Post by Phil on Dec 22, 2013 17:29:40 GMT
I had planned to go to Austria this year on the bike, after reading Muppets “Where the birds don’t sing” thread in the Bikers oracle tours section, it inspired me to be a bit more adventurous.
So here is an account of our travels into the unknown along with the costs and links to various web sites that I used to plan and book the trip.
Our ferry route was to be a landbridge sailing from Belfast to Stranraer in Scotland and Newcastle to Amsterdam. After trawling around the net for the cheapest fares, I went back to the travel company I normally use which is NUTT TRAVEL who are usually competitive on price.
DFDS Seaways quote for the landbridge fare with a 2 berth cabin inside lower deck came in at £390, where as the Nutt Travel quote was £336 for a 2 berth cabin inside upper deck, a considerable saving compared to the company running the ferry route.
UK to Vienna
So on the 24th June we set off on the 0740hrs sailing on the Stenna Voyager to Stranraer, then a leisurely bimble the 150 miles to Newcastle for 1730hrs sailing to Amsterdam.
The ship we were sailing on was the King of Scandinavia, loading of the bikes was very slow because they were loading all the bikes onto the port side adjustable car deck and were letting so many on at a time then waiting until the bike owners had tied down their bikes. Plenty of tie down ratchet straps and lengths of rope were supplied, although the crossing was so smooth one strap would have sufficed.
I’ve always found that this crossing have good entertainment during the voyage and we were not disappointed by the cabaret that evening in the nightclub, the group “Peter & The Jets” and the “Frontline Dancers” were excellent and put on a very good show.
Next morning up bright and early full of anticipation to get on with the trip, we waited 45 minutes on the car deck to get off the ship to wait in another line for 30 minutes at the passport control as the police breathalysed every biker, (no car drivers were tested although I had spoke to other bikers later in the trip who came through Amsterdam port on different dates and they said that car drivers were being tested ) 5 were pulled to the side and arrested for being over the limit from the previous nights drinking.
My original plan for this trip was to ride through northern Germany and into Poland via Dresden but checking out other biking sites I was informed that the roads in Poland were crap and a lot of road works was being carried out, so going back to Muppets thread I decided to take the train to Vienna / Wien.
I telephoned the Deutsche Bahn booking centre in Surbiton, 08702 43 53 63 and booked the overnight train from Dusseldorf to Vienna, cost for the one way journey for the bike on the train was £32-04 and the 3 bed sleeper compartment was £201-46.
Or you can BOOK ONLINE HERE.
So a total of £233-50, for this you get a choice of 6 items of the breakfast menu and complimentary Bottle of fizzy water, apple and choccy biscuit, a small bag containing a hand towel, sealed cup of water for rinsing after brushing your teeth and a small bar of soap each. And you cover 600 miles (mostly motorway on bike, direct route ) overnight, which if you take in say 3 nights hotel, fuel, squaring your tyres off etc doesn’t seem so expensive.
So a leisurely ride the 150 miles or so through Holland to Dusseldorf , I found Holland to be the most expensive place for petrol of the whole trip at €1-42 per litre, and this wasn’t even a motorway filling station.
I learned from last years trip to write out a route card because my GPS system (Co- Pilot ) would take me on some strange routes, and sure enough it wanted to detour off the route that I had plotted on my computer, but it got me to the train station in Dusseldorf without too many wrong turns.
We had a really hot day, but when I was waiting to get loaded on to the train, the sky turned dark and a warm wind picked up, then within minutes a torrential downpour with thunder and lightening, the likes I’ve never seen before started, the bikes were abandoned as the riders ran for shelter, even the railway staff stopped loading the vehicles onto the carriages, 20 minutes later the rain stopped and we were loaded on to the train.
Be aware that when riding the bike onto the train you will be loaded onto the lower deck which means you will have lie on the tank to get low enough to avoid bashing your helmet. The railway staff will tie down your bike but make sure you disarm your alarm and don’t leave anything on the bike that may blow away.
The 3 person sleeping compartment is compact, I measured it to be 5’6’’ wide x 8’ long, with a small wash basin & mirror and a small wardrobe, toilets are at the end of the carriage, so don’t bring a lot of kit on with you. Smoking is not permitted whilst the train is in Germany but you can smoke when it is in Austria (from about 5am )
The carriage attendant will come around and make up the beds for you, we found it hard to get a decent sleep, with the noise of the train (even with earplugs in ), the rocking from side to side and the stopping and starting at various stations and uncoupling carriages.
