Dogs, lollies, chocolate, and gulls. 
Calais day two.

6/8/12

We were both dog tired and slept in. It was so late we almost missed breakfast. Oh no!

My breakfast kiddy plate. I didn't see the grown up's plates. Honest.

After a late breakfast we went for a stroll down to the port area, stopping at a few shops along the way.

I got a bit homesick here. It made me think of Fremantle.

We were hungry and decided it was time to have lunch. Suzanne said as long as it's not Pizza. We haven't eaten much Pizza, but EVERYWHERE we go we see Pizza signs and Pizza shops. We walked around the corner and look what we found;

No, we didn't.

We found a small bar close to the hotel that served cheap food in large quantities. That's what we wanted. We discovered that it was five pm, so this would be dinner not lunch. As we sat there an organised motorcycle tour rolled up and checked into the Mercure hotel across the road. There were about twenty of them and I wondered how hard it would be to control twenty riders of different skill levels, and who didn't ride together or even know each other. I reckon it would be a nightmare. It was also interesting to see that only one rider had dark hair. Everyone else was grey. It still beats a bus tour.

It was time to check out the Town Hall and parks we saw on the way in yesterday. We met a few four legged friends on the way.

Introducing Hermes. As I said on Facebook: "One of these is
all grey and wrinkly with floppy jowls. The other is a dog."

Hermes is only three months old and is far and away the best behaved puppy I've ever met. He sat in the doorway of his owners shop and didn't go outside. We had a bit of a play then said goodbye. I reckon he'd fit in one of the panniers if we got rid of Suzanne's shoes.

Then it was down to the Town Hall. Check this out.

Outside the town hall there was an art installation. There were giant lollies (sweets, candies, depends where you come from) painted in the EEC country's flag colours. These looked stunning in the sunlight because they had a metallic fleck through the paint as well. Sweeeeeeeet!

One for my Pommy friends who are watching the Olympics.

The gardens were some of the nicest I've seen. This is what I want my front garden to look like, but the garden fairy hasn't been. Maybe Paige will do this while we are away.

Then we met Sunny.

Poor Sunny didn't know what to do. She had a beef chew that she didn't want us to have, but she wanted to play. Life is full of difficult decisions, even if you are a small dog.

Then it was off to the park across the road. Lot's of big trees, a huge kid's play area, an open area where people were playing Bocce, and lots of open grassed areas. And a little fountain in the middle.

They do fountains and statues so well over here.

It was time to call it a day and head back to the hotel. We stopped at a supermarket for some supplies. A bottle of gin, ten Euros, a large bottle of tonic, 80 cents. That's cheaper than one drink in Switzerland! That along with a few food products should see us through the night. I'm still scouring he shops for Kinder Pinguis (That's Pingui, not Pingu as I've been writing) but with no luck. I tried another Kinder chocolate, but it's not a patch on my Pinguis. I am sad.

Calais is an odd place. Parts of it are truly beautiful, but then other parts are pretty grotty. The redevelopment of the port area looks like it will bring a new lease of life to the place and should be stunning.

So back to the hotel we went.

The seagulls here are giants. 

OK mums, who remembers this?

"Muuuuummmmm, I'mmmmm huuuungryyyyy".

Suzanne! Feed me now!

Suzanne has been trying to coax one onto our window sill with food, but it's stayed well away. Suzanne went to the bathroom and the bloody thing landed on the sill. I called her quietly as I reached for the camera, but when she opened the bathroom door the gull flew away. I think the plan may have been to get one to come into the room. Maybe it's lucky that didn't happen.

Next stop, Dover, United Kingdom.

Where's Rex's Buff?

Meet Louise. Louise is a little shy.

To Calais - What is that up on the hill?

5/8/12

We made the most out of our late check out at the hotel and rode out of the car park late morning. It was back on the Autobahn again with a plan to make Calais tonight.

A few hour later we were cruising along and I saw something very large on top of a hill off to the left and pointed it out to Suzanne. We'll give a wonderful display of our ignorance now. I said if it's on top of a hill, and it's big, it's go to be a church. Suzanne said, no, it's something new, probably a sky scraper. We had to go and have a look. About twenty minutes later we were riding up a road into a very old walled city. We were both hungry and found a restaurant so we sat down for a very pleasant lunch sitting opposite what we discovered to be a "church".

