Seven days – 3815 kilometers

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Seven days – 3815 kilometers

Seven days – 3815 kilometers
Close to the limit

In the film of the same name, David Niven traveled around the world in “Eighty Days”. Klaus H. Daams and Rolf Henniges had a more modest goal: around Germany in seven days, with trips to neighboring countries. On the 3815 kilometers they experienced no less adventurous things.

Rolf Henniges

09/10/1999

Day 1: Emmerich – Varel 524 km A Saturday morning on the Rhine promenade in Emmerich. Freezing wind whips us in the face. Two tugs fight an elephant race, break up the light brown broth of the Rhine. The Rhinkieker – a bronze statue – symbolizes the start and finish point of our tour around Germany. A “crazy idea,” as a pensioner passing by comments. Because he was at war. Knows how long the limit is. “You can never make Datt in seven days.” An hour later: Dutch cow dung burst under our tires, windmills salute. There is a caravan next to every second house. Ready to invade Europe. Tattered, low-hanging clouds serve as a plaything for the wind. He whirls them over the horizon via ghostly pulsing oil pumps. At the end of it: sleepy cities like Nordhorn. Brick buildings with dark slate roofs, small windows, barred doors. The wide world? Steffie’s kiosk, Goran’s kebab, Maelin’s Thai food, Alfonso’s pizza – everything is there. Multicultural. Modern Talking fags on the radio, a woman in a jogging suit and a baseball cap hums along loudly. Steaming coffee fills the plastic cups, the owner of the kiosk wants to know where the journey is going. “Today to Varel,” mumbled Klaus between sips. He could have said Istanbul too. “Yes, yes,” muses the kiosk owner, “It’s still a beautiful piece.” Huge peat excavators, churned-up dark earth, grids from drainage ditches – the town of Rutenbrook is surrounded by a moorland with a ghostly aura. Short sections of the sun bring life to life. Endless mountains of harvested potatoes, orchards, paddocks, dead straight roads, slopes caused by extreme cross winds: the mystique of the north. On the Stortebecker-Strabe the bumps are formed like a washboard. It goes rodeo-like. A few signs on bends accelerate the biker’s heart. For free. Just a slight bend in the straight. It smells of salt and great freedom. Shortly before Greetsiel there is an annoying horn concert. Synchronously with 200 heads of dykes, I look back. The man behind the horn, who is enthusiastic about the horn, hands me a roll of luggage, shaking his head. “Lost ten kilometers ago!” A weathered face melts into a smile. Northern Germany’s coastal region is a village, and helpfulness is very important. Also that evening in a hotel in Varel. “Actually fully booked,” the lady at the reception explains to us. “But for bikers who are soaked with rain there is always a room free.” II. Day: Varel – Wismar 596 km “To Rodenkirchen?” The busy woman pauses while distributing the Sunday courier and points to the east. Rain swirls towards me like pearls from the fairing of the Honda, the udders of the cows drag through mud-like mud. Ferry Rodenkirchen – Dedesdorf: lonely and abandoned there is a briefcase next to the ferry cabin. Ten days. While in Frankfurt or Paris the explosives experts would have stopped the ferry, evacuated the area and interrogated the servants, they said succinctly: “Will be fetched from wideer.” Alfstedt. Snickers, Herta Gautcho, Hanuta and a friend of Fischerman slide down my throat with a smack. “Your breakfast?” The gas station attendant looks at three of them with concern. A dark blue Mercedes is parked next to our bikes. Moments later, I know what the abbreviation AMG means on his trunk. While he stirs up the dirt on the wet road in front of me at a leisurely 80 km / h, I start to overtake. At the same time, the driver also accelerates. No matter what I do, he stays on the same level. The test of strength ends at 130 km / h with my surrender and emergency braking. AMG? Probably stands, in addition to engine power, also for aggressive human accelerators of violence. The bridge over the Kiel Canal: The B5 spans the artificial river like a ski jump into the sky. Wind power plants line the way up to the stop at »Brummis Imbib«. A real North German Deern crushes ketchup and majo bottles over gigantic portions of french fries. She is 51 and has more hair on her teeth than I have on my head. Soft ice cream in Denmark, hot milk with honey in Schleswig, bedtime pizza in Wismar – my stomach cries out for revenge. We fall into bed dead tired. III. Day: Wismar – Frankfurt / Oder 467 km Wismar market square, 7:00 a.m., temperature: 3 ° C. Not a cloud, light blue sky. The houses shine in different pastel tones. Splendid buildings from the last century. Freshly renovated. The rain washed the smog out of the air. Incredible distant view hovers over the Baltic Sea. We bump our machines over cobblestones along the Wismar Bay. A Samson overtakes us with a hoarse rattle. The driver knows every pothole by name. 100 kilometers further, Lobnitz suffocates in a traffic jam. Huge masses of traffic force their way through the old town center at