At 9am the next morning you are in Vienna ready to start the next leg of the trip, unless like me you’re the last vehicle to be put on the train and the BMW driver in front hasn’t disarmed his car alarm, which has been sounding all night and drained the battery, so we have to wait until the railway staff get an electric truck and try to jump start the car, with lots of sparks and smoke.
Vienna to Horny Smokovec, High Tatras, Slovakia
When we eventually got out of the train station in Vienna, I wasn’t paying attention to the GPS when the bastid thing decided to go a different route and took me through the city centre of Vienna which was almost at a stand still with traffic, after an hour we eventually escaped the clutches of the city heading towards Bratislava in Slovakia, I had planned to use mostly A & B roads and stay off motorways as much as possible heading towards Banska Bystrica and on towards Poprad to Starry Smokovec.
The road surfaces were mostly good but the direction signs were very small and easy to miss especially if your coming near to a town they were lost in the sea of advertising crap, similar to parts of France, traffic on the minor roads was very light.
For this part of my trip I had to rely on the old fashioned reading a map and route card because I didn’t have mapping on the GPS for Slovakia and Poland, which took a bit of getting used to again, but we found our way to Hotel Panda in Horny Smokovec.
I used the Hotel Panda as a base for a few days, it was clean, comfortable and served a varied buffet breakfast, the hotel also has a sauna, solarium and snooker table, the reception staff were very helpful and spoke good English. Secure bike parking can be arranged in an attached garage for the princely sum of 100SK which is less than £2 per night
The hotels décor looked a bit dated on the exterior but the owner told me he was redecorating the hotel later in the year.
The cost for this hotel per night for 2 people B&B worked out at £32.
The area of Smokovec is basically a tourist village, mainly winter tourism, with hotels, guest houses and restaurants the full length of the 3 villages that join together.
We found a small restaurant 200m from the hotel, Café Santal, which had its menu also in English with a varied selection of food at very reasonable prices. A pint of lager and 5cl measure of vodka and a coke came to less than £1.
The surrounding area had at one time been dense coniferous forest but with large scale logging operations recently mile upon mile of forest has been cut down making it look like a wasteland. But the roads around here are very good with very little traffic.
I booked the hotel Panda through THIS COMPANY
Horny Smokovec to Oswiecim, Poland
We left the hotel and took the 537 & 57 through the mountains towards Nowy Targ in Poland. These are nice roads with some nice fast bends and the surface is good until you come to the border crossing.
We stopped showed the passports, removed our helmets to the Slovakian guard and were waved through only to be stopped at the next window of the building to remove the helmets and show the passports again to the Polish guard.
As soon as you left the border crossing point you were immediately aware you were in a different country, the roads were crap, patches on patches very uneven road.
I thought once I got onto the main E77 road to Krakow it would get better but this road has miles of road works and the bits that didn't had deep ruts. So drive with care
I had planned to visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow because the Polish people who work with the wife said it was a must see, and we weren’t disappointed.
If you go to the mine don’t be fooled by parking attendants trying to get you into their car park, drive right to the mine and use the car park beside it, the attendant will even let you leave your helmets and coats in the boot of his car. Allow about 3 hours for this tour. 90minutes for the tour and another 90 minutes to get to the surface again, the lifts to the surface are original mine lifts which takes 32 people in very cramped conditions, not advised for someone who may be claustrophobic.
Here’s a LINK short video I made.
And here’s a LINK to the mines website.
We then made our way to our hotel in Oswiecim, the Hotel Galicja, a fine choice of hotel by Clive.
A very comfortable hotel with an attached Italian restaurant and a Polish restaurant.
The reception staff were excellent and would go out of their way to sort out things for you.
We used the Italian restaurant ( which was very popular with the locals )during our stay, which did very good meals, the ice-cream deserts were :lick: and 2 people could have a 2-course meal and 5 drinks for around £20.