Suzanne enjoyed her glass(es) of real French Champaign. I broke my rule and had one as well.

After lunch we wandered around and took the usual tourist type photos of the area. It was a beautiful place and we really enjoyed walking around it.

We aren't really into churches and were about to leave when I said to Suzanne, "We really should go inside and take a quick look seeing as we are here". Suzanne agreed so in we went. This church we were inside just happened to be the 850 year old Notre Dame Cathedral. Oops. We felt just a little silly. I blame our education system. I'm glad we didn't ask anyone what it was.

OK, I've just read this - "Notre Dame simply means our lady, so there are many churches devoted to the Virgin Mary called Notre Dame (Notre Dame de Chartres, Notre Dame de Rouen, etc.). The most famous Notre Dame Cathedral (with the Hugo story and Disney movie and all) is located in center of Paris".

It turns out that this Notre Dame is in Laon. I don't feel quite so silly now.

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/4c4e4/1c10a/

Our bike went to church. I'm not pushy, I'll let it make up it's own mind about religion.

The Cathedral is a bit run down, shows it's age in some areas, and is in need of repair. I guess "The Church" spends all it's money helping the needy. I hope I can get my tongue out of my cheek tomorrow.

We had some very black clouds roll in while we were there so the waterproof liners went into the jackets and we were back on the Autobahn in no time. I'm thinking I might have to retire from motorcycling when I get back to Australia. After a few hours on the Autobhans today, even at enjoyable speeds, riding in a straigt line on flat ground just plain and simple sucks. I believe I have been spoiled for life with the riding I have enjoyed over the recent weeks.

A couple of hours later we rolled into Calais and found an Ibis Style hotel. I looked at the posters in the windows and it looked like rooms were only 65 Euro. Suzanne went inside and yes, Ibis Style have a promo on and are offering rooms for 65 Euro til the end of September. We'll be contacting our friends at Ibis Style about last nights bill in Troyes.

After sharing a few a few drinks at the bar with some other guests it was off to the land of nod for both of us.

Goodbye Montreux. We'll be back.

4/8/12

I soooo want to go to the Montreux Jazz Festival next year. We couldn't go this year because we were booked it to attend the Horizons Unlimited meeting in Greece. The HU date isn't set for next year so we might be able to do both if we're still in Europe. I hope so. Anyone want to join us?

http://www.montreuxjazz.com/

We squeezed all our gear back onto the bike and headed toward Calais. We knew we wouldn't get there today but it was in the right direction. We were very keen to get back to the UK for our friend Jo's birthday bash on Monday night. We should be able to do it I think.

A parting shot from Montreux.

Goodbye mountains, I'll miss you.

We covered a lot of of miles, and paid a lot of tolls on the Autobahn so it was a pretty uneventful day. In fact the most exciting thing we did was to put some oil in the bike. Oh yes, and I got a bug in my helmet and I felt like I had a hundred things crawling on my head. That was until...

We rode til we started to feel a bit tired and it was near Troyes. I punched Best Western into the sat nav and off we went. A combination of road works and closed roads left us geographically embarrassed and we ended up riding through a couple of pedestrian malls. Not again! I saw to coppers on scooters and thought "I hope they don't see us". They didn't, so we rode on, trying to find our way out of the pedestrian area. We rounded a corner and guess who was there? Yup, two coppers on scooters. I rode up to them and it turned out that they were both French girls and once I explained we were looking for the Best Western one of them told me to wait for two minutes. She wandered off and spoke to a few people who were obviously selling drugs, or murderers, or something equally as sinister then came back and indicated for us to follow her. I was happy to follow her anywhere. The bottom line was we had a Police escort the wrong way down one way streets to the Best Western. I'm just annoyed that we didn't have the camera out. I Invited them for a drink after work, just to be polite of course, but they were finishing at ten pm and starting again at five am so they declined. I must be losing my touch. I can't believe they knocked back a drink with a fat old bloke who probably smelt like a footy club change room.

