According to our experiences
in our previous trips which has been realized together with many other
motor riders,
we understood the reality
that different riding habits, accommodation, holiday and fun expectations
of people can really
create big mess in long motorcycle
trips further the reality of which the trip is your only big motorcycle
trip together with your
summer holiday during whole
year. Therefore, this summer, we will have our holiday alone with my wife
and named this trip
"Goldwing Solo".
We will go to Europe for the
50.000 kms big maintenance of our Goldwing to the biggest "Goldwing Plaza"
in Europe named
"Christoph Motorrad Service"
where is in Herbolzheim town of Freiburg city of Germany.
“Goldwing Solo with full of Troubles”
Actual Records
of the Trip:
This year our trip was full of troubles from the
beginning till the end caused from different reasons and some mistakes
while planning.
Therefore we re-named the trip as “Goldwing
Solo with full of troubles”. Troubles started our departure from Istanbul.
We departed from Istanbul on 30/07/1999 afternoon
about 15.30 o'clock. Few minutes ago from our departure, inspectors from
tax office came to Berrin’s shop for ordinary inspections and created some
problems !
After 3 hours stressful riding, due to the stress
of tax people and heavy traffic under the rain, we arrived to Turkish -
Greek border which was unbelievably crowded due to the in-out formalities
of the Turkish expatriates who work in European countries. First time in
our life, we saw this border so, so, so crowded. After spending 2 hours,
we succeeded to pass both borders while many cars were still waiting behind
us.
Our first planned stop was Kavala city of Greece
but due to the continuos rain we obliged to stop at the nice village named
Fanari where is
70 kms before Kavala city near the Aegean cost.
We stayed Bosphorus Hotel and had a lovely dinner consist of delicious
sea foods of traditional Greek kitchen together with local drink named
Uzo.
Next day, we rode about 650 kms starting from Fanari,
passing thorough the Xanthi, Kavala, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Lamia,
Bralos, Amfisa, Nafpaktos, Rio and finally reached to Patra Port of Greece
in order to take the ferry boat to Ancona city of Italy. During all the
way, both extreme hot and rain followed us ! We spent highly difficult
times, especially while raining, which our bike wobbled few times !
We passed this route first time because in the past
we had used to ride to Igomenitsa port. The ferry boat belongs to
"Super Fast Company" was incredible. We thought that we are in 5
stars transatlantic. As a stupid mistake of shipping agency in here, we
stayed in a inner cabin instead of a cabin with sea view ! In any case
the trip was perfect. It took 19 hours from Patra to Ancona.
After arriving to Ancona on 14.00 o'clock , we departed
immediately and rode all afternoon & evening and arrived to Como
lake where is at
70 kms north of Milan . After checking many hotels,
we found a nice one with a suitable price.
By the way I forgot to mention that from Milan to
Como our unexpected friend “rain” was with us all the way and forced us
to reduce our speed.
Next morning, we had our breakfast and visited
the neighborhood. We went to other side of lake by small ferry boat and
visited Bellagio town. Afternoon, we departed from Como, passed the Swiss
border and arrived Lugano city of Switzerland. Than, following Luzern,
Basel, we entered to Germany and finally arrived to Herbolzheim town where
the biggest Goldwing Service of Europe named “Christoph Motorrad Service”
is located. Our friends Levent and Bengi, from Istanbul, were waiting us
over there. They have also departed from Turkey with their Goldwing at
the same day with us but very early in the morning and preferred
to use Igomenitsa port of Greece and reached Brindisi port of Italy
where is 650 kms south of our destination port of Ancona.
Next morning, we went the Christoph’s service shop.
It must be the holly visiting point of all Goldwingers in Europe
like Christians’ Jerusalem city !
Christoph is a real professional service shop and
autorised dealer of Honda with the huge motorcycle,spare parts and accessory
stocks and his technical team is real expert of Goldwings. During the maintenance,
we had a chance to visit the “Europe Park” which is a kind of small scale
“Disneyland” of Germany. Same night we visited Freiburg city which is 38
kms away from town.
Next day, Levent and Bengi headed to North Germany
according to their plan and we departed to Switzerland Alpine Mountains
according to our plan. There is no need to tell that our new friend “rain”
was with us again.
After checking many, many, many hotels, we finally
found a Hotel about 21.00 o’clock at Aeschi village of Interlaken city.
Next day, we had a nice tour around neighborhood and passed Susten, Furka
& Grimsell passes of course our friend rain were partially with us
during this daily trip.
Next day, we went to Lozan city via motorway, on
the way back Berrin suggested to head a scenic mountain way to go
back to our town.
It was really a typical wonderful Swiss mountain
road and the panorama was incredible.
While climbing a hill, our Goldwing started to make
some strange things , it stopped and started again, all the lights were
off and on again and finally it stopped !!!
After checking all fuses and lights desperately,
I understood the terrible reality, our alternator had gone at the peak
of the Alpine mountains !!! Therefore the battery were fully empty and
we did not know where we are and how far from our hotel ! First we called
the Christoph Service in Germany and they confirmed my opinion regarding
the problem (oh shit !). We started to move down the hill with neutral
gear. After 500 – 600 meters we arrived a small town. The bike stopped
at the middle of the road. I tried to find somebody who might help us and
finally learned that there was a motorcycle electrician about 5-6
kms away from the town. I went there by a taxi but unfortunately, the mechanic
told me that "he was not capable of repairing my alternator".
