Bestiary pilgrims

video from the exhibition at Galerija Ulupuh

2009-02-20T06:05:00.000-08:00

...can now be seen on Dailymotion too :
http://www.dailymotion.com/user/ziggys6/video/x8fn3o_bestiary-pilgrims-exhibit-at-galeri

3 videos from the Tour 2008

2009-02-13T03:19:00.000-08:00

The music videos from the trip can be seen on DailyMotion.
just follow this link :

http://www.dailymotion.com/videos/ziggys6/1

The Exhibition

2008-09-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

The opening of the exhibition from the trip will take place in Zagreb september 30 ( its a tuesday) at 19:00/ 7 oclock pm at:
Galerija Ulupuh
Tkalcivica 14 ( in the center of the city)

see you there hopefully.

Finally in Copenhagen

2008-08-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

Its over!

2008-08-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Its over.....!! The bestiary pilgrims hunt for bestiaries and bikejourney in and out of the centraleuropean countries is over.
The final entrance was Copenhagen - the capital of Denmark
We came just in time to see the big gayparade, that now had set the city on " wild fire"!!

Well, we´ve been in Denmark for about 2 weeks allready before we arrived to Copenhagen. We spend some time first in Sønderborg and Ribe ( yes it means fish in plural in the croatian language, but this town appearently doesnt have any particular connection with fishing... or croatia) the oldest town in Scandinavia.
Later we spend 2 nights at my ( jesper) very good friends Annemarie and Kristians house at the fjordlandscapes around Roskilde before we entered Albertslund ( a copenhagen suburb with some "reputation" around here) to live at the very good guy Tonny´s flat.

Jadranka arrived from Zagreb by plane and suddenly the bestiary pilgrims had excellent company when going out.
.
.. and how do we feel now after driving 2859 km ( and walking 17 km because of an exploding tyre) through 7 countries, 6 capitals ( including Zagreb), numerous of beers, extreme amounts of foods, laughing, sweating, crying, arguing, screaming, singing, sleeping but never fighting for 2 months???
We feel like beeing in a pretty good shape.
its a little sad that its over now somehow, but on the other hand, the mind just arent capable of more impressions now.
Perhaps we´ll first see the real reactions to this experience after a long while.
The real need now is more or less just something that includes football, beers and food.... "oh just like during your trip" - you the wise watcher immediately recognised... and yes you are so right about that point ( we didnt change at all)

well we certainly added new pictures to the landscapes, that our minds will create to our dreams in the future, and for that we will really like to say thank you so much for you who helped and supported us to make this a reality:

Thank you so much Zeljko Zorica ( Sis) and Artless Studio

Thanks to our sponsors Ministry of Culture of Croatia - especially minister Bozo Biskupic
Thanks to Glas Koncila - especially director Nedjeljko Pintaric

Thank you Cobra Cibilic for all your time, help and patience with us when we were prepairing the trip.

Thank you Dragan Matic for this excellent picture you took of us, the idea of making the blog and especially for your help to get the right programmes for the video and photos.

Thank you Tomislav Kristo for the great lense you borrowed us

Thank you Ivica Tomljanovic and your family for having us as guest ( very welcomed and spoiled guests!)

Thank you Pero Musulin and your family for letting us using the car so we could go to Medjugorje and prepair our minds and spirits for this weird trip.

Thank you Tonka Covic for feeding us ( which you always do so well!!) and prepairing us with holy water.....IT REALLY HELPED!!

Thank you Antonio Covic for letting us use your flat ( which you have done so many times now - its really great of you!!)

Thank you Jasmina Fajkovic for let us use your card to buy cheaper equipment ( tent, sleepingbags etc)

Thank you Nina and Finn Lennert for having us as guests in your house....wow that was a good time ( once again we were almost to much spoiled with food and everything we needed)

Thank you Susanne and Jan Hedegaard Petersen for having us as guests at your house and thanks for the excellent weekend in and around Ribe!

Thank you AnneMarie Bøttger and Kristian Christiansen for having us as guests in your house, and thank you for all the good food, music and oppertunety to drink all night.............! ( sorry we couldnt be there at your wedding, but we hope, that we came with atleast some good spirit - you deserve it)

Thank you very much Tonny Jørgensen for having us as guests in your house, for bringing us around with your car and recording us on video while driving the last bit into Copenhagen!!