a snail’s pace. 18 hours a day. An old woman is cleaning her window two meters from the traffic jam. What did you change? “25,000 vehicles a day,” she says ironically. The buildings around the Strahlsund harbor are cracked and mouse-gray. The silhouette is dominated by the warehouses. The renovation of these 30 meter brick cubes is in full swing. There are only eight small windows on 400 square meters of outside space. “Ideal for all businesses that don’t need light,” the fish sandwich seller winks at me. A ship’s horn sounds, Hans Albers sings about his “Paloma” from rusty speakers. We take a deep breath. From now on it’s over with funny. Solitude, vastness and wilderness determine the further kilometers. Reinsberg, Greifswald, Lubmin, Anklam, Locknitz. Places connected by avenues such as cannot be found anywhere in the west. Under a golden roof made of trees, some of which are 300 years old. White paint on the trunks replaces the guide posts – from a speed of 100, everything blurs into one line. Here it begins, the wild east. With places like Jatznick. With high curbs, sandy sidewalks and lowered cars, the exhaust ends of which rattle sparks over the waves of the slippery cobblestone pavement. Every second truck smells of burned heating oil. Traffic calming? A foreign word. There is hardly any traffic anyway. Just like heavy industry. Poland is only a stone’s throw away, the charisma of the 1930s has got stuck here. Our day’s stage is long. It is already dark in Frankfurt / Oder. The bikes find a place between building materials and cement bags in the backyard of a guesthouse. The landlord recommends a “double grog”. His recommendation is good. Too good IV Day: Frankfurt / Oder – Weiden 582 km “If he only hears oldies, Hans Jurgen, he has to gag into the aquarium”. A snow-white pensioner stands in front of an advertising poster for Radio Berlin, shaking his head. His cane points to my Honda Deauville: “A spaceship?” Much has changed here in the East since the fall of the Wall. Nothing seems impossible. The colorful billboards look like surreal paintings on the socialist prefabricated buildings. The street, on the other hand, is not adorned with abstract art, but a 23-kilometer-long, continuous line to Eisenhuttenstadt. Star boxes rise threateningly out of cover, industrial plants as far as the eye can see. Often rusted, rotted, smashed. Smelly, threatening, sobering. “Nothing to declare?” The Polish border officer at the Gubin crossing looks at our luggage rolls with a critical smile and waves us into another world. Here, on the small side streets, everything that moves has priority. The ride is like a slalom lap. In town around chickens, geese, dogs, cattle or cyclists, outside town around the many puddles – you never know how deep they are. No sign of gullies. Every oncoming truck provides a brown shower or fango pack. The way to Zasieki, on the other hand, is like a puzzle game made of rubble stones. The narrow strips of sand next to it almost look like a motorway. Get excited about something like that? “The main thing is that you have enough to eat,” says a forest worker and proudly hands us Debrecziner sausages. “Slaughtered and seasoned ourselves.” We can still feel that two hours later. Hot clouds break through our pants like the exhaust fumes from the »Black Pump« through the sky over the Lausnitz. The workers in Molly’s snack bar stand casually opposite the chimneys and cooling towers of the power plants. “Black pump? The area here is so named because every worker has more dust in his heart than on the porch of his house, ”a coughing contemporary explains to me. Less than five minutes later, the Saxon lignite Grand Canyon reveals itself to us. Huge excavators have raped nature here for decades, eating unimaginable craters into nature. Filled with dammed water, these are intended to attract streams of tourists as a recreation area in the future. Pure Adventure. On the right sprint attempts of higher-level Simsons, on the left burn-outs of brightly painted small cars, in front of me dirt-encrusted truck wrecks with zero lighting. 15 kilometers between adrenaline and shortness of breath. »Do you know why we sweated so much here in the former GDR? For decades it was only going uphill! ”Our gas station attendant laughs himself half-dead, we flee south from the hustle and bustle of traffic. Have a sip of the Autobahn cocktail. The night surrounds us. Some Trabbis defend their legal right to use the fast lane against western license plates. Unfortunately it’s ours. Day: Weiden – Fussen 478 km Spray rain unsettles my gas hand. For the driver of the lowered Opel Manta with CZ license plate aquaplaning is a foreign word. He follows me at a distance of two meters. Its wheels are equipped with three different tire sizes. Better safe than sorry. Five sun-gogged co-drivers bob in their seats to the rhythm of the Czech potholes. Scared, I let it pass. At 7 o’clock we had crossed the border at Waidhaus. Signs everywhere bear witness to the bustling nightlife: bars, brothels and bandits. Now, so early in the morning, a ghostly calm hovers over everything. But as soon as the camera is unpacked in front of a “bar”, things get serious. A barred window creaks. Excited words in a foreign language. Three-day beard, dingy undershirt, short haircut – Jean Reno, THE PROFESSIONAL, sends his regards. Unfortunately not our friend. A bang. His smoking 45er first points to the sky, then in the direction in which we are supposed to disappear: »No photo !!