I would have liked to have tried some genuine Polish cuisine but on the occasions that we used the Italian restaurant the Polish one was always empty, and I always work on the theory if the locals don’t eat in it there must be a reason
This hotel is like an oasis in the middle of a council estate, it is in a residential area but they are like council flats ( or if they’re privately owned, Apartments ) with a lot of graffiti on the walls, which seems to be a national past time, but I was told the gates are locked and security patrol the grounds, but I didn’t see it, anyhow just secure your bike as you would in Belfast or Derry.
The cost for this hotel per night for 2 people including breakfast was around £40.
Here's a LINK to the company I used to book the hotel.
The visit to the Auschwitz / Birkenau Museum
I had been a bit dubious about going to visit the death camps, how would it effect me, would it depress me after the visit, I had read so much and seen so much film footage about this place I didn’t know what to expect.
The hotel Galicja is about 5kms away from the Auschwitz memorial so we decided to walk to it.
Entrance to the museum is free, as is the shuttle bus to the Auschwitz – Birkenau site about 5kms away.
The Auschwitz 1 camp houses the displays of the articles found by the Russians when they liberated the camps and explains about the roots of the bigger Birkenau camp and also informs you about the people from the various countries who were murdered in this place.
You can be part of a tour group or you can wander around on your own and study the various displays at you own pace and listen to the description of what you’re looking at as the various tour groups pass by.
The Nazis used everything they could from these poor victims, when they got off the trains they were sorted into those who were fit for work and those not fit, which usually meant the old, women and children. Their meager possessions were taken from them and they were sent off to be deloused, have their hair shaved off and shower. Their belongings were sorted and sent to Germany to be recycled. These photos are just a small amount of what was found in warehouses
Children’s Shoes
Suitcases with peoples names and addresses
Cups, pots and pans, the victims thought they were going to a new life
Artificial limbs from the victims
Glasses
Human hair was used to be mixed with other materials and woven into cloth
Some of the empty Cyclon B containers
During roll calls the SS counted the prisoners and carried out executions on the portable gallows
Here is a few of the prisoners, note the terror in their eyes
Auschwitz 2 Birkenau
The view along the railway line into the death camp
The view from the gate tower, you could just imagine trains stopped on the sidings spewing out its pitiful cargo of human beings, families being separated never to see each other again, people unaware that they will be dead within hours
Those who did survive had to live in terrible conditions whilst they were worked to death, sleeping 8-10 people per bed
This is the remains of one of the gas chambers and crematoria.
The people were told to strip outside had all their hair shaved off and were told that they were going for a shower, the place was fitted out with dummy shower heads, they were then crammed in the door locked and tins of Cyclon B were poured in through holes in the roof. Apparently the gas pellets were activated by heat from the mass of bodies, those who were closet to the pellets died almost instantly, whilst those furthest away would take 15 – 20 minutes to die. But their torture didn’t here; other prisoners had to pull out gold fillings in teeth from the dead people before taking them to be burnt.
Poland to Austria
We now had a long journey ahead, I had planned to spend a night in Vienna before moving on to the apartment I had booked near Zell am Zee.
I decided to use the main roads from Oswiecim to Bielsko-Biala to Zilina to Bratislava then Vienna but I didn’t allow for the amount of road works and traffic jams on the road to Zilina.
The amount of trucks on this road is unbelievable, but once I got onto the motorway to Bratislava I was able to make up some lost time.
The price of fuel in Slovakia and Poland was around €1 per litre.
We stayed in the Etap hotel at St Marx in Vienna. This hotel is beside the motorway in the trade centre of Vienna, it has secure underground parking which will cost you €0-50 an hour and the first 2 hours are free.
There are a number of bars & cafes in the area, with the Gasometer centre being the main attraction with shops, bars and restaurants.
The cost of this hotel per night for 2 people B&B is £43.
Next day a scenic route from Vienna was taken into the mountains towards Bruck with as little motorway use as possible to Hochfilzen were we had an apartment booked for 7 nights.
I used a company called INTERHOME to book the self-catering apartment that cost £136. It had a large bedroom, separate toilet & shower, a small kitchen/dining area and TV. The apartments were only being used by a Danish family and ourselves.
Hochfilzen is basically about 4 streets, mostly apartments and hotels which were closed, only one hotel in the village was open for business, a large timber yard and railway siding and a small supermarket below our apartment.
