
Eastern Central Europe (October 2007)
It was my first trip with my new motorcycle, my new BMW GS 1200 Adventure! My motorcycle had company though... Another new BMW GS 1200 Adventure, both purchased the same day!!! Two new BMWs driven by my friend George and me, accompanied with our wives. We drove 4.ooo kilometers in 5 countries in 11 days. Vana, Vasiliki, George and I were the perfect team!
We started our trip from Rion, Greece and we crossed Greece for a first overnight stop in Sofia, Bulgaria. Our motos were magic carpets!!! We flew over the highway on our way to Sofia...
We stayed in Sofia two days and we left for Bucharest, Romania. The roads were not in very good condition but we didn't face any problem. We visited the Archeological museum and we saw many Roman era discoveries. We were amazed by the size of the building of the Romanian Parliament in Bucharest. It was huge!!! The roads in Romania were in worst condition than the roads in Bulgaria. We met heavy traffic in many places on the road to Timisoara, the third most populous city in Romania. Timisoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the western part of Romania. A city with many youngsters (students at the university). Timisoara has lots of public squares and lush green retreats like Union Square. The city is easy to explore on foot. We liked a lot this city!
After Timisoara we drove north to Budapest, Hungary. A distance of 285 kilometers, driven through forests and in a green scenery... Awesome!!!
When we crossed the borders we felt the difference between these two countries. Romania at that time was not the Romania of today, and Hungary was a very good organized country and you could tell about it when you were leaving Romania for Hungary.
We spent three days in Budapest and were not enough... The city is a live museum! The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has listed the view of the Danube embankments and the Buda Castle District - which is one of the most beautiful and romantic parts of the city of Budapest - as a World Heritage site. The latter is an ancient town district, giving home to some of the most important historical monuments in Hungary. The buildings themselves in Budapest bear tell-tale signs of recent and ancient history. We enjoyed Gullash Soup those days! We visited Margaret island in Budapest and the picturesque Artist’s Village, called Szentendre, 20 kilometers away from Budapest.
We were sad leaving Budapest, but we promised to ourselves that we will be back again (thing which happened soon...).
We drove southwest and we enjoyed the view of lake Balaton. A stop in Cafe-Restaurant in Benedikt, Slovenia was very nice! There we saw a sign on the wall.... "Don't drink and drive, smoke and fly"!!! The soup was delicious....as well... We drove 460 kilometers that day from Budapest to Ljubljana, Slovenia! What can I say about Ljubljana??? Every time I travel in Europe, on my way back to Greece I like to visit this beautiful town! We stayed only one night and we left for Venice (Italy), just 235 kilometers away... We stayed in Mestre, 11 kilometers away from Venezia. We enjoyed our stay in Venice and after two days we embarked on the ferry to return to Greece!
A very colorful trip with a great company with my new motorcycle!!!