The Best Western wanted 168 euros for the night. I don't think so. We found a new chain called Ibis Style. These are really trendy hotels decorated to attract the younger crowd, but we liked it as well. For 110 euros, with secure parking we had a cute room for the night. This chain is throughout Europe and we'll use them again. The deal includes breakfast and free tea / coffee / snacks all day. The hotels are designed from day one to be environmentally friendly. They recycle as much as they can, but the big thing is the building uses as much recyclable material as possible. The idea is that one day when the building is demolished, a large part of the material can be recycled. They are worth checking out. Or possibly checking in.

Old uncool guy blogging in a cool room, even if the side tables look like toilets.

The reception area.

The passages are bathed in a red glow at night time. The white lights are motion activated and only come on when you walk into the area. Suzanne said it's like being in a space ship.

Now for dinner. It was late Sunday night and not much was open, but I found a small pizza shop which filled the bill as far as our food requirements were concerned. While I was waiting for our pizza I played with the owner's parrot. I think it was a King Parrot, and it was very cheeky. It was a good finish to the day.

Where's Rex's Buff?

Meet Diane. French and fantastique.

We rock, and roll into Montreux, Switzerland. 

2, 3/8/12

It's seven am and I'm sitting on the balcony of our hotel typing this overlooking Lake Geneva in Montreux, Switzerland. Life isn't good, it's bloody fantastic. We like it here so much that we are staying another night. There is so much to tell that I wish I could type a whole lot faster than I can. Be warned, today's blog is a biggie.

Our view of Lake Geneva.

Montreux is found on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland and it's famous for the Montreux Jazz Festival as well as Deep Purple's song, Smoke on the Water. The song is about the band's first appearance at Montreux early in their career when the casino that they were supposed to play in burned down the night before the gig. They were staying in a hotel on the other side of the lake and saw the "smoke on the water and fire in the sky". They wrote this song about the night.  

It's a song I grew up with, and with the recent passing of Jon Lord, one of the founding members, it is a visit tinged with a little sadness. I never got to see Deep Purple play live. They were playing in the UK when I was there once, but we didn't make it to the show. That sort of sums up this trip really. Get out there and do what you want to do while you can, before it's to late.

We made a reasonable start today and cruised around Torino having a sticky beak at the architecture and the sights. It's interesting how your mood can alter your perception of things. The previous day were were hot, tired, and grumpy and Torino was a dirty old city. This morning after a good sleep, some breakfast, and some clean clothes, Torino is actually a very beautiful place full of remarkable buildings. We only had to cover about 250 km to Montreux so we could kick back and relax.

We hit the Autostrada and put some miles under the wheels quickly in the morning. After the last few weeks of winding roads with only the odd car here and there sharing a long straight road with numerous cars and trucks is bloody horrible, but it's a good way to cover ground quickly.

There would be no mountains today, only some things called Alps, whatever they are. When we did see some mountains Suzanne said "After last week, they are pissy little things". Turns out they weren't so "pissy" after all reaching about 4,500 meters. That's more than double the size of Australia's largest mountain, Mount Kosciusko. As we rode through the mountains Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn were either side of us, complete with snow.

That's not snow is it? yes it is Simon, yes it is.

Like I said, no mountains today.

I'm getting used to this whole mountain thing and really enjoyed today's ride. I'd even say it was the best days riding yet. The roads were smooth, the bends perfect, and I'm learning to cope with the sheer size of the cliffs we ride on. I'm happy to tell you I was only passed by two cars in the mountains today. I chuckle when I think back to our first mountain road experience in Austria / Slovenia where I was pulling over and letting lines of cars past.

Check out those curves. We came over the bridge on the left, then wound down the mountain. The road went on like this for miles and miles.

We rode through the Great Saint Bernard Tunnel (no, there were no dogs in there) which seemed to go on forever. There is a turn off in the tunnel which leads to a pass over the top of the Alps but we missed it, and I wasn't turning around in there. We'll definitely go over the top on the way back.

The entry to the longest tunnel I've ridden through.

