nap at the ferry port in Gdansk.

The food on the ferry was indeed horrible. This is not really a passenger ship but more like a cargo ship that also takes a limited number of passengers. I guess they are only used to feeding polish truck drivers and they seem more interested in beer than in food. There is a regular passenger/car ship too that goes between Nynäshamn south of Stockholm to Gdansk but it didn´t fit our schedule. So we opted for drunk truck drivers as travel companions and really horrible food instead of traveling some more days. We were on the cargo ship on our way to Poland when we started our trip too so we knew that the food was no good. “No good” is a understatement. The food was horrible.

Will most likely sum the whole trip in one last post in a couple of days. Lots of work and other things ahead. Hectic fall and winter. More within a couple of days. Thanks for reading.

//Jan

The Tina-is-taking-pictures blog post……

“I MUST take a pic of my food…..”

Tina taking pics with a goat attached to her…..

“Look Jan! How exciting. A door!!”

Tina trying to take pics of dogs. Not much success there…..

Tina took so many pics one day that her camera ran out of battery. So she pulled out her phone and kept going……

“Look Jan! How exciting. A corroded oil drum!!”

Tina taking pics while working and I´m waiting patiently…..

“Look Jan! How exciting. Corn!!”

“Look Jan! Dead sunflowers!!”

“Look Jan. An ant!!”

Tina pressing her larynx to a pole really hard while taking pics…….

//Jan

Montenegro, Bosnia and one pic from Croatia…..

WONDERFUL riding the last days! Montenegro was fantastic and the roads towards the bosnian border was incredible. The ride through Tara Canyon on our way north couldn’t have been nicer. Must take my girlfriend to these parts in the future. She would love to ride her bike in this part of Montenegro. 20 meters after leaving Montenegro into Bosnia, the roads turned from fantastic to complete SHIT! Felt that we were a LONG way from home there for awhile. But the roads got better after some 50 – 60 kilometers and we rode all the way to Sarajevo through the dark. Left Sarajevo today and drove north. Fantastic views and friendly people. Will definitely return to Bosnia ahead. Crossed the border into Croatia before sunset and drove for about 1,5 hour before finding a small hotel not too far from the hungarian border that we´ll cross tomorrow (hopefully!! 😉 ) rather early. But more about that later. Some pics…..

Bloody hot in Montenegro. Not as hot as in Albania last summer (+ 46 degrees) but still hot.

Tina is a very strange girlie.

The nature in northern Montenegro was stunning!

“Look Jan! How exciting. A power line pole”!!

Tara canyon with its many (!!) tunnels was just amazing!

Tinas head. I don´t know why but she ALWAYS tries to get in the pictures…..

Sarajevo.

Tina mingling with the local bosniacs that sold food on the side of the road.

But they liked me more. I got a arm around my shoulders!

A petrol station in northern Croatia.

More tomorrow or next time we find internet access. Will be a long day on the bikes tomorrow. Either that or we´ll be in deep shit and miss the boat home!

Cheers//Jan

Long Day’s Journey Into Night……

Howdy. Oki. I´ve not written anything in a few days. Been tired. Tina has done good tho. We left Idilevo/Moto Camp a couple of days ago and has travelled west. First stop was Nis, Serbia. And then via back roads over the mountains to Novi Pazar. Mainly a muslim town it seems so we had a hard time to find wine to Tina´s birthday dinner. She had to drink water instead but was a rather happy camper even after this little mishap. The roads we´ve been riding today was…….interesting….. And the sat navigator made us do a detour that took 4 hours from todays riding. The surrounding mountains seem to confuse the navigator since it can´t see the satellites all the time. We had to turn around and go back the same way we came from. And then I decided to trust the navigator again when it suggested a smaller but shorter road. That made us have to drive on really narrow and bad roads over the mountains for hours and hours and it got dark and we had to drive in the dark for quite some time……. But we made it to Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, at 9 o´clock at night. The road over the mountains after the sun set was interesting. Steep cliffs and hardly no safety rails. But we made it. Some pics…..

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Some dogs at Debbie´s and Andy´s place in Idilevo.

Polly and her cat.

Ica in Nis. Wonderful and very friendly guy with a fantastic family.

A ear.

A ski resort under construction in western Serbia.

Tina and some guys at the border to Montenegro. Don´t ask me why but many of the guys that works at the border had been to Landskrona (shitty place in Sweden) and they all spoke alittle swedish. I found that amusing. They also gave Tina a chair to sit on while I put on my gloves.

Beautiful view on the mountain back roads in Montenegro.

A lake that we passed twice since we had made a wrong turn and gone in the wrong direction for hours……

This is what some of the roads we drove today looked like on the navigator.

More tomorrow if we find a place to stay that has wireless internet…..

Cheers//Jan

Transfagarasan and we have arrived to the bike meet in Bulgaria!!

Left Sibiu yesterday rather early and crossed the Transylvanian mountains. Transfagarasan is a magnificent road indeed. Much better weather this time compared to when I and my fine girlfriend took the same road last year. Some pics…..:

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Fantastic road indeed and most people think that Transfagarasan, Transalpina (located about 60 kilometers west of Transfagarasan) and the Stelvio pass in Italy are the best/most impressive roads in Europe. I´ve not done the Stelvio pass yet but these three roads are a must for bikers I´d say. And they fixed much of the really (!!!!) bad road surface on the southern parts of Transfagarasan! It was a NIGHTMARE last year. The best parts along the lake from last year was the worst parts this year. Yeah! Me like…..! We passed Vlad Tepes castle up on the cliff far above the road. Tina said many times earlier that she should would climb the 1.000 + steps up to the castle but decided not to when she saw how far up it was…… :o) Ok. I have to run for cover now after writing this…… HER version is that we did not have enough time. My version is that she is lazy and refuse to admit it. We all know that I am lazy but I don´t pretend to be otherwise. BBBIIIIGGGG difference. 😉

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We drove all the way to the HU bike meet at Moto Camp Bulgaria in the small village called Idilevo after crossing the mountains. Arrived at midnight after having driving in the dark for 4,5 hours. I would NEVER have done this if the bike meet would have been in Romania. The roads are better in Bulgaria and people seem to respect bikers more. Romania is great and I really like the country, this was my third time visiting, but the driving can be……intense……. Any way…… We made it to Idilevo and had some beers and good laughs before hitting the sack. Good day yesterday. Really look forward to the bike meet. Good folks here from Russia, Austria, France, USA, Bulgaria, Romania and perhaps some other countries…… Good fun. More later. Need breakfast now. Or lunch……. Or both……. :o)

Cheers//Jan