I have been most hospitably entertained by my old friend Z and his wife at their huge and lovely home just south of Warsaw. We used to ride Ducatis together back in the 1970s & 80s. These photos show his garage with a 1974 250 Desmo bevel single in good order, and his recently acquired 1974 750SS bevel greenframe in bits. Z has promised me a ride of the 750SS when he has assembled it. I got him to ride my Multistrada DVT, and he is now predictably considering ordering one. I doubt if he will ever let me ride his 900SS bevel blue & silver (which he bought new in 1975) though.
Today (Thursday 23 July) I am in Potsdam Babelsberg, just south-west of Berlin. I plan to visit Frederick the Great's nearby 18th century palace, Schloss Sans-Souci. "Sans souci" could be loosely translated as "don't give a fuck".
I spent the day at Sans-Souci walking all around the park and visiting inter alia: * Schloss Sans-Souci which is a fairly modest (for a palace) summer residence, * the Neues Palais which is impressively grandiose but rather tatty inside in places from damp, * the Charlottenhof which is a delightful home for a Crown Prince, * the Picture Gallery which has loads of Rubens and Van Dycks poorly displayed, and some fine statuary, *the Chinese House which is a folly in the chinoiserie style. A day well spent. I've taken several photos but can't get them load on this site today. Edit: I got some to load after all see below. Tomorrow I shall head for home. Potsdam to Calais is too far for one day's riding (unless I was in a hurry) so I'll overnight somewhere en route. Not yet decided where. Think I'll just find a roadside hotel when I feel like it.
Lovely images Pete, makes me want to be there, keep an eye on the Channel Tunnel, it is a nightmare atm, though the french side seems better than the UK side, Fingers crossed for me tomorrow morning
Here's a couple of shots of me setting off for Berlin from Z's garage near Warsaw on Wednesday morning:
Today I am staying in Wuppertal, near the Ruhr. This is a photo of a local train, which is a suspended monorail, passing over my MTS DVT. Each bogie is like a motorbike, and the trains bank into corners just like a bike does. On route I was passing Paderborn so I dropped in to the Military Court Centre at Sennelager which I often used to visit in my old job. When this new centre was built, I personally asked the then Attorney-General, Baroness Scotland QC, to carry out the opening ceremony which she kindly agreed to do. Then I had to persuade the GOC (General Officer Commanding) to agree to this, since the building belongs to the Army. It all came out all right!
Today I passed by the Mohnesee, which is a reservoir whose waters are retained by the Mohne Dam. No need to explain, surely, what happened there on 16 May 1943? The nearby roads are great for riding, incidentally.
Whilst you have posted a good selection of photos, I reckon this could be one decent album of some very interesting architecture and places-any plans when you get back to load a ' book' type thing into Flickr etc, for a full story of the trip?
Back home. Took the Tunnel this afternoon Calais to Folkestone. No queues, no delays, no problems. Easiest, most straightforward crossing ever. But as I headed north on the M20, the southbound carriageway opposite was in "Stack" mode with a huge queue of trucks, and I mean miles and miles and miles of trucks nose to tail. The cost in lost UK exports will be billions.
Already starting to think of next year. Since I have been invited to stay in a lovely villa in Italy, in the hills north of Rome, and since I was anyway thinking of a trip to Florence, Siena and Rome, a vague plan is beginning to form. Perhaps it might fit in with a GP at Mugello ...
You're retired aren't you Pete, you have a good writing style, you should take more photo's and write in a bit more detail and publish some motorcycle travel books .
