We hook it on the A96 back to Landsberg and then Augsburg where we pick up our excess luggage from Viola's cellar. It's only about 100km but there are sections where the Autobahn ends and we are back on smaller Landstrasse. OK, I take back what I said about Austrian Autobahen.
I put Lauryn on the train and find the A8 to Munich to meet her at the train station. It's only about 50km and I make it in a half-hour. I could have beat the train there if it didn't take me another half-hour to fight my way through the city traffic. We're meeting my friend Birgit from Berlin in a few hours. Birgit just happened to be on her way from Munich this morning and it will great because Lauryn can ride with her and stay in her apartment tonight.
We have some hours to kill and it's warm. I've parked out back by the train police station securing things as I did in Freiburg on the 3rd. We sit outside in a little cafe where I can see my bike and order. It takes forever. And when the drinks finally come, Lauryn bumps the waitress and I end up drenched in two glasses of coke and beer. So I have to go get clothes from the bike and change in the McCleans' downstairs.
Lauryn and Birgit take off for Berlin at about 4pm. I take off for the north, finally breaking free of Munich traffic at 5pm. I expect to make only Nurenberg, but I forget how small Europe is by American standards. Berlin is about 600km away. I'm going at least 150kmph. I can go much further tonight, despite the rain, construction, and traffic.
More Autobahn notes: The Autobahn is boring at first but then you get in the rythm of it and hate to stop. On this one, there are 3 lanes - the right-most is doing 50-60mph, midlle 150mph, and left lane is 200+mph. I'm doing about 90-95mph, so am constantly lane-chaning. One must judge whether car coming up from the left will reach you before you can pass. Or whether they will go to the far left to go by you as you pass. Mirror watching is full-time activity. Sometimes, at 90mph, cars are passing me so fast I can barely see them. I just flick the bike to pass, staying in the left lane only for a second.
I notice the European ST does not stutter at red line like my CA bike does - it will happily keep reving up until you notice. Eli has warned me not to use valve float as a shift indicator but it doesn't work on this bike anyway.
You burn fuel fast at these speeds. I went on reserve 50km outside of Nuerenburg. I found great little Aral station near Allersberg, better than the roadside "Raststation" coming up. Four motorcycles stopped while I was there. All sport bikes, except for one sport touring. I was passed by many sport bikes, and some oilheads, on the road. I must seem like a moped to them.
At about 8pm, I'm halfway and I decide to give it a rest. Yes, if I pressed on, I could easily beat the train and meet them at Birgit's apartment, but they don't get there until midnight, and we would all be exhausted, and I would be sleeping on the floor. I opt for a hotel, wimp that I am.
I keep seeing signs for Hof, so I stop there thinking it must be important. But it seems a smallish town. At the Tankstelle, the young woman says there's a motel down the way. I find it and it's a Quality Inn. But before I have time to be disappointed, I notice the Berlin Hotel around the corner. An omen.
The owner is in and has a room for a reasonable rate. He says I can leave the bike parked in front of the door as there is no crime in Hof. It's an old hotel but in very nice condition. He fixes me a dinner in the otherwise deserted restaurant. He says there are other guests but they are all out. He's been running this hotel for 30 years and says he is doing quite well. He switches to excellent English and it turns out he is just back from Los Angeles where he has other properties. He says the owner of the Quality Inn franchise hotel is going broke.
Hof is important because it was close to the old border with East Germany. One of America's largest radar installations used to be here. The joke was that it could count rats in Moscow streets. The American's are gone but this is why Hof is still so important on the Autobahn signs and on the maps. The owner goes on later that night to say unpleasant things about his neighbors and the German culture and I retire to bed.
In the morning, it has rained and still looks dark. There's another guy at the desk, and he fixes breakfast for me, in the still deserted dining room. He also switches to English at some point. When I ask him why everyone here speaks such excellent English, he says he lived in London for 15 years. It's a small world.
The weather report promises a storm. We look at the sky together and speculate, and then I take off. I've asked him if there is anything left of the old border crossing and he says absolutely not. Still, I am curious, so I take the little backroad 2 towards Plauen (where I visited last year) instead of getting back on the Autobahn immediate.
I am SO rewarded. I find some little signs to a border museum and when I find it, it is more than I could have hoped for. They have preserved all of the installation of a very elaborate border crossing that was right in the small village of Moedlareuth. The town is exactly 300km from Munich and 300km from Berlin and had the misfortune to lie on the border between Bavaria and Thueringen, so it was cut into half. It is one of about 26 such museums along the former boder but it seems one of the best from the brochure.
You can even climb up inside the guard towers. I have a great picture of my bike parked in front of a border crossing with signs all saying things that discourage one from being there. And there is an indoor museum with a film about life in the village before, during, and after the wall. I have a copy in English in American VCR format, though they only showed it in German at the museum.
After a few hours here, I got back on the bike. I can see heavy rain moving in this direction now and it is almost here so I don raingear. Getting out to the Autobahn, I outrun it, but then hit a major storm head-on. My Goretex boots have had it. They are almost 8 years old and have been through a lot. They just fill up with water now. But they dry out quickly too when the rain stops.
I reach Berlin in the afternoon and find that I have not brought a Berlin map with me. This must be another subconscious thing - me thinking that I know the city well enough. But really, there is no way I am going to find Birgit's apartment from this side of the city without a city plan, so I buy the latest excellent Falk to add to my collection.
We stay with Birgit that night and then move into a really priceworthy hotel on Oranienburger Str. near the Humboldt where I am working and an area I knew Lauryn would like. It is fun to ride in the city this week. And often I can navigate by memory and feel but the Falk comes in handy often, especially when I leave Thursday for Hamburg.
Hotel "Scheunenviertel"
38 Oranienburger Str.
49 30 282 21 25
75 DM / person-night
BTW - they are redoing the Brandenburg Gate (B. Tor). (Seriously folks, when they work on a historical building here, they cover it with a canvas with a life-sized picture similar to the ediface - in this case not completely isometrical.)
The only bad news is that during the week we discover that Lauryn no longer has her motorcycle jacket with her. She left it on the train. We try the lost and found at the Zoo station where the train ended, but they don't have it and suggest we go to the East Train Station. Darn.
Part 10: Fire, Fire, Fire on the Autobahn
