To Telc and Vienna…

I was beginning to have a few concerns about the time it was taking to complete the third leg of my journey, which would be at the bridge over the Bosphorus in Istanbul, where Europe end and Asia officially begins…

Since leaving Nordkapp, the days seemed to pass by too quickly… There was so much to see and the cities I wanted to visit were too close too each other to make riding long distances possible…

Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius were only 300 km apart, and spending a day and a half in each began impacting on my plans to arrive in Istanbul at the end of September…

We took a unplanned for tour through the wooded countryside of southern Prague...

I spent an extra day or two in Warsaw, (courtesy of the Polish Vodka…!) and then an extra day in Krakow, and again in Prague… My plans to ride for three days and then rest for one were not coming even close to fruition…

I needed a few weeks to arrange for visas in Istanbul, and began thinking about getting them in the cities en route, to try and save time later…

Even though I had heard that Vienna was a good place to spend a few days, I originally had no intentions of staying over in the city, and was intent on pushing through to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, which was only 80 odd kilometres beyond Vienna…

I had to change my plans again however, after an email from my friend Tibor, advising me that while I could try and get my Iranian, Pakistani and Indian visas in Budapest, there was no Armenian Embassy in Turkey, nor was there one in Budapest…!! Tibor had very kindly done some investigationing on my behalf, and had begun heading his emails, “From Gypsy Biker’s Budapest HQ”…!!

He had certainly given me enough advice and information over the past few weeks to qualify as a “base of operations”…!!

He mentioned that the closest Armenian Embassy on my route was in Vienna, and provided me with their address and telephone number… So it was into Vienna I needed to go, to see about visa requirements for Armenia and possibly Azerbaijan…

"Which part of "Take me to Vienna as fast as possible...", did you not understand, Gi-Gi...?"

After two days in Prague, I was ready to hit the road again… I had managed to write a few posts while I was there, and enjoyed the meals that Rudla had served up for us…

Although we made time to chat about life in the Czech Republic, both before and after the split from Slovakia, he gave me much needed time and space to sit quietly at the kitchen table and do some “work”…

Rudla and I enjoying a laugh...!!

We took turns making each other coffee and Rudla would often call me to the TV each time a news item concerning any of the countries he knew I was headed to, came onto the screen…

“Qvick Ronnie… Ze floods in Pakistan….” or, “Come und see…!! Zees mad bastards in Mexico have shot some peoples…!!” I would stand silently next to him, while he translated from either Czech, German or even Russian… Rudla is a channel surfer of note, and the lounge often sounded as if a meeting of the United Nations was in progress…!!

I left the apartment in Prague at about 8.30am, in the teeth of rush hour traffic, and managed to make a few of the usual unplanned detours before finding a road leading south into the countryside and then cutting back eastwards to try and pick up my original route on the GPS…

Having once again lost another large chunk of precious time getting out of a major city, I proceeded to give myself over to a serious case of “the mutters”… My route would take me around six hours to complete, and I had hoped to go directly to the Armenian Embassy, before they closed, and then try to make a dash for Bratislava before nightfall… My little tour of the countryside southwest of Prague had put a spoke in the wheel of my plans…

Once out in the country, we barrelled down great roads like this one, twisting and turning through forests...

I briefly flirted with the idea of hooking up with the major motorway leading all the way to Vienna, and lighting up the afterburners in an effort to make up for lost time… This had the Big Fella trembling with excitement, but after half an hour on the country roads, I decided against it… I much preferred the farmlands and open fields, to the constant high speed of the motorways… Besides, Tibor’s description of Telc, a medieval village in the heartland of southern Czech, had me intrigued enough to want to see it for myself…

The town was far bigger and populated than I had expected, but the "old town" was a jewel...!!

We rode due south, heading for Benesov and on to Votice and Milicin, before stopping on the outskirts of the large town of Tabor, where I refueled, and sat down to a couple of cappuccinos…, the charge to Vienna forgotten…

I began enjoying my riding again, whipping the bike through the curves and thundering down any decent straights that I came across, not with an early arrival in Vienna in mind, but rather to get back in touch with the Big Fella again, feeling the enormous power under me, appreciating the fine balance of the machine that was carrying me effortlessly across the lush green landscape…

A short distance after Sobeslav, we turned off the E55, heading east for the city of Jindrichuv Hradec, crossing the Nezarka River Bridge just before it, and then riding along the river’s edge all the way to the town with the shortish name of Jarosov Nad Nesarkou…

Despite the pole in the road indicating no vehicles should pass through this point, we once gain bent the rules a bit, riding directly into the main square...

The twenty minute ride from here to Telc, was an exhilarating one… We went through the twists and curves faster than we should have, but through it all I never missed a line into any of the corners… Except for one in the tiny village of Jilem, where we almost sent an old timer on a bicycle to the big tax haven in the sky… He wobbled off the road and went careening down the driveway of the local church, his cries of dismay audible above “The Sultans of Swing” blaring though my headphones…

“Should we go back and see if he’s OK…?” I asked myself…

“Nah…” answered the Big Fella… “Guy that old shouldn’t be on a bicycle anyway…!!” I have no idea where he gets that sort of attitude from…!!

I stopped on the northern edge of Telc, close to one of the original entry gates to the old city, wondering how to get into the central square that Tibor had mentioned in his emails… Throwing caution to the wind (again…) I rode down the cobble-stoned pedestrian walkway, and burst into the town square…

On the narrow end of the long square, sat this church, wedged between building that are clearly well maintained...