This village is unbelievably quiet most nights we were the only people in the hotel Edelweiss bar, it was so dead I couldn’t believe that the supermarket had left 4 of the big delivery cages outside the shop every night full of 20 half litre bottle cases of beer , I estimated about 800 bottles, if that had of been anywhere in Britain they would been stolen within 20 minutes.
I found that the cost of fuel around this part of Austria was between €1-09 to €1-20.
The views from the apartment windows
Hochfilzen to the Eagles Nest in Berchtesgaden
I had always wanted to visit this place and the roads from Hochfilzen to Berchtesgaden were brilliant, winding, twisting roads.
At the visitor’s centre you have to park and take the bus up to the Eagles nest car park, a return ticket will cost €29 for two people, you can of course walk up but it’s a fair old hike.
When you get to the car park go to the kiosk selling tea and other drinks, the English guy working there will let you leave your helmets and coats.
Here are pictures of the house and the views from it
And here’s a link to a SHORT VIDEO and a link to the EAGLES NEST site.
The Grossglockner
As I was staying so close to this road it would have been rude not to ride it.
Here’s some pictures to bring back fond memories
Hohenschwangau and Neuschwantein Castles
I had seen photos of these castles and always wanted to visit them, so a 260 mile round trip from Hochfilzen had me on their door step. We parked the bike in one of the many car parks, €2 for all day, the car park attendant actually came out of his hut and offered to look after our helmets and coats whilst we visited the castles, I have been amazed at the friendliness and hospitality we have been shown throughout this trip.
Hohenschwangau is a pretty little town, which is geared for the tourist.
Hohenschwangau castle is the older of the 2 castles but not very interesting as a tour, the tour guides were anal at anyone taking photos of touching anything
The view from daddies castle to the sons castle
But the Neuschwantein Castle was far more interesting and more artistic.
You can walk to this castle, it will take about 40 minutes uphill struggle or you can get a bus for €1-80 uphill and €1 downhill, or you can get in a horse and cart were they cram about 14 people onto it and the poor horse has to pull it up the steep hill.
Fares for the horse and cart to Neuschwantein Castle are uphill €5-00, downhill €2-50, but think about the poor horse and get the bus
Again they don’t allow photos to be taken inside the castle so here’s some from out side
It’s now time to start heading north and make our way towards Amsterdam again. I planned to use the same hotels we used on Svens Austria in 2004.
I had decided to use the motorway to by pass Munich and get to Ingolstadt and on to the B13 to Wurzberg, well it should be quiet on a Sunday.
Well the motorway idea was a bad one, the motorway ring road around Munich was slow moving traffic but when we got onto the A9 to head north all 3 lanes just crawled along, it was the first time in my life I’ve had to filter for just over 23 miles and when I got to the head of the tailback there was nothing causing the hold up, just clear road.
I assume in Germany it’s not custom and practice to filter in slow traffic because on a few occasions I had to resort to the thumb on the horn and shout at some German bikers to move over to let me through and they didn’t follow me, why buy a bike and sit in a traffic jam.
When I got to the B13 what a lovely road, some nice sweeping bends, a few hairpins and very little traffic, just a pleasure to ride.
The Etap hotel in Wurzberg as are most Etap hotels are in an industrial estate on the edge of town, this one had got a new manageress since the last time I was there and was most helpful when I asked her to recommend somewhere to eat, but I didn’t want to go to the crappy Italian restaurant down the street.
She told me that it had been taken over by the Chinese and was completely refurbished and was now a Mongolian restaurant, the Dschingis Khan, well this place has to be seen to be believed, of course I didn’t have a camera with me that night, very expensively and lavishly decorated, each tabletop had a 10cm inset which had a model in it which depicted an oriental village scene, very beautifully done.
And so to the food, we opted for the €13-80 eat all you can see buffet, which was first class, the trays were regularly replaced with fresh food, we spent about 4 hours here eating and drinking and I’m sure I got my monies worth.
Here are a few photos of Wurzberg
The rest of the journey to Amsterdam was nothing to write home about but again the entertainment on the ferry, The Queen of Scandinavia, was very good apart from the Dutch pratt, who was the guest singer, a total tosser. The group “The Pink Panthers” and the dancers “Electra” were first class.
So now I’m back at home would I change anything ??
I suppose I would spend more time in Slovakia, the roads were good, the people were very friendly and helpful.
