Get your Kicks on Route 66

Every well laid plan has a goal. My goal is a tiny little village in Croatia named Jadrtovac (try saying that one ten times quickly). Should be an easy enough goal. Get on plane, catch a taxi, and 'poof' you're there. Way too easy to make a story worth reading about. Could you imagine that blog? It would be about me packing, maybe a little blurb about buy airline tickets, and perhaps a misadventure about bad English and a taxi driver with poor hygiene.That's it... done.

So let's clarify the goal:

My goal is a tiny little village in Croatia named Jadrtovac.

Now let's make it interesting and add some hurdles to achieving this goal:

1. I have to transform a rusted out piece of crap motorbike into something reliable enough to make a long journey.
2. I then have to ship the bike to Europe somehow.
3. I then must travel through at least 5 countries to get there.

OK that's a good set of guidelines to make this an interesting adventure. Especially when you add the fact that I know very little about internal combustion engines, I can barely speak English much less foreign languages, and I have a budget of $29.53 (thanks again to whomever is clicking on the ads) to get there (plane ticket not included in that). There that should make this down right impossible.

So five countries? I'm planning on flying into Frankfurt Germany and there is only two countries in between. I guess I'll have to take the long way. I was using google maps to try and put a rout together but once you get into the Eastern Bloc countries it doesn't work anymore. I got a great link from a European guy on my XJ Bikes forum it's called viaMichelin and it works great! It not only gives you directions throughout all Europe but it calculates how much gas (or as they say - petrol) will cost in many currencies and how much your road tolls will be. It even calculates the gas depending on whether you are driving a car or a motorcycle. How cool is that?

So here's a route I've been thinking about:

Frankfurt (Germany) to Prague (Czech) to Vienna (Austria) to Bratislava (Slovakia) to Budapest (Hungary) to Sarajevo (Bosnia) to Jadrtovac (Croatia)

Frankfurt to Budapest with Stops in Prague, Vienna, and Bratislava:



Time and distance
Time: 11h13 including 07h32 on motorways
Distance: 1066km including 865km on motorways
and 30km on scenic roads

Costs 115.10 USD
Toll costs: 0.00 USD
Petrol costs: 97.97 USD
Road tax cost: 17.13 USD

Then the next leg:



Time and distance
Time: 13h41 including 01h43 on motorways
Distance: 972km including 206km on motorways
and 30km on scenic roads

Costs 121.96 USD
Toll costs: 2.76 USD
Petrol costs: 107.20 USD
Road tax cost: 12.00 USD

So all in all about 2000km with a cost of $237!!!

I would love to hear some feedback about places you would see along the way or routes you might take. Please use the add comment links anytime you want. I truly welcome the feedback.

I will keep thinking about where I want to go and what I want to see but tomorrow's blog is going to be about some of the rules to driving a motorcycle in Europe.

Until then....

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