And thank you all you people on the road that helped us to find the way, a place to sleep, cheering us up etc.... sorry we cant remember all of your names, but everybody was like an angel to us while you did what you did.

The names we remember are Petr ( the great!) who took us under his save wings for 2 days in the Czech Republic - man the day we´ll have our own succefull company, we will definitely hire you as our special secretary - nothing will go wrong then!

Peder Bodenhausen for driving with us 11 kilometres - even though it wasnt his direction - just to help us geeting the right way out of the Ruhrdistrict.

Amit Singh and Dr. Benjamin Fuller ( and your 2 friends) for a good conversation and spirtual support when it was needed in Budapest

Giorgios for having a good time while watching football in the bar in Bratislava during the Euro 2008.

Family Krekel that saved us for a cold and maybe something worser that rainy day in Germany. Giving us Sandwich, coffe, tea, cookie and good warm feelings.

The guy in Bamberg who helped us to find a jugendherberg and 2 days after recognised us and told us to join the company in a nice bar ( Pizzini)...we never get your name, but you are also an angel in our eyes!

The Turkish waitress who took good care of us and gave us free rakija (!!) in Fehrenkamp Hotel in Germany

Thanks to all you people who sent comments and sms´s and followed us on the blog during the trip

...and finally a special thanks to Jadranka Rezic, who showed some special patience ( you gave your man 2 months off!!.... bravo!), travelled all the way up to Copenhagen to be with us and generally was a good support all the way.

If you somehow get addicted to watch our pictures on the blog then do not worry. There will be many more to watch in a comming book an exibition ( of course we saved the best pictures for that :-)
You will be updated when the time is right.

see you

Bernard and Jesper

Impressions from Ribe

2008-08-06T10:42:00.001-07:00

Impressions from Sønderborg

2008-08-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

from Köln to Denmark

2008-08-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in the lines below, we made it up to - country nr 7 on this trip - Denmark.

4 days it took from Köln to reach the danish border.
Most of our days went by just driving and driving and driving - now the only thing we had on our minds was to " go home" as fast as possible.
In the beginning that was not very easy
We had to find out of the giant labyrinth called "Ruhr district".
What a crowded area!!
nothing but cityareas and a few green areas with parks or hills and many MANY different roads to choose from. Well basically we just had to go north, but on the other hand we werent so interested in beeing " united" with the numerous of monstertrucks that operate in this area, so it was a matter of using the " 6th sense" somehow, which wasnt always that easy.
We get some good advice from other bikers from time to time, but in the long run we always ended up by beeing confused because of the many different signs, that ( perhaps) could send you in the direction you needed, but sooner or later some signs will change their names without letting you know in advance and there for you tend to change the direction so it fit with the main course....yes it sounds confusing and it was confusing.
But as many times before on this trip we were saved by nice people.
Especially in Wuppertal when a guy, who was out for a little exercise with the bike more or less change his route just to lead us out in a favourable direction - ( thank you Peder Bodenhausen!!)

As soon as we were away from Ruhr life became much easiere.
Not only could we continue on the same way, that would lead us in up north, but - and maybe even much better - the mountains and hills were gone!! From now on it was only "flat story". Pancakelandscape all the way!

Not much from the last days to mention - well we could if you really ask for it, but the impressionlevel was on lowest level, and then everything just seem to vanish as soon as you´ve seen or hear it. But one thing still impressed us though.
When we came to the town Rendsburg there was only when way to cross the river there, and that was to go under it !!
Now that was a new one....
A special bicyclelift lead you down to some tunnel in the underground, and then you just pass under, untill you reach another lift in the end to take you up to the surface again.
A very special experience indeed!

We drove like maniacs.
We were now able to drive much longer distances than we were used to, and we broke our distancerecords almost everyday.
The last day when we set out from south of the river Elben and up to the german-danish border we drove 196,5 kilometer..... well we could make it that far because we knew that we had a place to stay in Sønderborg and there for we didnt need to look out for any hostel or hotel for the night...13 hours we were driving that day by the way.