If I was to book another apartment I would make sure it’s not in a one-horse town, something a little bigger, although Hochfilzen was a lovely village but only one bar open and no people about.
Now to start fantasizing about next years trip
So here is an account of our travels into the unknown along with the costs and links to various web sites that I used to plan and book the trip.
Our ferry route was to be a landbridge sailing from Belfast to Stranraer in Scotland and Newcastle to Amsterdam. After trawling around the net for the cheapest fares, I went back to the travel company I normally use which is NUTT TRAVEL who are usually competitive on price.
DFDS Seaways quote for the landbridge fare with a 2 berth cabin inside lower deck came in at £390, where as the Nutt Travel quote was £336 for a 2 berth cabin inside upper deck, a considerable saving compared to the company running the ferry route.
UK to Vienna
So on the 24th June we set off on the 0740hrs sailing on the Stenna Voyager to Stranraer, then a leisurely bimble the 150 miles to Newcastle for 1730hrs sailing to Amsterdam.
The ship we were sailing on was the King of Scandinavia, loading of the bikes was very slow because they were loading all the bikes onto the port side adjustable car deck and were letting so many on at a time then waiting until the bike owners had tied down their bikes. Plenty of tie down ratchet straps and lengths of rope were supplied, although the crossing was so smooth one strap would have sufficed.
I’ve always found that this crossing have good entertainment during the voyage and we were not disappointed by the cabaret that evening in the nightclub, the group “Peter & The Jets” and the “Frontline Dancers” were excellent and put on a very good show.
Next morning up bright and early full of anticipation to get on with the trip, we waited 45 minutes on the car deck to get off the ship to wait in another line for 30 minutes at the passport control as the police breathalysed every biker, (no car drivers were tested although I had spoke to other bikers later in the trip who came through Amsterdam port on different dates and they said that car drivers were being tested ) 5 were pulled to the side and arrested for being over the limit from the previous nights drinking.
My original plan for this trip was to ride through northern Germany and into Poland via Dresden but checking out other biking sites I was informed that the roads in Poland were crap and a lot of road works was being carried out, so going back to Muppets thread I decided to take the train to Vienna / Wien.
I telephoned the Deutsche Bahn booking centre in Surbiton, 08702 43 53 63 and booked the overnight train from Dusseldorf to Vienna, cost for the one way journey for the bike on the train was £32-04 and the 3 bed sleeper compartment was £201-46.
Or you can BOOK ONLINE HERE.
So a total of £233-50, for this you get a choice of 6 items of the breakfast menu and complimentary Bottle of fizzy water, apple and choccy biscuit, a small bag containing a hand towel, sealed cup of water for rinsing after brushing your teeth and a small bar of soap each. And you cover 600 miles (mostly motorway on bike, direct route ) overnight, which if you take in say 3 nights hotel, fuel, squaring your tyres off etc doesn’t seem so expensive.
So a leisurely ride the 150 miles or so through Holland to Dusseldorf , I found Holland to be the most expensive place for petrol of the whole trip at €1-42 per litre, and this wasn’t even a motorway filling station.
I learned from last years trip to write out a route card because my GPS system (Co- Pilot ) would take me on some strange routes, and sure enough it wanted to detour off the route that I had plotted on my computer, but it got me to the train station in Dusseldorf without too many wrong turns.
We had a really hot day, but when I was waiting to get loaded on to the train, the sky turned dark and a warm wind picked up, then within minutes a torrential downpour with thunder and lightening, the likes I’ve never seen before started, the bikes were abandoned as the riders ran for shelter, even the railway staff stopped loading the vehicles onto the carriages, 20 minutes later the rain stopped and we were loaded on to the train.
Be aware that when riding the bike onto the train you will be loaded onto the lower deck which means you will have lie on the tank to get low enough to avoid bashing your helmet. The railway staff will tie down your bike but make sure you disarm your alarm and don’t leave anything on the bike that may blow away.
The 3 person sleeping compartment is compact, I measured it to be 5’6’’ wide x 8’ long, with a small wash basin & mirror and a small wardrobe, toilets are at the end of the carriage, so don’t bring a lot of kit on with you. Smoking is not permitted whilst the train is in Germany but you can smoke when it is in Austria (from about 5am )
The carriage attendant will come around and make up the beds for you, we found it hard to get a decent sleep, with the noise of the train (even with earplugs in ), the rocking from side to side and the stopping and starting at various stations and uncoupling carriages.
