This is my last night here South of Munich and I am lucky to wait for my friends Andreas and Tina to have dinner together before we say goodbye. I'm killing time picturing these beauties which are more than plenty around here:
30/06/2023
The Hive Tour - Episode 27 - Riding with a local friend around South Bavaria & North Tirol
Picture this:
It's a beautiful day here South of Munich and I'm waiting for my local friend Andreas who is willing to ride around with me and later invite me at his place for a BBQ at his garden. Can it get any better? Probably not.
I'm killing time waiting for him to arrive by taking pictures of my neighbourhood on this sweet day:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 26 - Enjoying Bavaria again after almost a decade
How time flies...
As I arrive at my AirBnB in this Bavarian village South of Munich I am wondering when it was the last time I enjoyed this beloved region of mine and...shit...I have to go back to 2014 to recall memories from here. (In case you wanna have a look click any of those green motorcycle pins around Chiemsee lake on my map)
Fortunately, the weather here is finally proper for the season and the view from my balcony is not that gross either:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 25 - From Styria to South Bavaria
All nice things come to an end and the top hospitality of the Wagner family at Knittelfeld Austria couldn't be an exception even though it was undoubtedly exceptional. One more long riding day ahead under questionable weather conditions for one more time.
Smokey Alpine peaks in the background, a dirty windscreen in the foreground (sorry guys will clean it later), and a sweet route as I head North West. In other visual words something like this:
23/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 24 - First month of a 4 month motorcycle trip is over!
And what an end to this month it is! My previous 6 posts only covered the last day of it and this one is about the end of a longer than long day.
So my dear host Markus here at Knittelfeld Austria, despite an epic showing me around a radius of 100km he also wanted to show me one of the cutest roundabouts of the area as I didn't manage to walk it yesterday due to lots of rain. They tend to put as many flowers as possible here,
The HIVE Tour - Episode 23 - Castle hunting in Austria leads to an infinite climb!
Continuing from the previous episode where me and my host Markus left that foggy mountain hut behind we now drive North West on the 77 as he wants to show me the oldest castle around. I have no idea what this is about but who cares given a ride on roads like this:
21/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 22 - Gulasch, Almdudler and other Austrian pleasures for the tongue (and the eyes)
I can't thank my host Markus enough for the long and nice walk around Graz but as if the sky is the limit he now offers to drive me back North via the route I took when I made it to his place a couple of days ago. And you might say, why thank him for doing the same route? Well, because the weather was so bad that I couldn't see much, if anything at all especially around Gaberl pass.
So here we are in this lovely route but this time under much better conditions:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 21d - Enjoying the beauties of Graz
I'm not a super fan of beers but I fancy a good one once per while. I consider Radler as the lamest a beer can be. That said, it's the thing that satisfies your thirst like nothing else and after such a walk I think I deserve one:
18/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 21c - Enjoying the beauties of Graz
Graz is blessed to have such a wonderful hill overlooking the city like Schlossberg and at the moment I am in front of this:
17/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 21a - Enjoying the beauties of Graz
Picture this: not only you have the best hosts possible but one of them (Markus) offers to drive you to Graz which is 70ish km away. Can it get any better? Probably not. But wait for it...
In case it's hard to picture this I have already done it for you so here we are rolling down the S36 on our way to Graz:
14/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 20b - Rivers, cows, horses and other beauties of Knittelfeld Austria
In the previous (sub) Episode I left you around halfway my walk by Knittelfed's river.
Did you miss those shades of green?
Well, here's some more:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 20a - Rivers and other beauties @ Knittelfeld
After a good deep sleep I wake for my first time at Knittelfeld Austria. The weather is far from as good but my lovely hosts have a good breakfast waiting for me to make it up for it. Dear Markus hands me his rain coat and I am ready to take my Mediterranean self out walking into far from Mediterranean weather and environment in general.