The last 20 km before Padborg ( the border) was in completely darkness and somehow it was almost like a revelation with biblically undertunes, when we started to scream and sing and then shortly after the lights from the border appeared and Nina and Jens ( mother and brother) were waiting with waving flags , water and chocolate to welcome us.

In Rendsburg " fussgängertunnel" ( under the river)

2008-08-01T03:28:00.002-07:00

We are in Denmark!

2008-08-01T03:28:00.001-07:00

We made it!
All the way up to Sønderborg Denmark.

Sorry that we´ve been to lazy to opdate, but we are in perfect condition. Beeing completely spoiled during the last days with great food and good weather in my ( jesper) mothers house.
More pictures and info will follow tonight ( when the weather will be worser and we need to stay inside)

see you later

Impressions from Köln

2008-07-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Going to Denmark

2008-07-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

Our 4 days in Köln is over, and now its time to find the way up north to Denmark.

How do we feel now? well, some sort of relief.
Köln was the last big task on this journey, though we´re still going for a little bestiary-research in Copenhagen before the story is finished.
Many would probably say, that " ooh its such a big adventure, I envy you so much because of that" etc, but the mind has some sort of limits in its capacity of swollowing impressions.
We feel, that now we are close to this limit.
Its getting harder and harder to find inspirations - the common seriousity is also difficult to keep up, and generally we just want to watch some movies with the original voices and not something, that is dubbed into hungarian,slovakian, czech or german, as it is a common thing to do in all those countries we´ve been through ( in Denmark that doesnt happen!)

Its almost 6 weeks ago since we started from Zagreb, but it sometimes feels like it was 6 months. the daily impact of impressions has been enormous - everytime we´re on the road, we lose the sense of time pretty quickly - the brain knows about the routine now, and I think it turns down the feeling of time as some sort of " survival instinct". Sitting on a bike so many ours day after day after day.... okay 4 more days ( if the weather is on our side - it looks good right now) and we´ll be in Sönderborg Denmark. Its almost to surrealistic to think about right now. But we´ll be on our way there when this message is posted.

Well what about Köln then?
As mentioned before its hard to keep up the inspiration after visting so many places in a relative short amount of time. Mostly we´ve been concentrating on filling our stomachs as much as possible. Especially on the chinese restaurants, that usually have the big buffets ( eat all you can!) which is just perfect for us.

We´ve been shocked by watching all those homeless and poor people living in the streets and begging for money here, while all the tourists ( like us) just passed by without noticing anything else than shops filled with glitterstuffs or whatever.

But even in our tired situation, we still had the ability to be impressed though.
The giant Cathedral " Kölnerdom" is really amazing, and the cityinvironment around the cathedral, the big and busy central trainstation and its bridge over the river rhine, is nothing but a great pulse. Its like an everchanging stage. So many trains and so many boats and so many (different) people.

Now its time to find Denmark

see you later.

From nature to industry!

2008-07-23T02:07:00.000-07:00

Grettings from Köln

2008-07-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

"are you allready in Köln"?? ( we can somehow hear you asking that)
Yes we are in Köln, in the giant Ruhrdistrict - the largest cityarea in Europe which is some of a shocking contrast after 4 days ride in the hilly german countryside.
More from Köln later

After 5 days of rest in Bamberg, we were more than ready to take this big step by crossing Germany to the most western point we will reach on this trip.
First up to Bad Brückenau where we slept on a little expensive hotel, but nice breakfast and service though. Later it became even better when we recognized the croatian flag outside side by side with the german flag. The receptionist told us, that in this exact town the croatian nationalteam in football recently had their camp during the world cup 2006, and that the croatian sportjournalists actually lived on the same hotel and had their conferences and meetings with the team there..... suddenly the price didnt seem so wild. We were suddenly somehow " honoured" by living there.

Further it went through the idyllic landscapes, that was like a giant version of those you can buy in piece by piece if you are a collector of electrified trainmodels!
Up and down it went like in the Czech Republic, but now we were somehow used to it.
We must remember the kindness and helpfull german people we met everywhere. As soon as we picked up our map to look out for which way to go, some people always immediately stopped up and asked if we needed any help.
When we reached the little village Dorheim outside Friedberg and asked where it was possible to stay for the night, the owner came right to us and wrote down some good examples to choose from.
Of course we went back there to eat that evening - very cozy atmosphere and enough portions of food(!!) at Guiseppe!.... very nice waitress too by the way!

