[YEAR 7!] Quit our jobs, sold our home, gone riding...

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What the heck are all these blue pipes all over Berlin?

While walking around the city, we saw blue and pink water pipes snaking all over the city. After some Internet-sleuthing, I discovered that these pipes are actually linked to the naming of the city. A lot of people think Berlin is named after the German word for "Bear", which is also on the city's coat of arms. But the etymology of the word comes from an old Slavic word, "berl" which means "Swamp".

Berlin is built on low-lying marshlands, literally it's a swamp. When buildings are constructed in Berlin, they use pipes to pump the water out of the construction site so they can put in the foundation. They've painted them all sorts of pastel colours to pretty it up, but these pipes are indirectly linked to the naming of the city! Neat, eh?

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The divide between East and West. Cherry blossom trees in the background in West Germany

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Neda has to investigate the cherry blossoms, so I have to as well...

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Trying out some German Wurst!

We rolled our motorcycles up on the sidewalk and nervously looked out for policemen as we chomped down on our currywurst. We were later told that this was not the best place to eat currywurst (true!) and that we didn't have to worry about getting ticketed as bikers get a free pass and can park just about anywhere they like in Berlin (sweet!).
 
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Another must-see on the list: BMW Motorrad Plant in Berlin

Even though the main headquarters for BMW is in Munich, the motorcycle factory is located in Berlin. So we *HAD* to visit the birthplace of our bikes. We weren't allowed to take any pictures of the plant, except for the showroom, but it was a fascinating tour where we got to see them assemble all sorts of bikes and see them get tested before they're shipped out.

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Tim was our guide through the BMW Motorrad Plant

After the tour, he saw us hop on our Canadian-plated bikes. After finding out about our trip, he asked to take a picture with us and e-mailed us a copy! Great guy!

The fall of the Berlin Wall was one of most important historical events that happened in our time. We both have memories of it and were impacted in different ways by it. It was such a nostalgia trip riding and walking through the city and we both thoroughly enjoyed it!
 

unkamonkey

Explorer
Thanks for the report.
My neighbors were in Europe in 1985. Visited relatives in France and Germany. Mike said that traveling from West Germany to the East side was like going from a color movie to a black and white version. One of the cousins had a Trabant. He was proud about it. Mike thought it was one of the most miserable pieces of junk he had ever ridden in. All of the relatives over fed and over boozed them. They finally had to "escape" to Southern France to have some time for themselves. They used the heck out of their Eurail passes.
 
Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/233.html

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We're heading south again, zig-zagging our way through Central Europe. The weather here is sunny, however it's still cold as the summer struggles to wrest control from a stubborn spring.

New country today! This is the first time both of us have ever been in Poland. However, to avoid our last embarrassing moment with Portuguese, we research the language before crossing the border, keeping a cheat sheet of common phrases on our smartphone. Most important one: "Dziękuję" which means "Thank You" and is pronounced nothing like it looks. How do you get "Jen-koo-yeh" from "Dziękuję"? Polish is not phonetical at all.

*ugh* This is going to cause us some problems...

The scenery when crossing from Germany to Poland doesn't change at all since we are on the Autobahn - lots of trees. But you can tell that Poland is not as affluent as Germany, the roads are slightly worse for wear and the small towns that we pass through lack that very self-aware care-to-attention that the pristine German towns possess.

Neda is still on a mission to spend as much time in nature, and she's got a place picked out in southern Poland. Looking on the GPS, our path takes us through a large urban centre called Wrocław. Not knowing how to pronounce this, we kept referring to it as "Rock-Claw" over the communicators. What a cool name for a city! Rock-Claw! Sounds like a super-villain.

One thing we didn't research was the conversion rate for Euros -> Złoty. There are tons of exchange places close to the German/Polish border, some that look dodgier than others, and we don't know if we're getting ripped off when we stop at a diner to change money and grab some lunch. Neda ordered cabbage rolls and I ordered some Polish goulash. At least the food here is much cheaper than Germany! And delicious too!

We're not going to be losing any weight here in Poland...

As we sat in the diner listening to the other patrons and the Polish TV softly playing in the background, Neda turns to me wide-eyed and exclaims, "Hey! I understand some words!" Seems Polish is slightly similar to Croatian. Cool! Language duties have officially been handed over to her! :) As long as we don't have to read anything out loud, we should be fine.

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Our hotel. Or close to it...

Our hotel in Wrocław is in an industrial neighbourhood, it's not a bad hotel, but the parking lot is next to a building that's been abandoned for quite a while and made a cool looking picture. When we checked in, we asked the receptionist how to properly pronounce Rock-Claw. She told us: "Vrot-Suave". What? That's nothing like how it's written! So glad we didn't butcher the name of her city in front of her.

I replied, "Jen-koo-yeh" and when she smiled back at us, I didn't feel like such a Tarzan after all. Although I probably said it wrong...

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Big celebrations happening in town

We're just passing through Rock-Claw (I like our version better), but we decided to check out the city centre before we left. To our surprise, it was quite busy. But it was apparent that there was some kind of huge celebration today. We parked (for free, I *LOVE* Europe!) and followed the crowds to the city square. Our first impressions of Poland across the German border were a bit misinformed, Rock-Claw was such a pretty place! Multi-coloured buildings formed a backdrop as processions of soldiers and marching bands paraded through the square. Almost everyone was waving a Polish flag as they gathered to watch the celebrations.

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Polish flag convention

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Marching band
 
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Tuba Shakur

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Different flag design

It turns out that we were in town for Polish Flag Day, which is celebrated every May 2nd. There are two versions of the official flag, one with just the plain white and red stripes and another one which has the coat of arms in the field of white. Flag Day is quite important for Poles, they've lost and won their independence four times throughout the country's history.

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Town Hall at Rynek (City Square)

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Ever since entering Poland, I was looking forward to trying the pierogi! OMG SO GOOD!!!!

You can stuff a pierogi with any kind of filling, typically it has cheese and mushrooms, and there are also dessert pierogi with fruit inside. Obviously I opt for the meat version. Fried, of course!

Definitely not losing any weight in Poland...

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Bearded men are a common subject of Polish folk art, both the Jewish version and the Lord of the Rings kind
 
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Pretty colours!

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Even the motorcycles here celebrate Flag Day

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Polish hobbit

After a nice morning in Rock-Claw, we head south to Neda's intended destination - the Tatra Mountains. She had read that there are some great hikes there. As we climb higher on our bikes, the weather gets colder and much wetter. The Polish roads are all lined with billboards and advertisements that make the natural landscape seem a bit gaudier.

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Tatra Mountains ahead. I guess they pay for their roads through advertisements.

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We arrive in Zakopane, a Polish alpine resort town

Zakopane lies at the foot of Mount Giewont and is a popular place in the winter for alpine sports, and in the summer for hiking. We are kind of in-between seasons and Neda finds a fantastically luxurious hotel that just opened up and since it was low season, we got an amazing discount so we're going to stay here for a few days.
 
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My man-cave for a few days

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Neda goes hiking while I hibernate

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Neda is loving the nature!

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The Tatra Mountains form a natural border between Poland and Slovakia and offers hikers amazing scenery

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I join Neda back in town for a walk around Zakopane

While the big city of Wrocław offered up a modern-day version of Poland, Zakopane was filled with fantastic wooden buildings from the mid-1900s when the population here started to grow.
 
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Polish guest-house

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Walking around the suburbs of Zakopane

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We totally got suckered into buying Oscypek from this little old Polish woman

Oscypek is a smoked cheese made from salted goat cheese that's made exclusively in the Tatra mountains. From the small shack where she was selling the large bricks of Oscypek, we thought this little old Polish lady made these by hand back in her farm. Then we walked around town a bit more and noticed they were selling these same "Zakopane"-branded brickettes everywhere.

We totally overpaid for the "cute old Polish woman" factor... :)

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These were sooooo delicious

Turns out Neda is not allergic to this kind of cheese. We bought a couple of bricks of Oscypek, one to eat and one to give to our friends that we are seeing later as house-warming gifts. But they were too good. We finished them both... :( No will-power.

So not going to lose any weight in Poland...

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The Ural Mountain range is not close to Poland at all...
But here's a Ural motorcycle in the Zakopane market. Boxer engines rule!
 

unkamonkey

Explorer
Mikes wife Petra was born in Germany and Mike probably lived there 11 years while his father was in the Air Force. Petras father Heinz was having his 60th birthday party and flew out his three sisters and two nephews. (The wall was still up). They came from France, W Germany and three were from E Germany. Mike took Petras cousins to a local store, they were amazed that a person could get beer, guns, food and clothes in the same place. They thought it was a government set up.
Arlo, I don't know where your post is going,(next post) (my computer is being cranky) I spent 5 weeks with the boys from East Germany. The best smiles we saw on their faces was when we turned them loose with our Jeeps or let them work on a motorcycle.
 
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Arlo

Adventurer
I don't know Mark's wife but we kill and eat our neighbours with knife and fork!:ylsmoke:
We are able to do this because the Marshall Plan! :sombrero:
I guess, this plan was a good one! :coffee:
Otherwise you are not able to get beer, food, guns and clothes at the same place in Germany! :coffeedrink:

What the hell you are talking about? :exclaim:

Sorry Gene, carry on, you are my scout. :bike_rider:
 
Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/234.html

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In our rush to get to the good hiking in the Tatra Mountains, we noticed that we had bypassed Krakow and the area around it. So we're doubling back and staying in town for a few days to do some sightseeing. We're getting hip to the Polish alphabet and we're substituting our Ws for Vs now. Off to see Krakov! (although we're still not doing it entirely right. It sounds closer to Crack-Ooof)

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Beautiful Wawel (Vavel) Cathedral, right on the banks of the Wisla (Vistula) River

We're booked an AirBnB apartment right downtown and our host Paulina drives us around town and points out some highlights of things we should see. She also takes us out for lunch and shows us some yummy Polish food to try out.

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Paulina has battered chicken filled with butter and cream, it's called kotlet de volaille or Chicken Kiev, or Chicken Cordon Bleu

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Around the neighbourhood where we are staying

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Jewish quarter in Krakow
 

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