As I was driving through the city there were people holding up papers letting me know they had rooms for rent. After a couple of failed negotiations I came to an agreement with someone. I put my stuff into the room, took a shower and then I walked down to the city where I bought a ticket to walk the big walls around the city. When I first saw these walls, I thought I was looking at the walls of a heavily fortified castle. Only later I realized that these walls go around the whole city. After finishing my circle I climbed down and took a stroll through the city itself. Unlike Venice, I found this a truly nice and impressive city that deserves its fame. Suddenly it started raining heavily so I just sat down in the next restaurant and ordered my dinner. The weather only gave me a short break to return dry to my room, and then it continued raining all night long.

The next day I drove to the western end of the island. I arrived exactly in time to take the next ferry to the mainland. This time it was a small ferry but now I remembered to place my motorcycle on its main stand. On the mainland I continued south-west along the coast. There was one especially nice point, up on a hill it seemed as looking down onto lakes, but as I heard from other people, it was saltwater. I decided to eat my lunch there, but exactly that moment it started raining pretty heavily. The other people disappeared in their campers and cars. I covered my bag with an extra cover, put on my jacket and helmet so I wouldn’t get wet and waited. Fortunately it stopped again in a few minutes and I was able to finish my lunch and take some pictures. Crossing the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina and then back again to Croatia went very smooth. In the late afternoon I arrived in Dubrovnik.

Arriving on the island I continued to the town Hvar where I rented a small room. It was raining all night and even in the morning. But then it cleared up and I was able to walk up to the castle towering above the small city. The town itself is very touristy, exclusive hotels, shops, cafes and restaurants, but very typical as well. I also took a little tour on my motorcycle which was very nice.
When I started traveling a couple of weeks ago I was a little bit worried because I didn’t speak any of the local languages of the countries I was about to visit. But so far it was really no problem at all. Most of the people spoke either German or English, even in the bakery or at the gas station.

After eating some of the tasty local bread for breakfast, I continued south to Split. Arriving in the port I was happy I was traveling with a motorcycle and not with a car. It was easy to leave it on the side of the road while gathering information about a ferry. With a car it would have been much more difficult. I hat to wait 2 hours for the ferry to Hvar. That gave me a little time to take a look around. The historic parts of Croatian towns remind me somehow of medieval towns, stone houses with very narrow streets, without cars.
This was the first time on a ferry with my motorcycle and I didn’t think about the movement of the sea when I left it there. I didn’t place it on its main stand. The wind was strong and the movement of the boat was clearly noticeable. When I went down again I saw that my motorcycle was in a different place and strapped to the wall as well. I don’t know if it already fell down or if the crew members strapped it as a precaution. I couldn’t see any damage so I guess it was the later one.

The next morning I drove back to the coast and then south, passing many of these small bays which Croatia is famous for. I stopped and stayed the night in Primosten, a typical small Croatian town with old stone buildings and a little harbor.

In the morning I started driving toward the national park Plitvicka Jezera. I don’t travel with a guide book, so this place was recommended to me by people I met on the last camping. I decided to use the autobahn again. Unfortunately I missed the exit and was then imprisoned for the next 50km. Still I reached the park around midday. Having had such a pleasant experience with my last apartment I decided to try it again. There where countless offerings of rooms. Croatia is really a motorcyclist dream, not only for the nice roads along the coast but also because there are so many people offering rooms in their homes, targeting especially car, motorcycle and bike tourist. They are usually pretty nice with private bathroom and cost only little more then a camping. So I stayed in the house Marija Bicanica a few kilometers away from the park. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I had to decide if I go on to visit the park today or if it was better to wait for tomorrow when I could use the entire day. I wanted to have an entire day but on the other hand I didn’t know what to do with this afternoon so I decided to go anyway.
The park is beautiful, many lakes and waterfalls, all with very nice colors. It kind of reminded me of Iguazu in South America. Here you don’t have this sheer amount of water but you have these idyllic scenes. Fortunately the park is open till late in the evening, so I was able to spend a good 4 hours walking the park. Better would have been a whole day, but it was just enough time to get an idea of every part of the park. Towards the end there was another thunderstorm coming up but luckily it went another way. I was one of the last people to leave the park at 7 o’clock in the evening.

The next day I drove to Rijeka and then to Selce. After one week of camping I felt like I needed to sleep in a bed again, also to recharge the batteries of my cell phone and camera. After inspecting some I found myself in a very nice apartment with an economic price.