Next day we started up with lots of energy as the day before, but there is something even energy cant fight, and that is TERRIBLE WEATHER!
Suddenly, in the middle of the woods on top of the hills far from any shelter, a huge summerrain almost exploded around us with lightenings and thunder and strong cold wind..... DOH!
We never had a chance to cover ourselve so we get deeply wet - tried to find shelter from the wind somehwere in the woods hoping that the weather would change, but it was a truely hopeless idea. We get colder and colder, and decided to find a settlement for the night....which we found more than enough of at the very gently and warmhearted family Krekel, who owned the "landhaus sommerberg" in Fussingen-Westerwald.
It was like coming home! Frau Krekel made us coffee and tea with cookies and washed and dried our clothes for free, while we had a nice talk with Herr Krekel, who seemed interested in our bestiaryproject.
Next morning we had the most huge breakfast ever on this trip - Frau Krekel even gave us chocolate and extra food for a lunchpacket on our trip.....HELLO! THIS IS WHAT WE CALL HOSPITALITY!!

the last episode up to Köln was 138 km....the weather was almost as bad as the day before, the wind was directly against us, the hills seem taller and taller and there were so many trucks on the roads, that our nervesystems werent the same after, but then out of a sudden we at the river Rhine, and that gave us a smile on our faces again - because that river flows through Köln and then we just had to follow it up north....and it was flat landscapes all the way aaahhh.....

Well Köln is our last task before going directly to Denmark, but we hope that we can post pictures and more about Köln before we will leave from here friday.

see you later!

Impressions from Bamberg

2008-07-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

In Bamberg

2008-07-23T00:43:00.000-07:00

Bamberg was for us a very pleasent surprise.
We didnt knew a place like that existed at all.
After visting all those millioncitizen cities it was nothing but a great relief to arrive in this wonderfull little oasis of a town, where it was possible to breathe and relax surrounded by very old buildings and where the traffic mostly seemed to be those healthy germans, who drived on bicycles or was running on the trails around the rivers and the many canals that flow through Bamberg.

And people recognized us here!
On the arriving day we asked a guy in the streets about the way to a youth hostel - well not only did he show us the way, but he even decided to turn around and walk with us some of the way through the streetlabyrinth of old Bamberg to make sure, that we would end in the right direction.
The next evening while searching for a good place to sit down and enjoy some of the many local brews, the same man saw us from one of the bars and told us to come in and join the company.
Which we did of course.
Suddenly we were sitting together with - what seemed as - all the local mature alternative people, hippies whatever. Very nice company to get drunk while listening to Gratefull Dead and jazz from the 30´s/40´s.

We stayed one night at the youthhostel where we shared the room with two brothers who were also travelling with bikes in the same area as we did.
We were very impressed by their discipline. Go to bed at 10 o clock to be as fresh as possible for the next days ride.... we could never be like that, though we´ve been trying to copy them ever since.... with less fortune because we always ended up with beers and lots of talkings ( some certain things will never change!)

One night with the kids at the youthhostels and then further to a " old peoples home" for the next 4 nights...yeah well, at that place Frau Müller (the manager) also rent out rooms to travellers. So from spending time among the noisy kids, we were suddenly " the kids" at the new place. They treated us very kind though and seemed pretty entertained by Bernards tattoo of a cat on his leg, but what was most important: for the first time on the trip we were able to cook for ourselve, which was needed.
When you are so much on the roads, like we´ve been during the last 1 and (almost) half month, you come to this point when you feel this eternal hunger.
the food you get in the restaurants are just never enough, and that is such a downer, when you´ve expected to finally get set. Just interesting how much the right food actually means for the body..... we made a portion that usually would be enough to feed 6-7 ordinary hungry people, but the wild bestiary pilgrims needed it all!

