Just booked my ferry from Harwich to Holland, and hotel in Berlin for two nights (I picked the one at Avus on the site of the pre-war Avus racing circuit).
Not exactly, since I have never been to Berlin or Poland before. But I would quite like to see what, if anything, still remains of the old Avus circuit. AVUS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Setting off tomorrow. Glad I'm not taking the Calais crossing this time, given that both the ferries and the tunnel have been unreliable recently. Plans altered a bit. Now planning to travel to: Hook of Holland - Trier (on the Moselle) - Stuttgart - Munich - Vienna (3 days) - Krakow - Warsaw (visiting old friend) - Berlin - Home. Almost three weeks, if all goes well.
Enjoy it Pete. If any issues around Kraków give me a shout and I shell try and organise assistance. Do not know anyone around Warsaw.
Ferry crossing was straightforward and calm. Hook to Rotterdam - what an enormous number of greenhouses! To Valkenberg (the only "mountainous" part of the Netherlands), Liege, and Luxembourg City. To Schengen (where the Schengen treaty was signed) and along the Moselle valley to Trier (Treves in French). This is the view from my hotel over the Moselle, showing the Roman bridge - the foundations have been there for 2000 years and still going strong. Today (Friday) I plan to visit the amphitheatre, the basilica of Emperor Constantine, the 'Porta Nigra' - the black gate which the Roman legions marched through when heading out to fight off the Germans (who in those days included the Franks) - and other sights of Trier. Tomorrow I shall ride across the Saarland to Stuttgart. I hope to take in part of the Bertha Benz Memorial Route : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz_Memorial_Route and the route of the first ever motorcycle ride (1885, Canstatt to Unterturkheim by Wilhelm Maybach): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Maybach
Red 2015 MTS 1200S Multistrada DVT with standard top box and panniers. I'll include it in some photos later.
Of all the city gates in the ancient Roman world, this is the largest and most complete one still standing, the Porta Nigra in Trier: It happened that Karl Marx was born in Trier, in this backstreet house which is now a museum: The mediaeval Catholic Cathedral (the Dom) has some pleasant cloisters:
Since I am staying in Unterturkheim and have visited the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Canstatt, have done that too. It must have been very different indeed in 1885.
A few interesting exhibits (among a vast number) A 600 Grosser: A gullwing SL: MV Agusta are associated with DB now:
