Our first week....without a bike.

Always a warm welcome.

One of the castles along the Rhein River.


A charming street in Rüdesheim.

Germania, this statue commemorates the fall of the French and the beginning of the new German empire.

A casual drink with our gracious hosts Franz, Sabine, Melly, Bernd, and Heidi.

Uh yes...Bratwurst!!

Ken infront of the worlds largest coo-coo clock

Flight truely is an amazing thing, one minute you are sitting in the sunny Okanagan and the next you are over the ocean a world away in Germany sitting sipping schnapps and eating gulasch, red cabbage and klösse (dumplings). Thanks to Air Canada our flight was enjoyable and uneventful; thanks to Visa Avion points it was cheap.





Franz picked us up at the Frankfurt airport and he and Sabine have been unbelievable hosts. Much to our surprise we found Mark and Cara arriving here from Kelowna the day after us so Franz and Sabine have a full house so we celebrated with a Canadian party.





Buying a bike here has turned out to a little more difficult and is taking a little longer than we planned (maybe that is part of the reason we shipped our bike last time). Although the Internet is full of bikes for sale they are either sold, halfway across Germany or the people who placed the ads have fallen off the face of the earth. As foreigners we can't buy a bike here, the bill of sale is made out to us, Franz and Sabine must register the bike and insure it. A kind of complicated procedure and much easier done if we find a bike around Wiesbaden. As it turns out the bike Ken was hoping to buy, a Honda Africa Twin, is a very desirable bike here and we can't find a single one so after several days of searching we have decided on a Honda Veradero 1000 that is for sale at a local Honda dealer. We will buy the bike for 6500 euros and the dealer will guarantee a buy-back for 4500 euros. We could take the time to sell it ourselves for more but this way it is easy for us and the 2000 euros is still cheaper than the cost of shipping our bike both ways or renting a bike while we are here. Ken is happy with his final choice of bikes as it is the new big brother of the Africa Twin. So as it turns out, exactly one week after landing Germany we will be set up with a bike complete with bags, new tires and new oil. Ready to ride!





Our days here have been busy touring Wiesbaden and the surrounding areas. One of our highlights has been a boat trip up the Rhein River to St. Goar had lunch and then took the train back, a great day and from the boat you get a clear view of the castles and vineyards that line the banks of the river. Unfortunately our nights have been a little long and sleepless, it took us 5 nights to recover from the jet lag.....5 long nights of staring at the ceiling and thinking about the bike and traveling plans. Heinz's schnapps in the evening didn't help us out but we do appreciate his trying.





Now that we have the bike thing settled and we are sleeping thru the night we can sit back and start to truly enjoy our time here in Germany, the land of castles, great cheese & wurst, and wine & schnapps. Prost!!