« The name of the bar seems to be the program: Chicago. 20 kilometers further on, the world is all right again. The Czech cuisine spoils our palate, winding forest passages our driving experience. “Unpack everything,” the German customs officer ordered us harshly. Hands rummage through our packing rolls. “No cigarettes?” “Non-smokers!” “Alcohol?” “Too heavy!” Well then: Welcome to Bavaria. The rain falls incessantly. I save the map in a bus stop, unfold it in the dry. Two contemporaries with an Eastern accent stand trembling in their Bodelotschen and give us tips for the onward journey: “Monks, Garmosch, Fossen.” Thank you very much. Wolfratshausen, Kiefernweg. A dump somewhere between Munich and Garmisch. Flower boxes, crosses, square windows: 40 houses next to each other – all confusingly similar. From two per thousand it is hard to distinguish. Strange – where beer is declared as food here. The romantic sunset only happened on the radio. Without us. Along the “Romantic Road” I follow the light aisles of my Honda through the deep Bavarian darkness. Illuminated churches and inns emerge from the sea of ​​night. We in one of the latter under VI. Day: Fussen – Landau 524 kmA sunburn-suspect sky spans the foothills of the Alps. Foehn drives scattered clouds over the peaks. The Austrian Engeltal is flooded by the stream of tourists. Cart wandering is the latest trend. Preferred vehicles: Opel Vectra and Mercedes C-Type with a wobbly dachshund in the rear. The drivers wear uniform clothing: heather gray suits. Matches hat and hair color. A shifting dune is faster. You are not stuck in a traffic jam. You are the traffic jam. And demonstrate loudly that we should take part in this. We cheat our way past, screw our way up the Riedberg pass. On the shady side, the road is still damp. A diesel track has a metallic blue shine. Concentration is required. Done. Hunger drags us to the next inn. Lentil stew, Radetzky March, alpine roses, thick mustaches. King Ludwig rules here in the form of a dark beer. Four of them fall into the throat of a tractor driver. Blood alcohol limit? “It fits!” Armed with a huge plow, he continues his journey home. Thank God not in our direction. A huge hot air balloon in the shape of a Mickey Mouse hovers over the border with Switzerland. We can really use the Disney Guardian Angel. As soon as you arrive on the north shore of Lake Constance, dark clouds open their gates and let the cargo fall. Visibility: ten meters. Geisingen, Hufingen, Titisee-Neustadt – the Black Forest Hochstrabe can only be guessed at, it blurs before our eyes. Hundreds of water droplets explode as light reflections on my visor. The road surface? Alignment? Flight blind without GPS. A dragon made of taillights winds its way through the night. We are right in the middle of it all, one day we will reach Freiburg hungry. “Do you actually want to go north?” Ali is the second generation to cut gyros from the spit and has a heart for bikers. Next door, in the packing room, he points to two lambskins, then to our buttocks: “Seven days – 3800 kilometers ?! That gives a big ass. ”Late that evening, when I wriggle out of the saddle of my Deauville in Landau, I know he’s right. VII. Day: Landau – Emmerich 644 kilometers »To the Schwanenteich in the park?« The friendly woman in her forties waves her hands: »Straight on through the traffic lights, right, up, left, second right again, over the bridge, then left, after three curves right. “We’re there thirty minutes later. The park was just around the corner. Foliage does justice. An overweight midlife crisis in an olive-green plush jacket, studded leather cap and an estimated helmet size 65 bends the rake and tells us his life story without being asked. It lasts five minutes: “Life is good. Only Harald Schmidt is stupid. ”The professional cynic Schmidt had made fun of the“ Fat Children of Landau ”in a skit that went on for months. He must have lived here once. After short trips to France, Belgium and Luxembourg, we reach the Eifel. Here the Nurburgring fever seems to have spread to most road users: lower, louder, wider, faster. Disguised racing drivers blow to the constant attack between idyllic vineyards. “Read the Bible – just like me,” it says on the Renauld Escape, which is overtaking me at 200 km / h – it certainly doesn’t say anything about the speed limit. Drizzle and fog make orientation difficult. At the regulars’ table in the fog-shrouded restaurant near Eupen, one is at a loss: “To Emmerich? Is that still in Germany? «Of course. But much further than expected. Only four hours later are we tired and happy again next to the Rhinkieker. The dirt from 3815 kilometers sticks to the motorcycles. An exciting week of adventure vacation on Germany’s country roads is behind us. Often close to the limit.