About half way through the tunnel we hit the Swiss border. My first thought was that these guys have a very interesting drive to work every day. Not! There was a line of cars stopped off to the side and they were being checked over pretty thoroughly. There were even sniffer dogs going through the cars. We rode up and both the Police and border guards just waved us straight through. I guess you can't smuggle enough on a bike to worth bothering with.

When we popped out into daylight at the other end it was more of the same, then we came across the "Joe Bar" cafe. Motorcyclists who read Pommy bike magazines will be familiar with this. We had to stop and have a coffee. This was a great little cafe in a perfect location, but there was no one but us in there. Once we were inside we realised why. They girl serving was in dire need of a personality injection. Take notice people, staff make all the difference. We sat there and watched a multitude of all types of bikes go past. 

Joe Bar Cafe.

Only us inside. Miss personality is on her lap top in the back corner.

I love these tables. I didn't at first, but once I realised that the only thing required to have a full motorcycle again is a rim, tyre, tube, and some spokes, I was happy.

(Scotty - are you taking notice?)

Something I've noticed in Europe is that just about every biker that you see out on the road waves to you. I don't know why this doesn't happen in Australia any more. The rot probably started because the Harley riders wouldn't wave to you if you weren't on a Harley and spread from there. I'd love to see it come back.

Now it was time for some more fun. I can't tell you how good the roads were on the way into Montreux. I like the BM, and it does everything well, but, god I wish I had my Speed Triple on those roads. (and me not on they back hey Sime :)

We arrived in Montreux about mid afternoon and decided to ride to the centre of town and start working outwards to find a hotel. A hotel we could afford that is. We'd looked on the web the previous night and things in Switzerland are VERY EXPENSIVE. They are like hotels in Perth since the mining boom kicked in.

Sometimes you get extremely lucky and great things just fall in your lap. We did our usual. We stopped the bike in the dead centre of Montreux and saw a hotel. Suzanne got off and walked to the hotel entrance where she took off her helmet and jacket in preparation for the whole "we're travelling and haven't got much money" scenario at the front desk. A guy on the footpath, having seen the bike, asked if we were really from Australia. When Suzanne replied yes, she told him about me wanting to visit Montreux and the whole Deep Purple thing. He told her he really wants to go to Australia and tour around on a motorcycle. They got talking and guess what. He is the owner, in partnership with his brother, of the "Hotel Splendid" that they were standing in front of.

His name was Yvan and he is the third generation of his family to own the hotel. He explained to Suzanne that there is no such thing as a cheap room in Montreux, especially at this time of year. It turned out that Splendid wasn't that expensive, in fact it was pretty reasonable. A few minutes later we were in our room. 

DISCLAIMER: OK this is going to sound like an advertisement, so I want to state right now, I don't own this hotel, I didn't get paid to write this, and we paid for our room. Yvan did buy us a couple of drinks later during our stay, but that's it.

Hotel Splendid is great, it's not all chrome, glass, and sterile like a lot of new hotels. OK, it's not a five star hotel, it's a three star hotel, and it is old. In fact it's the oldest hotel in Montreux built in 1904 (I think), but for us this was a plus. It has real atmosphere. For Perth people it is like an very upmarket New Norcia Hotel. Suzanne and I loved it. It is right in the centre of the main drag along the edge of the lake and is within walking distance of most things you would want to visit in town. Our room had a large balcony with a table and four chairs overlooking Lake Geneva, a nice bath (happy wife = happy life), a large flat screen TV, and those brilliant beds that raise at the head and the foot. These beds are just what you need after a long day riding. Elevating your legs feels so good. Ahhhh, we slept so well. We were so comfortable we stayed in bed til about midday, and I never do that. It was inevitable that we were staying a second night. It was just to good not to.

Hotel Splendid was full of things like this. I'm very lucky this was heavy, otherwise it would probably have ended up in Suzanne's hand bag.

But the best thing about Hotel Splendid was our host Yvan. He is an encyclopaedia of information about Montreux. That afternoon we were having a drink in the bar downstairs and Yvan came over and sat down to talk with us. As he knew about my Deep Purple reason for staying in the town he proceeded to fill me in on all the music history of the place, including some great info I never would have found out. I'll go into a little of that that later. Thanks Yvan, you made our visit very special.

