On the whole trip we had a combination of sunny and rainy weather. However the biggest challenge was saved for last. At the Brennero pass.
After the snow machines cleared the road and the heavy snow fall stopped, we where on our way. Next stop the ferry boat in Venice and then back home to Greece. (A few days later we went swimming )
KTM 990 ADVENTURE
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Europe Trip - Austria and Germany
Austrian alps, just coming out of the pretty town of Uderns.
KTM Pride.
Close to the German/Austrian boarder
We thought this was the closest we would get to the snow.
The beautiful Fussen area, with two stunning castles.
Fellow riders
Europe trip- Czestochowa, Poland
The Jasna Gora church in Czestochowa, is the most famous in Poland.
Here, motorcyclists from around Europe gather every year to ask for a safe journey.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
KTM 990 Adventure S, Europe trip (Part 1)
Our trip started off on a stormy day from Athens , Greece .
Headed off towards the port
of Patras (a distance of
250km). All though the initial Attiki odos and national road to the ancient
town of Corinth is great (with toll costs being
around 3.5 euros), the road from there to Patras is probably the worst you will
find in Greece, due to unfinished road-work (for the last few years) .
A shame really considering that this is the road that connects us to Europe . Mostly 1 lane in each direction with no
protection from the oncoming traffic, it’s quite dramatic in the rain,
especially at night and with a motorbike. The tarmac needs attention as
previous lane-lines have been blacked out with a very slippery when wet
paint... However the view both towards the sea on your right and the tall
mountains on your left make up for it, especially in daylight. And when you
approach Patra, you get a stunning view of the new Rio-Antirio bridge.
As we left our house late in the day, we just made the ferry to Venice for about 5
minutes. That was certainly due to our 999cc companion, as it took us and our
100kg load easily through the extreme weather conditions to our destination.
The wind and rain protection the bike gives is great, and in combination with
our new KTM PowerWear rain suits, we hardly felt any moisture on our skin
for the whole trip. Fully loaded I managed to get 220km out of 16litres of
regular unleaded fuel (at the time 1.85Euros/Litre, in Athens ).
The ferry trip (Patra-Igoumenitsa-Venice) is a total of around 34
hours.
It sounds quite a lot but if you have a cabin then the trip can
actually be regenerative.
Arriving at Venice ,
I set the GPS with our next destination, Klagenfurt ,
Austria just
300km north-east. Our initial target was to complete the trip in small
increments and as bad weather greeted us off the ferry in Italy , it seemed we would spend the
night in this pretty Austrian lakeside town. However when we entered the first
long tunnel in Austria
we came out the other side, only with the need to pull over and unpack our
sun-glasses.
This being the case we took
advantage of it and continued another 350km to arrive in Vienna later on in the evening.
But as we
could only find a room with near 200Euros for the night, we decided to stay
just north of the city where the accommodation was less expensive and gave us a traditional feeling.
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