1985-1986 Trips, Europe and USA

(This page is under construction -- many more pictures than these are available but only some are scanned as of yet).

Central Park, New York NY, May 1985 -- 24 Hour Bike Marathon (formerly the Pepsi Challenge)

Europe 1985 (London-Amsterdam-Greece, June-July 1985)

I started by riding to Kennedy Airport and taking a plane to Gatwick Airport, spending a few days in London, enjoying the city and the 10:30PM sunset. From there I rode through Brittany and Belgium to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and then to Germany, Luxembourg and France.

• Entering Strasbourg, eastern France.
• Black Forest (Schwarzwald), western Germany (between Strasbourg and Freudenstadt).
• Balzers, Lichtenstein. One of the smallest countries in the world. Riding on the other side of the Rhine, I missed Vaduz and almost passed Liechtenstein altogether; I crossed the next bridge and in Balzers I chatted with these kids, who were Commodore (64?) computer enthusiasts. The lettering on the house behind them says "MILCHVERWERTUNGSGENOSSENSCHAFT".
• After Lichtenstein I ascended abruptly out of the Rhine Valley into the Alps and reached the highest point of the trip on the first day of summer, where eight inches (20.3 cm) of snow fell on the Flüela-Pass, elevation 2383 m (7818 ft.). It looked like a tundra up there. Here's the view in the other direction, looking at the hotel that is at the top.
• Südtirol in Austria was very enjoyable, a scenic forested area. Towards the eastern portion of this region, some people spoke Slovenian as well as German. The Yugoslav (today, Slovenian) border was drawing near. To cross from Austria into Slovenia I went over the Wurzen-Pass, or Korensko Sedlo as it is called on the other side. It was an exceptionally steep ascent, as the signs note. First there is one of many signs noting an 18-percent grade, and then when the steepest part approaches right around the bend there is a pentalingual sign saying to Put In First Gear, which I did. The sign is in German, English, French, Croatian and Serbian; the Serbian version is misspelled.

  After going through Slovenia and Croatia I got to Bosnia-Hercegovina. In 1985 it seemed like everyone there got along fine, regardless of ethnicity. People didn't say they were Serbian, Croatian or whatever; they said they were Yugoslav ("Ja sam Jugosloven"). The capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo, which hosted the 1980 Olympics, was still a beautiful city, before the region descended into war and chaos in the late 1980's.

Five views of Sarajevo:

1. Approaching the city from the west.
2. Another view from the west.
3. A hillside suburb.
4. High-rise apartment buildings.
5. Houses, high-rises and a tower.

Leaving Sarajevo I came across signs advertising the Kroz Jugoslaviju, or Tour de Yugoslavie; this is Yugoslavia's Tour de France. I didn't see or enter the race itself, but just rode the route.

Vishegrad was the next major town; here is the view approaching town, with the medieval bridge visible. From the bridge itself, a portrait of Ivo Andric' is visible; he is the author of the book The Bridge over the Drina that made this town and its bridge famous. There is also an old plaque on the bridge noting its history under the 16th-century Ottoman governor Mehmed Pasha, and the German occupation of the region during World War II.

Montenegro, or Crna Gora, is the region of Yugoslavia whose name means "black mountain", which does accurately describe some of the mountains there. More like dark green. From there I ascended the remote Chakor (Çakor) Pass towards the Kosova border, with the mountain looming ahead. Near the top, there was a mountain that was almost black. Suddenly a crowd of Albanian kids surged over the hillside, wanting me to take their picture. We exchanged addresses so I could mail the pictures when they were developed; we exchanged a few letters prior to the deterioration of the situation there in the late 1980's and 1990's. From there it was a short distance to the top of the mountain pass, elevation 1849 m (6066 ft.), the highest point since the Flüela Pass in the Alps, which is 1752 feet higher. This apparently marked the border with the (then) Autonomous Province of Kosovo (Kosova), because the next village I got to, Kuqishte, was Albanian, with the sign in Albanian and Serbo-Croatian. My map only had the Slavic names, which was unfortunate since the Albanian names are sometimes quite different, such as the next city, Pech, which is Peja in Albanian; it is at the end of the beautiful Rugovo Gorge. This area was also devastated during the 1998-1999 war, and refugees streamed along this route to escape into Montenegro.

I spent a night in Prizren, and being only 18 km. from the Albanian border, decided to see if I could get across. Approaching the border, I got close to the Drin River, which flows towards and through Albania and empties into the Adriatic Sea. Just before the border, it enters a large and beautiful valley, taking on the appearance it has across the border. This was only a short time after the death of Albania's late and brutal dictator, Enver Hoxha; the current ruler was Ramiz Alia, who was still insisting on maintaining a strict Communist government. The road to the border was almost deserted. Passing the last village before the border, Zhur, I came across the sign warning that the border is a half kilometer away. I could not get across, nor was I permitted to photograph the border crossing, so I contented myself with chatting with the border guard and looking across at the guard on the Albanian side.

So I returned to Prizren, and while considering whether to spend another night there, or go on to Skopje (in what is today called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), an Albanian Muslim, Daut Çejku, pulled up alongside me and spoke to me in perfect English. I was looking for an electrical store selling adapters for plugging devices with a flat plug into the recessed outlets which predominated here. He said "follow me", so I followed his bike up a valley into the hills. Something got lost in the translation, since he took me to a hydroelectric plant! But he also told me a lot about the history and politics of the place; he was as interested in talking about it as I was in learning about it. He showed great hospitality and invited me to his house where I met his family. He surprised me when he said he knew I tried to go to Albania earlier that day; but this was because a relative of his was waiting at the bus stop in Zhur when I passed by (and then came by in the other direction not long after, since I was not permitted to go across). Also, he had other relatives in Kukës, just across the border from Zhur on the Albanian side. We watched the news and weather broadcasted on Albanian TV, as well as Dynasty with Albanian subtitles, which was wildly popular among Kosovars and was broadcast locally within Kosova.

The next day I rode to Skopje and from there to Greece. (Pictures not yet scanned)

Boston 1986 (April 1986)

Click here for the Boston 1986 page.

Bear Mountain 1986