Visiting 40 countries in one year

2006 marked a big year for me, I took early retirement after 29 years with the same firm and it also marked 40 years of riding bikes. I decided to mark the occasion by visiting 40 countries on my bike this year.

My bike is an ’02 ST1300 bought used in 2005 with 40k on the clock. It now has 69k showing

I visited: France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, England, Wales, S. Ireland, N. Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Belgium, Monaco, Italy, San Marino, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Kosova, Montenegro, Bosnia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Spain & Andorra.

Miles Covered: 14,600 over 4 separate trips.

Best Moment: Choose from, seeing 140 on the speedo in Germany, bend-swinging through Romania and Bulgaria on excellently-surfaced & traffic-free roads, enjoying fabulous lake-side scenery in Norway or experiencing the Route Napoleon in France

Worst Moment : Choose from riding the length of Austria in pouring rain which turned to snow on 1st June! Riding through an un-surfaced road-tunnel in Bosnia at night or being held up for three hours at the Bulgaria-Turkey border which meant I had to ride into Istanbul in the dark.