At 9am the next morning you are in Vienna ready to start the next leg of the trip, unless like me you’re the last vehicle to be put on the train and the BMW driver in front hasn’t disarmed his car alarm, which has been sounding all night and drained the battery, so we have to wait until the railway staff get an electric truck and try to jump start the car, with lots of sparks and smoke.
Vienna to Horny Smokovec, High Tatras, Slovakia
When we eventually got out of the train station in Vienna, I wasn’t paying attention to the GPS when the bastid thing decided to go a different route and took me through the city centre of Vienna which was almost at a stand still with traffic, after an hour we eventually escaped the clutches of the city heading towards Bratislava in Slovakia, I had planned to use mostly A & B roads and stay off motorways as much as possible heading towards Banska Bystrica and on towards Poprad to Starry Smokovec.
The road surfaces were mostly good but the direction signs were very small and easy to miss especially if your coming near to a town they were lost in the sea of advertising crap, similar to parts of France, traffic on the minor roads was very light.
For this part of my trip I had to rely on the old fashioned reading a map and route card because I didn’t have mapping on the GPS for Slovakia and Poland, which took a bit of getting used to again, but we found our way to Hotel Panda in Horny Smokovec.
I used the Hotel Panda as a base for a few days, it was clean, comfortable and served a varied buffet breakfast, the hotel also has a sauna, solarium and snooker table, the reception staff were very helpful and spoke good English. Secure bike parking can be arranged in an attached garage for the princely sum of 100SK which is less than £2 per night
The hotels décor looked a bit dated on the exterior but the owner told me he was redecorating the hotel later in the year.
The cost for this hotel per night for 2 people B&B worked out at £32.
The area of Smokovec is basically a tourist village, mainly winter tourism, with hotels, guest houses and restaurants the full length of the 3 villages that join together.
We found a small restaurant 200m from the hotel, Café Santal, which had its menu also in English with a varied selection of food at very reasonable prices. A pint of lager and 5cl measure of vodka and a coke came to less than £1.
The surrounding area had at one time been dense coniferous forest but with large scale logging operations recently mile upon mile of forest has been cut down making it look like a wasteland. But the roads around here are very good with very little traffic.
I booked the hotel Panda through THIS COMPANY
Horny Smokovec to Oswiecim, Poland
We left the hotel and took the 537 & 57 through the mountains towards Nowy Targ in Poland. These are nice roads with some nice fast bends and the surface is good until you come to the border crossing.
We stopped showed the passports, removed our helmets to the Slovakian guard and were waved through only to be stopped at the next window of the building to remove the helmets and show the passports again to the Polish guard.
As soon as you left the border crossing point you were immediately aware you were in a different country, the roads were crap, patches on patches very uneven road.
I thought once I got onto the main E77 road to Krakow it would get better but this road has miles of road works and the bits that didn't had deep ruts. So drive with care
I had planned to visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow because the Polish people who work with the wife said it was a must see, and we weren’t disappointed.
If you go to the mine don’t be fooled by parking attendants trying to get you into their car park, drive right to the mine and use the car park beside it, the attendant will even let you leave your helmets and coats in the boot of his car. Allow about 3 hours for this tour. 90minutes for the tour and another 90 minutes to get to the surface again, the lifts to the surface are original mine lifts which takes 32 people in very cramped conditions, not advised for someone who may be claustrophobic.
Here’s a LINK short video I made.
And here’s a LINK to the mines website.
We then made our way to our hotel in Oswiecim, the Hotel Galicja, a fine choice of hotel by Clive.
A very comfortable hotel with an attached Italian restaurant and a Polish restaurant.
The reception staff were excellent and would go out of their way to sort out things for you.
We used the Italian restaurant ( which was very popular with the locals )during our stay, which did very good meals, the ice-cream deserts were :lick: and 2 people could have a 2-course meal and 5 drinks for around £20.
I would have liked to have tried some genuine Polish cuisine but on the occasions that we used the Italian restaurant the Polish one was always empty, and I always work on the theory if the locals don’t eat in it there must be a reason
This hotel is like an oasis in the middle of a council estate, it is in a residential area but they are like council flats ( or if they’re privately owned, Apartments ) with a lot of graffiti on the walls, which seems to be a national past time, but I was told the gates are locked and security patrol the grounds, but I didn’t see it, anyhow just secure your bike as you would in Belfast or Derry.
