First few days in Western Europe

The ferry arrived in Calais and after a few adjustments to the bikes, we were on our way through France, heading towards Belgium and Luxembourg where we briefly paused for fuel for our bikes and fuel for ourselves (i.e. food).
By the early evening, we were into Germany in a town called Trier. Nothing particularly exciting. We went out to what was to be the first of many pizza restaurants in Germany. It seems that wherever you go, EVERY restaurant is a pizza place!
Day 2 and we headed for the Nurburgring a little to the north. This is one of the longest motor circuits in the world at 13 miles. Whilst we chose not to have a pop ourselves, we did watch a variation of cars zooming around. From Mercedes and BMW prototypes to brand new models and 4x4's as well a Porsches in every colour and a couple of Brits out playing with their Astons
and Bentley Continental 4 doors!
Later on, we were going to press on, but needed to attend to a minor oil leak on one of the bikes. A garage duly identified it and it was easily fixed but we decided to stay over before heading south to the Black Forest the following morning.
We hit the Black Forest (in the south of Germany) after a fairly tedious Autobahn blast in the early afternoon, where we caught up with a friend of mine from London and a German riding buddy of his who showed us all of the good roads. Stunning area and the roads were perfectly windy, which is always fun, although it did feel a bit strange doing this kind of riding on
our fully laden travel bikes.
That evening (partly due to arriving late), we decided to camp and head into town for dinner and to watch the football final. The next day, we headed further south, into Austria. I hadn't intended to go into Austria, but as we had plenty of time, I thought why not. I had never
been there and was not adverse to clocking up another country!
Wow! What a place. We took a turn off into the mountains to a pass called the Silvretta. Despite only being 4 days into the trip, this was by far the most impressive landscape so far. We even found a welcoming guesthouse to stay in up at the top.
Today (Friday), we both pressed on Easterly into Austria before parting ways to go to various weddings before we meet up again in Budapest in around 2 weeks time. I peeled off and after another autobahn, paused for lunch in Salzburg on my way to the Czech Republic. Salzburg was a pretty little city, but, living in London myself, cities generally don't do it for me. (Note to
self: It would be a good date place!).
Later in the afternoon, I crossed the border to Czech. Whilst it is still part of Europe (so no border issues), it was quite a big step for myself as I see it as the start of Eastern Europe - so the adventure was beginning. Immediately, I noticed a deterioration in the road surface, quality of cars and a more traditional style of building. There were quite a few street sellers along the way, but I didn't stop (partly as I had no space for souvenirs and partly because I had no local currency (Czech Kroners). Just half an hour later, I rolled into Cesky Krumlov. This is quite an old town, set on a river (albeit a bit of a tourist trap). I pretty much took the first hotel that I saw that had garaged parking for the bike and checked in before heading out for dinner armed with a map and a pen.
- The pen is to write the best man's speech for a wedding in 2 weeks' time!
- The map is to work out how to spend the two weeks in Czech, Slovak and Hungary before I catch a flight back to London for that wedding.
Hopefully, I'll come up with something entertaining for both!