After packing my stuff together I drove east towards Slovenia and Croatia. I didn’t have a map with a fine enough scale so it was difficult to find my way and I had to stop and ask several times. After some riding in Slovenia I reached Croatia where I put up my tent in Camping Park Umag. I went for a walk inside the camping when it got really dark and soon thereafter a thunderstorm went through the area. I didn’t really want to be in my tent during lightning so I went to eat a pizza in the camping restaurant. It was one of this monster camping, the size of a small town. At least I was able to get money in the local currency from the camping’s own ATM machine and a smaller scale map of Croatia.

A little worried about the distance to Venecia I decided to make an exception and take the Autostrada today. Of course I was pretty much the slowest one; I don’t know if I was even allowed to use it with just 125ccm. But fortunately my Kymco looks like a bigger one and so nobody would notice, except maybe for the fact that I was going only 90 km/h.
I drove to the Camping Village dei Fiori, which in preseason is really an excellent deal. There were still few campers around and it was very quiet. The sites are of the best, with shady trees. There is a huge whirlpool which is exactly the right thing after a day on the motorcycle. They even have a small gym and tennis courts if you feel like it. In the little store I was able to buy an inflatable pillow. It slept a whole lot better thereafter. I was very happy there and it’s also a good home base for trips to Venecia where I went the next day. In the reception I was able to buy a combo ticket for bus and ferry to Venice.
Affected by the fame of that city my expectations where pretty high. The bigger was my disappointment when I got there. I didn’t find it an extraordinary city that deserves that much fame. Ok, you have waterways where other cities have streets; that’s certainly unique. A plus is that there are no cars and therefore no noise and pollution, but instead you have this immense mass of tourists which is about equally annoying. Sometimes it was hard to walk because there were so many tourist groups blocking the way. If you wanted to visit a church or museum you had to stand in line for hours. That was nothing for me and I was happy when I was back in the camping. In fact I liked it so much that I decided to stay another day relaxing.

The next day I put down my tent, packed everything and headed towards Lago di Garda in Italy. I lost some time in Lugano because I didn’t find my way but at least I was able to enjoy the beautiful scenery of this city. I crossed the border and instantly noticed a change in driving behavior on the road. Nobody seemed to bother about the speed limits. So I adjusted to cover more ground. My route was Menaggio, Sondrio, Breno, Bagolino, Salo. In Bagolino I didn’t find the small road to Bagolino. I stopped and asked someone, they didn’t seem to know either, but just as I turned on the motor another Italian on his sport motorcycle stopped. He offered me to show me the way. That was very nice of him, but with my 9kw motor up the steep mountain road I almost felt sorry for him because he had to be very patient. When we reached an intersection he showed me the way and then headed down the other road. I continued up, and up and up, more then I thought was possible here and ended up on top of a full grown mountain pass. After a little break I drove down. I reached Lago di Garda late in the afternoon. It was a long way, but a very scenic one. I was very tired, I put up my tent in one camping, I don’t even know where that was.
The following day I still felt the many hours from the last day so I decided to make this segment a short one. I just drove around Lake Garda and looked for a comfortable camping to put up my tent.

I spent 2 nights on the Camping Tamaro. It was the middle of May but in the night it was still pretty fresh and it felt a little chilly in my summer sleeping bag.
I walked to Locarno in the morning and towards the evening I sat on my motorcycle to drive up a nice little valley near Locarno.

After working a good 4 months in Switzerland I headed out to get to know a little bit of Eastern Europe. At the end of my 2 year bittrail in South America I got a little bit tired of traveling in public busses, that’s why I decided to try something different this time. I went for a motorcycle. I bought a Kymco Hypster, a 125ccm Cruiser that seemed comfortable enough for a larger tour and provided enough space on the back for my travel bag. I had to do some carpenter work to get a good base to hold my bag, but then I was ready.
I started riding toward the Alps in beautiful weather, though a bit cold. I took a break at midday to eat my sandwiches. As I tried to put everything back into my bag it happened. On the first day after only 2 hours my motorcycle fell. The path where I placed it was a little inclined and as I packed, it started to roll and then fell. I couldn’t believe it; I thought I had to turn back before it even started. I was happy I didn’t buy a heavier motorcycle, after taking off my bag I was able to lift it upright again. Fortunately the only damage was a badly bent clutch lever. I decided to live with the bent clutch lever and packed my things on again. After 8 hours (I didn’t use the Autobahn) I arrived in Tenero.