Despite its relative small size Bamberg has a huge amount of wonders to offer. There seem to be old churches on every corner and hilltop - and on the other side of those corners there will usually be a local brewery, and with all those wellprotected old houses and small streets in the citycore just make such a supercool atmosphere, and the conditions for bicycleriders are nothing but perfect with so many trails and signs to lead you on the right way.....
its very hard not to sound like some commercial now, but we were simply amazed by this fabulous town, and we will return again one day.
Thats for sure!

From Prague to Bamberg

2008-07-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

We had our first serious crisis, when we had to find out of Prague.

This time we didnt had such a good map of the city, and that was a disaster.

Prague is a nightmare to find away from - in the right direction - if you dont have any knowledge or idea of how it is.

For some reason we managed to circel 22 km around, before we atleast found the southwestern way out, which was the direction we needed.

But our sorrows werent all over yet, because suddenly the road we were driving on, were stopped because of roadworkers, and that confused us so much that we again turned out in a wrong angle.

It feelt like a big joke, and we yelled out in the air " this game is no fun anymore"!!

....and then something incredible happened!

As our mood were on absolute lowlevel and everything seemed hopeless, an angle were sent to guide us!

An angel who spoke both english and the czech language - who were also on a bike and were going west like us.... and the best thing was, that he had the perfect map for finding the way through the landscapes without the need of going to the big roads.

Petr was his name, and he sort of planned everything down to the most minor detail - when he offered that we could just hang on to him, we didnt hesitated to say yes emmitately, and we followed in his slipstream all the way.

And my goodness, he knew exactly were the gasstations were and where we could find the good ( still existing) very cheap and friendly czech accomodations in the countrysides, which made a deep impact to us.

we paid the dinner for him that evening!

Next day we continued through everything but cities - up and down as it usually is in the czech. Our legs feelt like hard steel after driving the entire day on the wildest increases - the most extreme was 18 %.... which we decided to walk up at. The most amazing thing was, that there were actually towns around these extreme level increases. The people living there most be in a pretty good shape if they walk up and down those roads everyday!

We broke our speedrecord once again ( when it went down) 57, 8 km pr hour is it now..... we dont think, that we need to brake that record again ever, its to dangerous.

as the darkness fell on we had to say goodbye to Petr the great - who helped us so much when we really needed it.

THANK YOU PETR, YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN!!

We settled for the night in the town Kynsperk nad Ohri, where we ate at cafe restaurant Slunecnice ( means " sunflower).

Nice atmosphere - enough food ( ! ) and of course great czech beers.

The next day, we followed a crazy guy listening to his ipod while driving his bicycle all the way into the town Cheb - close to the german border.

in that town we decided to use our last czech coins on food and coffee, while it rained outside.

we met a guy from Netherland who was on his way into czech and further to Israel (!) he gave us a very good and detailed map of that area we had to go into, since he didnt needed it anymore - we warned him about the czech wavy landscapes, which may be a shock for person from a very flat land... he seemed optimistic though.

In Germany Bernards bike suddenly started to continue its suicidal tendencies just before we reached Bayereuth. Nothing happened though...not before next day on the road to Bamberg

15 km away from the citycenter it really said BAMBERG in the street when his last tyre exploded ! It rained cats and dogs and since the weather didnt seem to show any intention of a little change to the better, we decided to take our punishment, and walked the rest of the way into Bamberg - a fabulous, fantastic, beautifull gem of which kind we didnt know existed at all.

a town at the size of Roskilde or Zadar but with 9 ( nine!!) local breweries and with very old citycenter placed on an island in the middle of the Main/Donau canals!

a town we will write much more about as soon as possible.

From the roads in Czech

2008-07-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

we are back on the net!

2008-07-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hello again

And sorry for this long time without any news posted, but it was simply impossible since we most of the time were in the fertile wavy czech landscapes driving the bikes from the early morning to the late evening....and there just arent many internetcafés out there where the crows bring their own lunchpacket!

We are completely allright, so no worries there.

We reached the extremely beautifull german town Bamberg - also known as " little Venice" - for 2 days ago.

Before that many things happened of course.

First of all we would like to say, that the czech capital of Prague - despites its everlasting beauty - wasnt really what we expected.

We both visited the city for about 5-6 years ago, and liked it very much then, but now the prices have flown far up in the air - to far! and somehow the local hospitality in the bars arent the same anymore....the atmosphere lost some of its soul, which we found very sad.