It was much bigger than I anticipated… Beautiful old buildings, painted in a variety of pastel colours lined the one side, while on the other, a row of open air restaurants had been set up to cater for the tourists that visited here… At least half a dozen artists sat cross legged on the cobblestones, sketching buildings and church spires, statues and fountains… I parked next other cars that had obviously found the correct route into the square, and walked along the row of souvenirs shops and restaurants, looking across the square and wishing that I could spend more time here…

...and along the northern edge of the square, this row of beautifully restored houses in a variety of colours...

There was so much to see, and I would rather have been in a comfortable pair of shoes and a pair of shorts and t-shirt, than the heavy boots and biker gear that I was sporting… But it was Thursday, and I had no idea what time the Embassy in Vienna would be open until the following day… If I missed the closing time, It would mean spending the whole weekend in Vienna, waiting for Monday morning…

Exiting the town square through the only legal entry and exit point. The narrow road runs directly under a home...

I reluctantly rode out of Telc, using the narrow entrance and exit point which ran under a house built into the original walls of the old city…

With heavy cloud about, I made a bee-line for the Austrian Border...

Irony is my constant companion...!! What were the chances of me coming across a sign like this in the middle of the Czech countryside, after nearly 40 000 kms on the road...??

With clouds gathering above me, I drew a bead on Vienna, and rode hard through to Znojmo and over the Dyje River, south towards the Austrian border…

Close to the border, was a large complex of theme parks and restaurants, including one that had been built in an old aircraft… The casino there seemed to be very busy, and buses filled with tourists arrived as I stood taking in the buildings around me… I took a few photographs and then crossed rode the short distance to the border and crossed over into Austria…

"Climb up there and get rid of the "Y" said the Big Fella...!! We are in this together...!!"

Crossing the border into Austria...

After passing Hollabrunn, I got onto the motorway and rode quickly through to the outskirts of Vienna… Austrian drivers are a careful lot it would seem, sticking to the speed limits, and make a wide berth for us as we thundered down the A22 alongside the Donau River, which runs along the north eastern side of the city…

The Armenian Embassy is located on the western edge of the city, but I knew it was too late in the day to bother trying to find someone there who could answer the questions I had, and instead began looking for a place to stay…

The first two pensiones I tried were fully booked, but I eventually found one who could put me up…

"....is usually enuff to clear ze room...!!"

Pensione Reide, occupied a large building on the corner of a bust intersection, and parking in the street outside was free of charge, so after covering the Big Fella, I settled into my room o the ground floor and planned my movements for the next day…

Pensione Riede is housed in this wedge-shaped old building...

There were two addresses for the Embassy, and as luck would have it, the first one I asked the taxi driver to take me to, was the incorrect one, from where the embassy had moved over a year ago… I had to take another taxi to the correct address, only to find that their consular hours began at 12.00am…

The Armenian Embassy in Vienna, where the security guards were posing as gardeners...

Back to the hotel I went, to check if I could store my luggage, and then decided to stay another night, but had to change rooms to one on the third floor…

Then another taxi back to the embassy to check on visa requirements for Armenia… I managed to chat to the Permanent Secretary himself, who was very helpful, and told me that I could obtain a visa at the border, and further reminded me that I could only enter Armenia through Georgia or Iran, as the borders between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, were closed due to “diplomatic tensions” between the three countries…

It had cost me €45.00 in taxi fares to discover what I probably could have over the phone, but in hindsight, the receptionist did not speak any English, and only put me through to the Secretary himself in exasperation, after I refused to leave without speaking to someone who could help me…

Although Vienna is said to be one of the best cities in Europe to live and work in, I was not in the mood to pay another chunk of money to a taxi driver to take me into the city centre, and rather went for a stroll in the area surrounding the hotel…

I discovered that this was an “immigrant section” of the city, filled with many people of middle-eastern extraction… Many of the women I passed on the streets wore headscarves, and the men were mostly swarthy looking individuals, not prone to smiling and being friendly…

I could also not help noticing that many of the women were either pregnant, or were pushing prams… What is the connection between Third World or Developing Countries, and lack of birth control…?? I many of the cities I had passed through, the areas where immigrants seemed to gather in large numbers, were often filled with pregnant women and hordes of young children…!!

Across the road from my hotel was an InterSPAR, which had me thinking of home… and down the road a short distance was a pedestrian mall lined with boutiques and small business catering to almost every need… It was not a bad place to have ended up, and Pensione Reide was a very comfortable hotel, even though it was a bit pricey at €58.00 per night…

There's a friendly Spar wherever you are...!!

With only a short distance to ride to Bratislava the following day, I planned for a late start, and busied myself researching routes through Turkey, Iran and Pakistan…

Lost in Translation... Does it burst into flames when you push the Down button...?

Time seemed to have flown over the last few weeks, and I realized that in the next two months I would be covering a very large area and getting into the toughest part (to my mind) of my journey… There were more “unknowns” in the Middle East and Asia than there had been in all of Africa and Europe, combined…!!

With the recent flooding in Pakistan, and tensions in the Muslim world brought on by that idiot preacher and his band of fifty lunatic followers in the USA, who had threatened to burn copies of the Koran, I had a feeling that I might encounter more than just the usual difficulties of traveling through these countries…

Only time would tell…

GBWT 2010