We took hundreds of photos in Monytreux, but not one of the hotel. I can't believe it. We'll just have to go back I guess.

You can visit the web site for Hotel Splendid here: http://www.hotel-splendid.ch/

OK, end of rave about Hotel Splendid.

So, where were we? Oh yes, we'd just checked in to our room. We headed out for a walk and a look around. I got in touch with my feminine side and actually enjoyed looking at the shops along the main street. They were full of really interesting and unusual things. Believe it or not, I would love a Cuckoo clock. I didn't know I'd love one until I walked into a shop full of real Swiss Cuckoo clocks. They were incredible, but at about $2,000 i didn't think should buy one, and then there is the problem of mounting it on the bike. I did buy a T Shirt though. I had to because my other shirts are sealed in zip lock bags and aren't coming out until I have access to a very good washing machine.

Then it got really exiting. We saw Carlos Santana, and then B.B King on the other side of the street. I had to go over. I was lucky enough to have a chat with Carlos. I was so excited all I could do was ask him all the usual inane questions fans ask. It seemed as if he was ignoring me. In fact he didn't even acknowledge me, or speak to me.

Carlos.

B.B and Lucille.

These statues are in a park next to the 2M2C Montreux Music and Convention Centre, home of the Montreux Jazz festival.

Interesting fact: the first Montreux Jazz festival had six hundred people attend. Now there are over six hundred people working on organising the event every year. It was a surreal place to be for me. I was totally relaxed and imagined all the brilliant musicians who strolled along these paths on the way to gigs.

Then we spotted a nice little bar overlooking the lake so it was time to sit back, realax, enjoy the view, and have a drink. This bar was a part of one of the most expensive hotels in Montreux, but what the hell, you only live once. We enjoyed a very nice bottle of wine then asked for the bill. It wasn't over the top, and the guy who looked after us did a good job, so I left him a tip. It was only the next morning I realised I had paid in cash in Euros not Swiss Francs. The Euro is worth about twenty percent more that the Swiss Franc. The waiter got a very nice tip indeed. I only did that once.

Suzanne made a new friend.

Not a bad little spot to have an ice cream.

Something I didn't know was that Freedie Mercury lived in Montreux up until a few weeks before his death. Yvan filled me in on this. He loved the place, and the place loved him. There is a memorial statue erected for Freddie on the foreshore, in his classic pose, overlooking the lake. There are quite a few other musicians and movie people who live or spend a lot of time in Montreux. Apparently they love it here because they are treated no differently to the normal person in the street. They can relax.

Freddie. I gave him your regards Dave.

The current casino has an interesting feature. Down the side of the building is an innocuous doorway which is covered in graffiti. This is a bit strange because graffiti doesn't exist in Switzerland. This door is the original entry door to Mountain Studios, a recording studio purchased by Queen in 1979. The graffiti consists of messages to Freddie and peoples thoughts about him. A little bit of history.

Freddie and Brian May co wrote "This Could be Heaven" in Montreux and it is supposed to be inspired by Montreux, so what better way to finish today's blog.

Montreux could indeed be heaven...and my new favorite place.

Where's Rex's Buff?

Freddie was happy to wear the Buff.

Ride to Torino, or Turin as you and I would call it.

1/8/12

We finally made an early getaway today. It's time for us to cover some serious Ks, get back to the UK, arrange some stuff, and plan the next stage of our trip. It's Autobahn time. 

We hit the Autobahn and after a bit of settling in found our happy cruising speed was around 150 kph. It sounds fast but I'll tell you right now, we were getting passed about once a minute. I'm not talking about exotic sports cars either, just your average street cars. These guys don't hang around. Mid morning we were passed by a guy on a GSXR 1000 and it scared the hell out of me. I constantly check my mirrors, but I didn't see him coming. Then bang. He was there. Then he was gone. He was going for it and I bet he's still laughing about the old guy on the BM who jumped out of his seat as he was passed.