Like one place where the waitress almost throw our lunch on the table with a sour face and no "bon appetite" or intention of trying to make us feel welcome...and then they allready took 10 % extra for the tips - no wonder she didnt need to show up some servicemindness.

Also we were wondering why a lot of black people were dressed as vintage sailors ( in the middle of Europe far far away from any seaside!) to attract tourist for getting on a short boatride on the river.... well in a way we found it funny though a little disturbing. Seriously it reminded us a little about trained animals in a circus.

To you americans who´re following this site we have this question:

" could a thing like that ever happen in America without some following racial crisis?

Well no reaction seem to happen here at all.

But okay, we came to find bestiaries, and Prague is full of them. Many of them more funny than scary, though some horrorelements can be finded there too of course.

Impressions from Prague

2008-07-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Prague

2008-07-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Hello Again
We made it out of Vienna remarkably fast. Though we had to cross some pretty high and tough hills first, which from the morning - before breakfast - was very hard. But we survived as always. Ended up in the small and very cozy town Raabs and der Thaya in the northern part of Austria.
During the night a rainstorm made troubles with the air, so the next day we not even have to fight with the climbing up the mountains, we also had to struggle with the terrible wind, that was really mean and agressive to us all day long.
We came to the Czech and foun resort in another nice little town called Jindrichuv Hradec at the czech lake district which is around that place many of the nicest czech beers come from like the original Budweisser, Bohemian regents etc ( ha ha Cobra thanks for the advice!).... and the prices of everything was incredible in the positive way of that word. For half a litter of the finest czech beer only cost like 6,5 Kroner/Kuna......

We are now in Prague.... and we are very tired today. the czech landscape is not a place for people who cry to much about nothing. Its like.... ups and downs ups and downs ups and downs....we almost had "sea-sickness" because of all those "waves". 144 km was the distance, but never it went just a little straight out of the way for a while. Sometimes it took up untill 10 minutes just to make one single kilometer on the way up, but on the other hand we broke our speedrecord when it finally went down..... 53,5 km pr hour was the fastest we made.

Anyway we are in Prague where we are trying to wake up today which is not easy. The fight with a million tourists in the streets doesnt made our mood so much better, so we decided to go back to our penzion now, to get something to eat, and go early to bed. Then we may have a much more positive view on this - after all - very beautifull city.
GOODNIGHT - LAKU NOC - GODNAT - DOBROU NOC

on the way out of Austria

2008-07-07T08:41:00.001-07:00

Impressions from Vienna

2008-07-07T08:36:00.001-07:00

last night in Vienna

2008-07-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

Vienna is just to much!!................and its not ment in any negative way.
The city just has to many impressions for us.
Budapest had its impressive sides, Bratislava was small but charming....but Vienna is enormous in its amount of impressions.
Everywhere you look, its just old classical buildings, castles and parks in all sizes - and we mean ALL SIZES!!
for example We went to the Shönbrunn castle and its park and gardens that together is bigger than many of those small nations in Europe ( Monaco, Vatican city etc). That park alone demands atleast one day in your daily schedulebook if you come here - now you are warned in advance.
Everywhere thousands of weird sculptures are fighting to catch our attentions, while ( what it feels like) a million of bestiaries are watching us from every corner and rooftops.
Its just impossible to overcome this city in the heart of Europe - where Mozart meats Freud, and where the river Donau actually is Blue sometimes - in only 5 days as we are set to be here in....and we havent even been at the Prater yet....tsk tsk

We went to the bicycle repairmens yesterday where we get our bikes fixed up. Bernard have had some mental problems about his tyres since the first day, but now its changed into 2 ( not so wide) kevlartyres and he also changed the sprocketsystem....his mentalt statement has improved to the far better I can tell you!

tomorrow we will set our course up north to the czech border.

see you!

Greetings from Vienna

2008-06-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Now we are in Vienna.....seriously, the most wonderfull city we´ve been to so far.
Its...well "beautiful", but its not only its beauty that impress us, but also the very kind and helpfull austrian people, that we met anywhere.
For example yesterday, when we had to find some special little sidestreet in the center, a taxidriver helped us finding it, by using his GPS and then drove there will we just followed him on our bikes.
Now thats service!!
And of course the most valuable thing is probably that there are trails - and even very special parkingplaces - for the bicycles everywhere we go, and there are clear signs to follow so even a halfblind alien could find its way around.