I bought a new battery from him, replaced with my old one and headed to
our hotel which was 35 kms away from there as we had been told before.
No need to tell that the rain was with us again. According to my calculations,
with this battery, we could reach to our hotel before the battery discharge
since our alternator was not working !
Since our Goldwing is US version there is no
on-off switch for lights, lights are directly connected and continuously
on while the engine is working.
Therefore I took out the fuse of the head light
in order to extend new battery's discharging time otherwise it could
finish before arriving our hotel. It was about 18,30 o'clock afternoon
and we had only one hour before the sun set. Further to the continuos rain,
a heavy hailstorm started.
We obliged to stop to find a shelter as many
other cars did it and started to wait the end of storm and rain .
This obligatory break caused to us about 30 minutes time loss and the sun
went down ! We moved again very slowly and many cars were behind
us.
We arrived an intersection, there were two ways,
one was up the other one was down, as a mistake, I headed to up way but
understood that it was the wrong direction, stopped the bike in order to
turn back but unfortunately bike did not start again due to the poor battery
! I started to move the bike back using my legs and headed
the second road which was going down while still pushing the bike. Using
clutch and gear shock, I succeeded to start the bike again. After riding
5-6 kms the battery finished again and as a chance, we stopped in front
of a small workshop. It was a car painting shop and the owner was a motorcyclist
! He charged our battery and told us that our hotel was 5 kms away
from here. We left the other battery over there to be charged during all
night. It was very dark and headlight were off. It is unbelievable but
we found our way with the assistance of thunders and flas of lightning
and finally reached our hotel.
Next day, we woke up very early , our battery had
been charged, we took it and headed to THUN town where we could find a
Honda service.
On the way our battery finished again and I replaced
it with the other charged one in the middle of the motorway ! We found
the service but unfortunately, they had no new alternator at their stocks
and it might take 7 days to have a new one which would be sent from
Zurich city.
We called Christoph again and they told us that
they are going to send a mechanic with a new alternator within two hours
(vauuvv they are really good guys !) .
While we were waiting the mechanic, we had a chance
to visit the Thun town which was a typical Swiss town with the rocky and
snowy mountain view at the background, pines and green grasses, small river
passing through all the town and nice houses with full of flowers at their
balconies.
After two hours, the mechanic arrived to service
shop and replaced our alternator with the new one and we headed to Italy.
We passed "Simplon Pass" between Switzerland and
Italy about 20.00 o'clock and arrived to "Stressa" town at the cost of
"Lago Di Majora" lake of Italy.
Next Morning, we headed to Ancona via direction
of Milan, Bologna, Ferrara. At first hours of the morning, as it is ususal,
it was rainy again but after passing Milan weather temperature started
to increase and increase and increase... It was about 40 C !!!!
The motorway was very crowded (and traffic totally
stopped time to time) with many cars and bikes as many people were going
to the south of Italy for holiday. Finally, we arrived Ancona , after fighting
with boarding and passport formalities which took more than 2 hours,
we succeeded to board on the ferry . This time our cabin had sea view !
After having 19 hours lovely trip, we arrived Patra,
we headed immediately to Pireus port of Greece which was 225kms from Patra
. It was extremely hot, when we arrived to Pireus we found a shipping agency
and asked about the first ferry boat to Greek islands. There was
one going to Rhodes island which is very close to Turkey. We bought our
tickets for a cabin with shower and WC and boarded. As a surprise, the
officer on the ferry told us that our ticket was not for shower &
WC cabin !! Lot of discussions with them and my stressful telecon
with the stupid lady in the ticket agency, we paid balance amount and
had a cabin with Shower & WC.
As a second disaster, we had no Greek money with
us (only US dollars) and they were not changing money in the boat as well
as did not accept credit card and we had 18 hours ahead of us to arrive
Rhodes island !!!!
According to my experiences, I knew that the Philippine
guys on the boat could change money for us and they did ! ( Thanks them).
When we arrived Rhodes island we started to look
for a hotel from 13.00 o’clock till 20.00 o’clock under the 40 C
sun and finally found a room for one night . The island were very crowded
with lot of European tourists and learned that there were not ferry boat
to Marmaris town of Turkey till Friday !!
Next day, we took another ferry to go to KOS island
of Greece where is only 55 minutes sailing distance from Bodrum town of
Turkey where we had reservation in a holiday village for the last
week of our holiday just to have some rest. After 4 hours sailing, we arrived
Kos island, we found a very nice hotel with the assistance of a travel
agency. We stayed two nights over there and on Friday afternoon 16.30 o'clock
got our ferry and finally arrived to Bodrum town of our country !!!
After having some new additional troubles ( as we
used to suffer...) in our holiday village, at the third day of our staying,
we learned that very big earthquake hit the Marmara region of the Turkey
in where we are leaving !!!!!!
We had no chance to communicate with phones at the
first days of the disaster. Therefore we interrupted our holiday 3 days
before and went back to Istanbul. Thanks god our families, loved ones and
houses were ok !
Hints to travel in Europe