The cost for this hotel per night for 2 people including breakfast was around £40.
Here's a LINK to the company I used to book the hotel.
The visit to the Auschwitz / Birkenau Museum
I had been a bit dubious about going to visit the death camps, how would it effect me, would it depress me after the visit, I had read so much and seen so much film footage about this place I didn’t know what to expect.
The hotel Galicja is about 5kms away from the Auschwitz memorial so we decided to walk to it.
Entrance to the museum is free, as is the shuttle bus to the Auschwitz – Birkenau site about 5kms away.
The Auschwitz 1 camp houses the displays of the articles found by the Russians when they liberated the camps and explains about the roots of the bigger Birkenau camp and also informs you about the people from the various countries who were murdered in this place.
You can be part of a tour group or you can wander around on your own and study the various displays at you own pace and listen to the description of what you’re looking at as the various tour groups pass by.
The Nazis used everything they could from these poor victims, when they got off the trains they were sorted into those who were fit for work and those not fit, which usually meant the old, women and children. Their meager possessions were taken from them and they were sent off to be deloused, have their hair shaved off and shower. Their belongings were sorted and sent to Germany to be recycled. These photos are just a small amount of what was found in warehouses
Children’s Shoes
Suitcases with peoples names and addresses
Cups, pots and pans, the victims thought they were going to a new life
Artificial limbs from the victims
Glasses
Human hair was used to be mixed with other materials and woven into cloth
Some of the empty Cyclon B containers
During roll calls the SS counted the prisoners and carried out executions on the portable gallows
Here is a few of the prisoners, note the terror in their eyes
Auschwitz 2 Birkenau
The view along the railway line into the death camp
The view from the gate tower, you could just imagine trains stopped on the sidings spewing out its pitiful cargo of human beings, families being separated never to see each other again, people unaware that they will be dead within hours
Those who did survive had to live in terrible conditions whilst they were worked to death, sleeping 8-10 people per bed
This is the remains of one of the gas chambers and crematoria.
The people were told to strip outside had all their hair shaved off and were told that they were going for a shower, the place was fitted out with dummy shower heads, they were then crammed in the door locked and tins of Cyclon B were poured in through holes in the roof. Apparently the gas pellets were activated by heat from the mass of bodies, those who were closet to the pellets died almost instantly, whilst those furthest away would take 15 – 20 minutes to die. But their torture didn’t here; other prisoners had to pull out gold fillings in teeth from the dead people before taking them to be burnt.
Poland to Austria
We now had a long journey ahead, I had planned to spend a night in Vienna before moving on to the apartment I had booked near Zell am Zee.
I decided to use the main roads from Oswiecim to Bielsko-Biala to Zilina to Bratislava then Vienna but I didn’t allow for the amount of road works and traffic jams on the road to Zilina.
The amount of trucks on this road is unbelievable, but once I got onto the motorway to Bratislava I was able to make up some lost time.
The price of fuel in Slovakia and Poland was around €1 per litre.
We stayed in the Etap hotel at St Marx in Vienna. This hotel is beside the motorway in the trade centre of Vienna, it has secure underground parking which will cost you €0-50 an hour and the first 2 hours are free.
There are a number of bars & cafes in the area, with the Gasometer centre being the main attraction with shops, bars and restaurants.
The cost of this hotel per night for 2 people B&B is £43.
Next day a scenic route from Vienna was taken into the mountains towards Bruck with as little motorway use as possible to Hochfilzen were we had an apartment booked for 7 nights.
I used a company called INTERHOME to book the self-catering apartment that cost £136. It had a large bedroom, separate toilet & shower, a small kitchen/dining area and TV. The apartments were only being used by a Danish family and ourselves.
Hochfilzen is basically about 4 streets, mostly apartments and hotels which were closed, only one hotel in the village was open for business, a large timber yard and railway siding and a small supermarket below our apartment.
This village is unbelievably quiet most nights we were the only people in the hotel Edelweiss bar, it was so dead I couldn’t believe that the supermarket had left 4 of the big delivery cages outside the shop every night full of 20 half litre bottle cases of beer , I estimated about 800 bottles, if that had of been anywhere in Britain they would been stolen within 20 minutes.