So, we are here in the city that most of the worlds footballfans have their eyes on today, when Germany meets Spain in the Euro 2008 final. The entire city is set in Football today, and there are big groups of fans singing on every corner with a giant patrol of policemen watching them from the other side.
This Morning - something like 04:30 we got awake because of a group of VERY drunk spaniards decided to stand down by our hotelwindow and yell out their teamsongs, which is not very interesing for people who´re trying to have some sleep, but I think that some policemen came by and stopped them, because after some pretty entusiastic perfomance they got quiet out of a sudden.

We are looking forward to be in the center for the worlds attention for just one night!

Leaving Bratislava

2008-06-29T07:12:00.001-07:00

Fot the first time on this tour, we actually feel bad about leaving a place.
We didnt know anything particular about Bratislava before we came here - except that James Bond came by for a short while back in 1987 in the movie "living daylights". But now we know this city in and out ( we are walking pretty much around everyday on our search for the bestiaries) and we have a feeling that if we go back there, we could find any certain interesting attraction there faster than Garfield finds lasagne!

Anyway, we left it now and suddenly our lives as bicycleriders bacme much easiere, bacause all the way up to Vienna from Bratislava can be done on special bicycleroads, that turns in and out of small " gemütliche" villages, through the big crops and cornfields, through the woods over small bridges ( the Donau has many small arms that stretches into the land) and suddenly before you know it you are in Vienna, and you didnt need to go on any dangerous road at anytime.

Just nice :-)

impressions from Bratislava

2008-06-28T01:24:00.000-07:00

impressions from Ezstergom

2008-06-26T07:02:00.001-07:00

Boiled up to Bratislava!!

2008-06-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hello again.
We are in Slovakia now. In Bratislava - city with the ice cold water.... and that was needed.
We did something very stupid on our way up to the slovakian capital.
We were driving all day - especially in the burning midday sun - from 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening.....the temperature was 35 degrees celcius - in the shade... and there were no shade where we were driving !
My goodness we fellt that we were burning all evening and all night long. We drank so much water - and it all stayed inside ( if you know what I mean). seems like we really needed that.
Okay a great lesson was learned there - use our bad experience yourself - BE CAREFULL WITH THE SUN!!!

Anyway we are in Slovakia and most things are suddenly much cheaper than they were in Hungary or Croatia - except for the accomodation-prices. We feel that we sometimes got cheated somehow in the hotels.
We try not to complain to much, because the food is plenty, the beers are great and the girls are " mama mia" :-) (gothic, voluptous and they are everywhere.... especially drinking beers in the bars)

There are many austrian bicycledrivers here in Bratislava - no wonder since the austrian capital Vienna is only 55 kilometers away from here - we have a feeling that nowhere in the world can you find 2 capitals placed so closed to eachother. We took a circel around the Donau river that crosses the city here as it did in Budapest and will later in Vienna. We suddenly found a bicycleroad there and it looks like - atleast on the map - that its possible to stay on that all the way up into the core of Vienna. Now that is really great news for us, since we are pretty tired of big trucks and other "animals" in their fast cars trying to pushing us on the road - we allready saw 2 car accidents and was close to one planecrash (!)

After some problems in the beginning with hurting backs, knees and especially the :sittingpillows" its like we are on the way to getting use to all this biking. We eat and drink like maniacs when we got the chance for it - we never leave anything back on the plates where ever we go, because we just need everything we can possibly stuff into ourselve.... you know, its actually a really nice feeling :-) just biking, eating,taking pictures, drinking beers and sleep.

Pictures from Ezstergom and the road up to Bratislava will be posted sometime tomorrow.

Greetings from Bratislava - Bernard and Jesper

Impressions from Budapest

2008-06-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Days in Budapest

2008-06-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

Hello again- from time to time there will be a brake with messages on this blog, because its not always easy to find an internetcafe here in this country - hopefully things will soon turn into progress so we can update every day - we will see.

