Motorcycles in April, Part II

A few weeks ago I started a yarn about my recent trip to Germany and Prague. When we left off I was just entering Wurzburg but wasn’t quite sure where my hotel was. Because I hadn’t yet figured out how to use the free international data feature on my phone (hint, it involved turning on roaming) I was stuck with either blindly riding around looking for the place or getting in range of some wireless and looking up my confirmation email.

As much as I wanted to ride around aimlessly in a strange, non-gridlike city, in the dark, looking for a hotel whose name I couldn’t remember, my better sense prevailed. I parked in downtown Wurzburg and walked around until I found a wireless signal. I had been in Wurzburg the previous summer, during a stopover on a Budapest to Amsterdam cruise, so I was a little bit familiar with the layout, but wow, what a contrast. No throngs of tourists, no blazing sun overhead. By the time I entered the city, after my many stops for hot beverages, most of the stores were closed up as well.

But, I did find a wireless signal and figured out what my hotel was called and where it was. I was glad I checked because it wasn’t in the town center. I would have ridden in circles all night and never found it. It turned out it was this place, a couple of miles in from the river.

So, I figured out the route and turned eastward. I was frozen again, and was looking forward to being inside, and getting some dinner. It had started to drizzle, very lightly, while I was looking for wireless. It picked up a bit as I rode to the hotel. Then, with the hotel in sight, when all I had left to do was make a left turn into their service road and then find the entrance to parking, I got stuck waiting for the turn light, about a minute too long. Suddenly the skies opened and dumped about 40 gallons of icy water right on my head.

I was so desperate to get out of the rain, that I banged an illegal u-turn, rode over the hotel’s decorative rock garden (trials skills for the win), up onto the sidewalk and parked right by the door. I then had to apologize to the desk clerk for dumping most of the 40 gallons of water on the floor as I took off my helmet and shrugged out of my jacket. You know that motorcycle chick thing where the woman takes off her helmet and all her luxuriant, perfectly styled hair comes cascading down? Yeah, that didn’t happen. The hair under my helmet was dry and flattened and the hair below my helmet was wet and flattened. No cascading occurred.

The hotel staff were very nice about all the water I left behind, and put me in a nice room on a high floor. Here was my view from the window – a new part of Wurzburg. The picture doesn’t quite capture it, but aren’t the clouds lovely?

So, my first day of adventure concluded with a nice hot shower, a smoked salmon burger (amazingly good) and the kind of sleep you get only after you have spent the last several hours teetering on the edge of hypothermia. Tune in next time to learn if I ever did ride the Romantischestrasse.