I've mentioned before about changing names of places and people from the native language of the country they are in, into something some mono lingual, English speaking person thinks is a good name. What a bloody stupid idea. If Roma's name is Roma, surely we should call in Roma, not Rome. Why change it? Roma isn't too bad, but Torino, as the Italians call it created some problems for us. We searched accommodation websites for accommodation with very little luck, the sat nav didn't want to know anything about it, and most places we looked didn't seem to even register Torino. It wasn't until we were in a hotel checking in that I realised we were in Turin. I ask again, why change the name.

Anyway, on with the story...

We got to Torino with with just over 500 km under our wheels. We were on the road for about six hours and had a couple of long breaks along the way. It was a pretty easy day, until...we couldn't find anywhere to stay. I don't mean everything was full. I mean we could not find a single hotel building anywhere. We punched hotels into the sat nav and it took us to:

1st hotel - Was called Six Love, a "Themed Rooms" rent by the hour hotel. I was happy to stay but Suzanne didn't seem keen.
2nd  hotel - There was no hotel at the location.
3rd hotel  - There was no hotel at the location.
4th hotel - Full but told us to go to this hotel and they have a room for you. 
5th hotel - When we got there it was "I'm sorry we don't have a room, but check in here and give us your passports (which is normal here. Hotels hold your passport to ensure you pay your bill) and it's a five minute walk to the hotel room you can have". Sight unseen, no way bucko! We were so stuffed we couldn't walk for minutes carrying all our stuff anyway.
6th hotel - Holiday Inn - Bingo

We have gone from one extreme to the other. In Croatia just about every single building has a room for rent, yet here we couldn't find a thing. It took three hours of riding around in the heat before we finally found something. The Holiday Inn is very nice, and the air conditioning is extremely cold. About six penguins on the Suzanne scale of coldness. The plus side of this is that we got to see a lot of Torino.

Speaking of penguins, has anyone been able to find the Kinder Pingu chocolates yet? We had then in Slovenia, but haven't seen them since. I might have to try and get Kinder to sponsor me on this trip. I wonder how I can I stack fifty boxes of chocolates on the bike?

We have a very easy day planned for tomorrow. About a three hour ride to Montreux. I wonder if I'll get the tune from Smoke on the Water out of my head soon?

Where's Rex's Buff?

Meet the lovely Julie from Calais.

Time to reconsider our logistics.

31/7/12

We've been pushing it most days so far this trip, and it's just not working for us. This is supposed to be a holiday but we've been working flat out getting to events and places we have booked. Europe is small, but it's not that small. Don't get me wrong, we've been having a great time. Our experiences will stay with us for ever, and the events we've been to have been brilliant, but we need to get back to our original plan which was:

Step 1: Go for a ride somewhere.
Step 2: If we like it, stay for a while, maybe a week.
Step 3: Repeat.

Over breakfast today we have decided that we will implement the above immediately. We'll have today off and stay here another night. We've also decided that when we get back to the UK we will fly to Rome to hook up with our cruise and our Ukrainian side trip, then fly back to the UK to continue our trip on the bike. That will mean we're not rushing back to Rome on the bike to meet the ship. More fun, and a lot safer. Once we're back on the bike we plan to ride back through Italy, hop a ferry over to Greece and continue our exploration from there, in our own time, unless we come up with a better or different plan.

Today we had a very casual day. A bit of walking on the beach. A bit of sleeping. A bit of eating. A bit of drinking. Dinner was the highlight for me. We found a nice little out of the way eatery. Suzanne wanted a large salad, with a few extras in it. Easy. She got the menu, pointed to the salad, and made hand gestures that she wanted a large salad. No problem so far. Then she wanted extras, so she started pointing at the ingredients on the pizza menu. Mushrooms, olives, potato. You can see where this is going can't you? Out came Suzanne's dinner. One large standard salad, and one large mushroom, olive, and potato chip pizza. I didn't laugh, much.

With our renewed plan, tomorrow we will ride towards London. What will we see on the way? Where we will spend the night? Who knows? 

Where's Rex's Buff?

This is the lovely Yelena. I'm sure all the girls at the Horizons Unlimited meeting hated her. After travelling for days on the bike, and three days camping, Yelena walked into breakfast looking like she'd just had a makeover and been to a hairdresser. You're a lucky man Stephen.