Just got back from the trip yesterday. Wound up going for a month, two weeks with a couple of friends on rental bikes, and then two weeks by myself. Other than a minor traffic accident in Bosnia involving one of the rental bikes (very minor damage and no injury), everything went great. Started off in Heidelberg at Stefan Knopf's place. There were a constant stream of bikers, mostly from the US in and out of the place, and Stefan is very accomodating. Left Heidelberg and rode to Croatia through Austria and Slovenia. Spent a few days in Dubrovnik, with a day trip to Montenegro. We then rode down to Split in Croatia and took the overnight ferry to Ancona Italy. Went to Arabba in the Dolomites where we spent a couple of days at a really nice hotel. Then rode on to Andermatt Switzerland for a couple of days, but most of the passes there were still closed! We then started making our way back to Heidelberg, by way of Starsbourg France. After saying good bye to my friends in Heidelberg, I headed for France and the Channel Tunnel. I learned, after I arrived, that I should have booked my passage to England in advance. It cost 105 Euros for the crossing over. One of the other bikers told me that by showing up without a reservation, I paid abouit twice as much as he had. Spent a couple of days with relatives in England, then went to Ireland for three days, where it poured with rain every day. Eventually wound up back in Germany after a total of 4,300 miles and 13 countries visited. Great trip, can't wait to do it again next year.