I found that the cost of fuel around this part of Austria was between €1-09 to €1-20.
The views from the apartment windows
Hochfilzen to the Eagles Nest in Berchtesgaden
I had always wanted to visit this place and the roads from Hochfilzen to Berchtesgaden were brilliant, winding, twisting roads.
At the visitor’s centre you have to park and take the bus up to the Eagles nest car park, a return ticket will cost €29 for two people, you can of course walk up but it’s a fair old hike.
When you get to the car park go to the kiosk selling tea and other drinks, the English guy working there will let you leave your helmets and coats.
Here are pictures of the house and the views from it
And here’s a link to a SHORT VIDEO and a link to the EAGLES NEST site.
The Grossglockner
As I was staying so close to this road it would have been rude not to ride it.
Here’s some pictures to bring back fond memories
Hohenschwangau and Neuschwantein Castles
I had seen photos of these castles and always wanted to visit them, so a 260 mile round trip from Hochfilzen had me on their door step. We parked the bike in one of the many car parks, €2 for all day, the car park attendant actually came out of his hut and offered to look after our helmets and coats whilst we visited the castles, I have been amazed at the friendliness and hospitality we have been shown throughout this trip.
Hohenschwangau is a pretty little town, which is geared for the tourist.
Hohenschwangau castle is the older of the 2 castles but not very interesting as a tour, the tour guides were anal at anyone taking photos of touching anything
The view from daddies castle to the sons castle
But the Neuschwantein Castle was far more interesting and more artistic.
You can walk to this castle, it will take about 40 minutes uphill struggle or you can get a bus for €1-80 uphill and €1 downhill, or you can get in a horse and cart were they cram about 14 people onto it and the poor horse has to pull it up the steep hill.
Fares for the horse and cart to Neuschwantein Castle are uphill €5-00, downhill €2-50, but think about the poor horse and get the bus
Again they don’t allow photos to be taken inside the castle so here’s some from out side
It’s now time to start heading north and make our way towards Amsterdam again. I planned to use the same hotels we used on Svens Austria in 2004.
I had decided to use the motorway to by pass Munich and get to Ingolstadt and on to the B13 to Wurzberg, well it should be quiet on a Sunday.
Well the motorway idea was a bad one, the motorway ring road around Munich was slow moving traffic but when we got onto the A9 to head north all 3 lanes just crawled along, it was the first time in my life I’ve had to filter for just over 23 miles and when I got to the head of the tailback there was nothing causing the hold up, just clear road.
I assume in Germany it’s not custom and practice to filter in slow traffic because on a few occasions I had to resort to the thumb on the horn and shout at some German bikers to move over to let me through and they didn’t follow me, why buy a bike and sit in a traffic jam.
When I got to the B13 what a lovely road, some nice sweeping bends, a few hairpins and very little traffic, just a pleasure to ride.
The Etap hotel in Wurzberg as are most Etap hotels are in an industrial estate on the edge of town, this one had got a new manageress since the last time I was there and was most helpful when I asked her to recommend somewhere to eat, but I didn’t want to go to the crappy Italian restaurant down the street.
She told me that it had been taken over by the Chinese and was completely refurbished and was now a Mongolian restaurant, the Dschingis Khan, well this place has to be seen to be believed, of course I didn’t have a camera with me that night, very expensively and lavishly decorated, each tabletop had a 10cm inset which had a model in it which depicted an oriental village scene, very beautifully done.
And so to the food, we opted for the €13-80 eat all you can see buffet, which was first class, the trays were regularly replaced with fresh food, we spent about 4 hours here eating and drinking and I’m sure I got my monies worth.
Here are a few photos of Wurzberg
The rest of the journey to Amsterdam was nothing to write home about but again the entertainment on the ferry, The Queen of Scandinavia, was very good apart from the Dutch pratt, who was the guest singer, a total tosser. The group “The Pink Panthers” and the dancers “Electra” were first class.
So now I’m back at home would I change anything ??
I suppose I would spend more time in Slovakia, the roads were good, the people were very friendly and helpful.
If I was to book another apartment I would make sure it’s not in a one-horse town, something a little bigger, although Hochfilzen was a lovely village but only one bar open and no people about.
Now to start fantasizing about next years trip