It's all wait and about to rain again:
10/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 18 - One more ride to a WWII Croatian monument
Still struggling to find slots of good weather here in Croatia so that I can enjoy rides around and later you can enjoy what I harvest out of them. The forecast looks good for today but...look at how the day starts:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 17 - A (partially) mountainous ride up to a Croatian WWII monument
Weather might be better but it is still challenging and not quite early summerish yet. Therefore, every chance for a dry ride should be taken hence I am rolling my wheels over Croatian soil:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 16 - Cooking and house spotting @ East Croatia
My first sleep in this agricultural rural corner of East Croatia SE of Zagreb was hard to get any better. The studio I rent is brand new, and while it's tiny, it sets the bar really high when it comes to taking advantage of the available space. It's got a bathroom that can embarrass even medium houses and the owner even managed to fit an ironing board in it! Not that I use one but just saying...
Moody weather means less excursions and more indoor time which equals to more cooking time. More than happy to do so since this tiny thing even has an (almost) fully equipped kitchen. The stuff here is so brand new that I even have the honour and privilege to unbox this IKEA peeler 🙂
The HIVE Tour - Episode 15 - My first morning @ East Croatia
This is what I see as soon as I turn left from my AirBnB here in the least famous village on earth called Vidrenjak:
04/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 14 - Hello Croatia
As I get close to the Serbo-Croatian border I see a queue of trucks as long as several kms. That doesn't make me that happy cause I don't want to imagine that anything similar might be the case for the rest of the vehicles, especially on a day that the weather can rain anytime and the forecast said it should be raining already. Fortunately the queue for us non truckers is much shorter but nothing to not worry about. Fortunately, soon the queue splits in two for EU residents and non EU and luckily the EU one is shorter and faster.
In both sides they just ask my ID and bike document so after a short while I am riding over Croatian soil. Looking for some Croatian fuel though cause I already run on my second reserve. No worries when you run an efficient bike and you know the fuel gauge is rather pessimistic. Many would question this choice to run so low in fuel but logic says that there's no way they won't have a gas station if not a full rest area near the border. And after a few km I realise they really do.
With a full tank I ride the rest of the km to my Croatian AirBnB and the surprising absence of rain puts a smile on my face but a regret that I believed the forecast and didn't put my camera on. It's a pity you miss this part of the ride cause it's nice green though flat. Finally it rains for a few km around the last quarter of the distance but seriously, I don't care at all. I'm dry by the time I arrive.
Ladies and Gents, welcome to Vidrenjak, Croatia:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 13 - Goodbye Serbia
My time in Serbia is getting close to an end. After nearly 3 weeks here I only have two days left before I leave the country to enter Croatia. I must say at this point that I would have left a week earlier but as soon as I arrived at my AirBnB outside Belgrade I knew I should add a plus week of relaxation at this place. It was just what I needed at this time with a very generous courtyard to work on my bike if needed and you can check it out here in case you're looking for accommodation around this area (you can also check out the location of this post at the end). Aleksandra, the host, is as good as it gets.
So, the bad weather plus the rich content I have harvested during my visit around the area of Novi Sad (check previous episodes) obliged me to focus on cooking and resting. Speaking about the former, by pure luck I bought me some of the best mushrooms I've ever tried which contributed to a delicious dish together with bits of eggplant, all done in the oven escorted by mustard.
Simple and yummy:
The HIVE Tour - Episode 12 - From Novi Sad to Fruska Gora
My short visit to Novi Sad is over though I wish I had more time to dedicate but I have Fruska Gora ahead to explore in this dry parenthesis of rainy weather so that's all I can do at the moment. Don't misunderstand me, I can't complain when I ride on roads like the 119 heading West parallel to Danube river:
01/06/2023
The HIVE Tour - Episode 11 - Novi Sad, Serbia
I leave Petrovaradin behind (which I enjoyed so much as you can see in my previous episode) and walk down the cobblestone backstreets to make it to my bike.
It might look like Ireland but no, trust me, I'm still in Serbia:
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