E.33 Europe 2025 Baden Baden Germany to Amsterdam, Netherlands, via Rhein – Main and Walbeck. TwoUp BMW R1250 GSA Motorcycle Travel. Just two Aussies living their bucket list dreams
Okay, here we are. Uh it is the morning of Wednesday, 6th of August, I think and uh and we’re leaving Ben this morning and we’re heading to Tremur. We think we’re going to camp, but we haven’t been able to get a response from the campsite. So, if we can’t camp, well, we’ll just find somewhere else to stay. Find somewhere else and go a bit further down the road. We weren’t traveling very far today because we were camping. But anyway, uh from here on end, we got to end up in Amsterdam on Friday afternoon. Mhm. And uh the road’s pretty well straight. So you’ll get a bit of a break from the filament. And I guess because because the movie director probably won’t use the camera. She’ll say too boring. Too boring. Anyway, I’ve spoken too much again. 13 now. We’ve had a lovely two days in Ben. And it’s a spa city. It’s in one of the top European spa cities, I believe. So it’s been really, really nice. And Murray even said he’d like to come back here. First impressions weren’t great, but second impressions is pretty nice. So very nice place. Ben, Ben, Baden, Baden, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Anyway, so that’s it. Now it’s time to hit the road. Get out there to get the motorbike out of me park. I’m in. Cheers for now. Okay. Bye. We’re about 10 minutes out of Baden Baden and road that the GPS or the some something or other has taken us on is very small little but peak and u and a little slow and u this is the first like 100% fine day that I’ve had in about a week and a half say two weeks nearly and so there’s been lots of People out mowing the lawns and mowing the sides of the road. Nice smell of fresh cut grass. And I guess now we’re in just an outer suburb of bad batt. I haven’t filmed very much because it has been pretty boring. Um just going through some like a garden area and looks like lettuce is growing or baby ones. I’ve seen a lot of corn or maze. Not sure which is which. And uh one of the observations that I’ve made on the journey so far is there are a lot of bikes uh tracks. We’ve seen hardly any cyclists on the road. Uh we’ve been in uh relatively heavy traffic for uh first time in a while. And uh this on the camera on the left is one of the um covered bridges from the bear thing over happening over there. Yeah. Aren’t they amazing? It’s closed. Kio bush. Look at that church. Okay, we’re going to do lefty, lefty, righty, righty. Lefty left is okay. Righty righty’s no good. Lefty left is still okay. No. Oh, he’s got a giveway. Snit on Steakhouse. That one. This is quite nice. Probably the nicest place we’ve been through today. There’s a river down there which you can’t see through the trees. Can’t see through the trees. Beautiful trees in the street. Yeah. This is the nicest place we’ve driven through today. Yeah. Kitchen. Yep. And we’ve also um one of the things I’ve noticed a little bit today is lots of sunflowers growing. Been through quite a few paddics of sunflowers. Always pretty to look at. Difficult to film when you whizzing past. We go. I don’t know if you picked them up on the film, but there’s some stalks out there. A whole lot of them. The fields just being plowed as we speak. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously finding good stuff to eat. I think they’ve replaced the stalks of grass with stalks of birds. Ah, very funny. Hilarious. Yeah. Still got it. Yeah, still got it. We did see some um on another day, but they were too far away to capture on the film. Not sure how those ones will look, but there was quite a region of Germany that we went through that there was lots of stalk statues, sculptures, wooden pictures of them. So, must be stalk country. Must be stalk country. Must uh must be where they come to rest when they’re not delivering babies. Yeah, it must be. Oh, there stalks flying around above us. They look like a big bin chicken, don’t they? Oh, look at them all there. Wow. Yeah, they’re an oversized bin chicken. Just had a slight detour for a road works and I think now we’ve been a young man helped us and I think now um I know we kind of might know what the signs mean. So, look at that church. Wow. Wow. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Go. Here comes the boat. Yeah, this one’s going with the current, so it’s hooking down the river. Going a bit faster. You might got to go car too. Just keep coming. We don’t know where we are. I will take a photo in a minute so that we can try and figure it out. But these two old bridges just it’s not too bad. Hey, I said they look pretty cool. Yeah, just going to say we’ve been stuck with road closures and no clear detour available. Anyhow, we’ve been down we’ve been down little side streets. We’ve been through car parks. Anyhow, be swearing at the GPS again. Yep. Don’t normally film big cities, towns, but the houses in this place are quite special. Beautiful treelined road and uh each side of this road behind the trees is just stunning. I think they’re homes. Really nice. Some of the buildings actually remind me of Paris. We’ve just been through the down part downtown part of this place where that is. Yeah. And they’re heading what you say 37 km on this road. Yeah. and through more road works, but at least the road was open. It was just a bit slow going through. I don’t know if I mentioned this morning earlier that we’re going to stay in a castle tonight. So, we’ve got one more night before we get to Amsterdam. And Murray found this castle. So, looks good. Fingers crossed that it will be good after after the last hour and a half’s riding. Yes. It’s just about time, I think, to find somewhere to stop for lunch, is it? Or not quite. Yeah, we decided uh at 11:00 that we should stop at 12:00 for lunch and we’ve done 10 km in the last hour. Crazy stuff. You got to laugh. There you go. You didn’t laugh, you’d be crying. I did that earlier. Could Walbeck and I think we’re not far from our castle. And over behind these houses, if we get another glimpse, is a looks like a traditional Dutch windmill. The area that we’ve just ridden through had acres and acres and acres of glass houses. So, we’re not going to get to see it. We might have to come take a photo of it when we leave tomorrow. It is this way as well. Here we go. Look at that. Well, outside appearances are very very nice. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. This morning we’re leaving Wellbeck. We had booked to stay in a castle last night and hate to say but it was a little disappointing. The room was ordinary. The uh beer garden only opens Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So, we’re a day early. Yep. But the upside was we found a Michelin restaurant downtown and we had a really lovely meal, didn’t we, Darren? We sure did. In fact, you said that it was possibly one of the best meals you’ve had since you’ve been here. I sure did. And um uh what else I was going to say? There was limited options. We could have had gelati, which of course we had after dinner. We could have had pizza or we could have gone into a place that had schnitle was the only thing that I recognized in the cabinet. The rest was like sausagey type things which wasn’t particularly appealing. So we as we were about to go back to the unappealing one who found the nice one. So run by a nice or a couple maybe nice chef and uh it was really really nice night. So today we’re heading to Amsterdam and we’ve got two nights there and uh then the ferry across to the UK. So sign off for now. Did you want to add anything? Um no, we’ve woken up with our usual GPS waves again today and uh I can’t get my route app to load onto the thing for some strange reason. I can’t we technology is beyond me. I one thing I would like to add that was yesterday was a really long day. So it was we had road works, no detour signage. It was not the best traveling day yesterday. Probably one of the worst we’ve had since well ever I think as far as time goes. Speed limits 100 70 30 50 all over the place. So anyhow today Murray has turned on what have you turned on? Highways. Highways today. Yeah. Toll roads are still off, but highways are on today. So, it’s apparently only going to take 2 hours to get to Amsterdam. Yeah. And we had a big breakfast, so we shouldn’t need to stop for lunch. So, the restaurant was good at the hotel, wasn’t it? The breakfast was good. Yeah. Not bad. And I just would like to add that when we got to our destination last night, only one of us was crankier than the other. Now, I’m not going to hint as to who that may have been, but she did not look happy. Okay. Okay. I had sore butt, sore neck. Uh what else was wrong with me? Everything. Everything achd yesterday. Yeah, it was 7 hours, 300 km. M. So, we’ve been looking for these very fancy watering systems. There’s none actually spread out. They are. They are. Yeah. Very, very fancy. Never seen anything like that before. We believe we’ve crossed the border into the Netherlands and we’re on a highway which the speed back a little further back was 120 km an hour and we don’t think it’s a toll road or we hope that it’s not a toll road but at back down to 100 but even at 120 we were being overtaken. No. Yes. Going at 120 km after 2 months is about 70. It’s very scary. Lots of traffic. Oh yeah. This is a very impressive impressive bridge that we’re going across. It’s looks so simple. Yeah. Must be one of the sway ones. Can’t see what’s on the other side. I was giving us water. Yeah, I can see water in the dash. Oh, yeah. I can see water over there. On my left, not on my right. Very impressive. It’s the uh actually the second windmill that we’ve seen some since we’ve been on this road and we’re on the outskirts of Amsterdam. We had booked into the Amsterdam airport roamada so that Murray didn’t have to navigate downtown Amsterdam on the bike. Our room was ready early so we dumped the bags and headed out. The quickest way to downtown was by shuttle to the airport and then train. It probably wasn’t the cheapest option, though. We saw a discount price for a canal cruise, so took that. In hindsight, we should have chosen something else. Too many people, and it was difficult to get good photos without reflections. We had a very ordinary dinner and a good walk around, arriving back to the hotel just before 11:00 p.m. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. On Saturday, we had booked to do a bus trip to check out the windmills, cheese making, clog making, and then to Eden for a look around. Uh, all in all, we enjoyed Amsterdam, but did find that it was quite a dirty city. So, it’s pretty windy. built in 1672. Still working. And over here we’ve got some more. What they told us is at the peak there was 30,000 windmills here. Now there’s only a thousand left. And what a little tourist hub it is. But it’s pretty good. So here we are at a working windmill in outside of Amsterdam. And what we can see up there’s turning cogs. Got a bit higher in the windmill up into the working it all. As I said, 1672 technology still going. That’s a bit sneak around. Do some more parts. Sister’s going straight up on my head. Looks like another unbelievable on the other side. That’s the can Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. See? the front of the shoe. Wow. Really proud of myself. And now for the back, of course. So for the ladies, you can use the shoe on your husband. Yeah. Why don’t you laugh right now? I swear to God, one time only use. He will listen the next time without arguing. And if you don’t believe me, I can call my dad. For the men, if you want to protect yourself, I have the solution. Give her some flowers and some chocolate. She’ll be happy for 10 minutes and then angry the whole day. I learned it from my mom. All right. Someone is still laughing. And the back of the shoe. You sound like my dead grandma. So the shoe is almost ready, but as you know, it’s still soaking wet. So for the next step, of course, we need to dry for at least two weeks. And then they are ready. We can send them, paint them, and of course, we can’t forget, we can throw it at your husband’s head. Most importantly, guys, in a few seconds, you can go inside of the store and try the shoes out by yourself. Please don’t forget to try them out. And please remember, always always a little bit of space behind your heel. We advise a finger, your finger, not my finger. Otherwise, it’s too tight. You can get a lot of feet pain and then you can get a headache. You come to me and you give me a headache and you already gave me one. Thank you very much for your attention, guys. You can go this way. Hey