We have been in the hungarian capital Budapest for 3 days now, and will leave later this morning to our next destination, the town Esztergom only about 50 km north from Budapest. Yes its not a far distance, but its very hot here now - 30-35 degress celcius, and we need a little more time to edit all or recordings, photos etc.
Budapest - the old center - is extremely beautifull. The might river Donau crosses straight throug and divides the Buda and the Pest....Donau hmmm its not blue! lightbrown is a much better describtion. But okay we can live with that - its always nice with a view to some waterfront.

Wew found a nice hostel on top of a hill, with a great view to the city. Its a combined hostel and restaurantbusiness driven by a family.

We dont have much time to write in now, but hope that we can bring some more updates later - perhaps allready later today - we hope so.

see you.

Impressions from Hungary and Balatonlake

2008-06-20T02:20:00.000-07:00

Balaton

2008-06-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today we reached the hungarian resort nr 1 - the Balatonlake.... but nobody is here right now! it feels like we got the entire lake for ourselve. Only a few old fishermen and people working with dogs appear from time to time.
we came to this little "touristtown" named Balatonbaltog ( all the towns here are named something with "Balaton") after riding throug the southern hungarian area - an area rich in fields of all kinds - mostly corn and sunflowers, but also very large areas where they grow wine.
The sun was shining all day, so of course we both get sunburned, since we are almost to used to the rainyweather - but what the h... we prefere sunshine. Together with a mostly flat landscape and cardrivers who are not always as crazy as in Croatia, this area actually seems as something close to a paradise for bikeriders. We are even starting to see more and more trails for the bikes!
We took a lot of funny pictures and made small films during the day. We will post them here on this site as soon as its possible for us.
see you.

Virovitica

2008-06-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

2008-06-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

first step

2008-06-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

first step is taken!

2008-06-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

We got delayed with one day caused by to much stress about getting the right equipment, not enough sleep, Croatia beating germany in football - Zagreb was an inferno of noise from celebrating people that night - a huge rainstorm etc ( and now I will stop crying), but finally we made it out of the biggest city in Croatia.
Like I was afraid of allready before the beginning came true. Zagreb was NOT made for those who enjoy ridning a bike. So many holes in the roads, and so many "busy" cars and trucks constantly pushing our nerves. But we get out of there alive - and now I must also be fair to the croats, because about 30 km away from zagreb the conditions of the roads actually turned to be much better.
We drove through the rich fertile landscapes of Slavonia, and that healed our nerves to watch so many fields blooming and so much nature all around - every small town here with just a little selfrespect seem to have a couple of storks nesting in the center. So romantic!!
145,6 km was the distance between Bernards home in Zagreb and the residence of the Tomljanovicfamily who have been taking more than care of us for about 2 days now.
We have been spoiled with homemade sausage, hams, bread, cookies, vegetables, juices of all kinds, wine and Slivovica etc the motto here seems to be " eat my friend - just eat whenever you want"!.... we appreciate that motto pretty much I can tell you.
Especially Bernard deserved to be spoiled for a while. Both of his weels get flat during the ride, and none of the times was it caused by the tie, but from the weel itself inside. Life isnt fair.His mood was almost broken because of that - when it start to rain and made us completely wet just before we have to go down from some hills ( that makes you very cold too I can tell you), it definitely didnt make anything better.
But thanks to the great hospitality we met here in Virovitica we are up again now. We even found our first bestiaries here in this small town.
Hmmm I must admit that I feel sad to leave this nice place allready, but we are now wellfeeded and can use this stay as a jumpboard into Hungary.
We hope to reach the Balatonlake tomorrow and install ourselve in some hostell or hotel before Croatia plays against Poland ( 20.45)

The day before starting

2008-06-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to our blog.

(we hope that your english is even as good or as bad as ours, so we will be able to tell you some updates during our tour)

We will start tomorrow morning at around 5 o clock in the morning from Zagreb - the traffic in Zagreb is usually awfull and was definitely not invented for people who likes to ride a bicycle.

Our hope is that the traffic will be on its lowest in the early morning and that it will be mostly in to Zagreb and not so bad out from it.

our first goal is the town Virovitica, which is near the border to Hungary.