Info – seven days – 3815 kilometers – hard on the border

You have a week to spare, you want to ride a motorcycle, you are not familiar with foreign languages, long-distance destinations are frowned upon and you have already seen everything within Germany? The Germany tour in the border area is an alternative.

Regarding the motorcycle: The Honda Deauville used on the trip shone above all with its handiness, suitability for everyday use and touring-friendly detailed solutions. This includes the cladding, the integrated case system as well as the cardan and the uncomplicated, proven engine. On the country road stages around Germany, the average fuel consumption was around 4.7 liters / 100 km. Combined with the 19 liter tank, this resulted in a range of almost 400 kilometers. You can argue about its appearance, but if you can get used to it, the Deauville for 14270 Marks is an extremely travel-friendly equivalent. Accommodation: Hotel Auf der HeideLuitgardisstrasse 846446 Emmerich (Hoch-Elten) Telephone 02828 / 91420EZ: 105 Marks; Double room: 135 Marks Hotel FriesenhofNeumarktplatz 4-626316 Varel Telephone 04451/9250 Single room: 80 Marks; Double room: 120 Mark Hotel WillardSchweriner Strasse 923970 Wismar Telephone 03841/26120 Single room: 80 Mark; Double room: 120 MarkPension am SchlobBerliner Strasse 4815234 Frankfurt / OderTelephone 0335 / 6801841EZ: 95 Mark, double room: 120 MarkHotel GraderFreyung 3992660 NeustadtTelephone 09602 / 94180EZ: 75 Mark; Double room: 100 Mark Wildparkhotel 87645 Schwangau Telephone 08362/8425 Single room: 40 Mark; Double room: 74 Mark Hotel KurpfalzHorstschanze 876829 Landau Telephone 06341/4523 Single room: 87 Mark; DZ: 135 Mark Outermost approachable border points: * North: Municipality List, (District of North Friesland), Schleswig-Holstein East: Municipality of Deschka (Lower Silesian Upper Lusatia District), Saxony South: Municipality of Oberstdorf (District of Oberallgau), BavariaWest: Municipality of Selfkant (District of Heinsberg) North Rhine-WestphaliaDistances: between northernmost and southernmost point 876 km (beeline); between the westernmost and easternmost point 640 km (linear distance) Length of the border to neighboring countries: * Denmark 67 km The Netherlands 567 km Belgium 156 km Luxembourg 135 km France 448 km Switzerland 316 km Austria 816 km Czech Republic: 811 km Poland 442 km Total 3758 km * Source: Statistical yearbook 1998

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