| Day 1 - Hechingen | Day 2 - Bamberg | Day 3 - Regensburg | Day 4 - Ulm | Day 5 - Home |
May 28 – June 1, 2026
Thursday
* the map links are not accurate for the actual route, as I wasn’t able to download the routes and am only guessing at the approximate roads we took on this trip.
It seems like ages since I’d been on a proper motorcycle trip, so when Dan said that he would be traveling for work at the end of May, I figured that it was the perfect opportunity to go on my own adventure with a motorcycle friend of mine.
Lorraine and I have known each other for years, but despite hanging out, we don’t do much riding together. She is a vastly more experienced rider than I am, having ridden such places as Siberia, South America, Khazakstan, Kyrgestan…you get the idea. We planned on five days and focused on neighboring Germany. This would be an interesting experiment to see just how well we travel together.
When planning this trip, Lorraine decided to keep the riding days short and our post-ride stops interesting. We each took responsibility for two nights’ accommodations, but I left the route-finding to her. The first step was to meet near Schluchsee, and from there we’d head to our destination: the non-descript town of Hechingen.
Europe had been experiencing a heatwave, with temperatures in the low 30°s in Basel, so it felt good to get out of the city and into the cooler, forested roads through the Schwarzwald. I tend to avoid this area for riding, mostly because so many bikers abuse the road system and annoy the locals. But today it was quiet and I didn’t have Ricky Racer chasing up my tailpipe.
Schwarzwald roads
Schwarzwald views
Watch your speed!
When old and new meet
Schluchsee was about equal distance for each of us, and after a happy reunion and a quick bite to eat, we were on our way!
Tittisee
A new wind turbine being installed on the distant hill
Green Germany
Someone’s working hard – and it isn’t me!
I had picked the Hotel Brielhof for one reason only: its proximity to Burg Hohenzollern. I first learned about this castle when I saw the movie “A Cure for Wellness” (which isn’t a great movie, by the way, so don’t take this as an endorsement). While the movie claimed to take place in Switzerland, I knew that there was no castle like this one in my country. It made sense that it was filmed in Germany – and it was conveniently close!
We were still 20 kilometers away when I caught the first glimpse of this imposing structure, balanced high on a distant hilltop. It was more majestic than I ever could have imagined! We had bought timed entry tickets online so that we could enter and tour the grounds. Due to not being entirely sure when we’d arrive, we booked the last possible entry. Lorraine thought that this was at 17:00, but it was actually 16:00. The current time was 15:51 – we checked into the hotel, quickly changed our clothes, and hopped back on the bikes to ride the 2 km to the shuttle bus parking lot.
First view of Hohenzollern Castle
Our hotel – and the autobahn
Clean and roomy room – with a view of the passing traffic
The Hohenzollern Castle has an amazing and long history. While there were various “rebuildings” of the castle, the current rendition was built between 1846 and 1867 “as a family memorial.” I highly suggested checking out the Wiki page for it – there is lots of good information in there!
Because I took a lot of photos of the castle, I’ll just pop them over here on a separate page:
Hohenzollern Castle pictures
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Welcome back to the story!
We were able to spend a couple of hours exploring before we returned to our hotel. Despite it being a Ruhetag (rest day) for the hotel’s kitchen, as guests of the hotel they would make us something. I decided to try the Maultasche, a Swabian specialty. It tasted pretty good and I was happy with my choice.
Riding back down from the shuttle bus parking lot
The dining room
Unfortunately for me I had developed a slight headache that I chalked up to not drinking enough water. I drank as much as I could and we made an early night of it. Or so I thought…
The headache never went away, and a couple of hours later my dinner came back to haunt me. My stomach didn’t like the Maultasche at all and rejected it completely. And since the hotel room was also directly next to the autobahn the sound of passing vehicles never stopped. It was an incredibly bad night for me, and even come morning I still felt “off”. What a terrible way to start a trip!