Free camping in France!
Stopped in at "Le camping au petit port" near Saint-Louis just before entering Switzerland - Stella looks at the guitar and says "play for us and you stay free"! It was great & Romik even shared a very unusual dinner - pasta with pork & moose!
So tonight I am in Switzerland where there is a little rain. Hopefully tomorrow will be OK. I am riding along the rivers and so avoiding the mountains, which are very tall indeed.

Well, I am now back at Roberto's house in Soufflenheim, France. I get a new front tire on Tuesday and off I go to see the two places I have not been yet - Switzerland & Italy, maybe a stop in Leichenstein. I have now added 26,000 KM (16,200 miles) to the Honda since I left here on May 10th. The picture is a very rough draft of the trip so far; a more accurate trip picture will come later. The US/EU overlay shows the scale.

It's Burning Man season! Check out this article about some of the structures found there in the past. I wish all my friends who will attend this year a great "burn". But since I am in Czechia today, I won't be there this year.
http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/architecture-of-burning-man/index.html
I didn't follow my Slovenian friend Tomo's advice about touring the country, but instead rode through and continued on my ride to the next places. The parts I saw were in fact quite beautiful. Austria was lovely on the first day, but the next was lost in a steady rain. As a result I rode through that (highways are much safer in rain) and by the time I got to Czechia it was done. It occurred to me that this was the first rain in 2 months, after a steady run of warm/hot sunny days. I guess it is the human way to become jaded about the good, thinking it will last forever & not appreciating it as well as we should - we need "rainy days" to remind us of how to do that. (There's a song in there somewhere...)

I have a picture from Croatia, this one on the ride into the mountains after leaving the coast. While there is nothing unique here, it was in fact a lovely spot to eat breakfast. I would have commented right about now that the water level seems a little low, but the Slovenian biker I met there looked down at it and said "lake actually has water in it; 4 years ago it was completely dry". So I have left Croatia and now find myself in yet another new country - Slovenia. It is starting to get cooler now and much more comfortable. However, it has been free of rain during the hot spell; cooler may also mean wetter...

Today's ride was awesome! I was on Croatian coast road 8, north of Zadar. Ranks as one of the prettiest rides in the world in my book - in part because there are huge islands just of the coast enhancing the view. I didn't take pictures (as usual) but you can see a few here...https://www.google.hr/search?client=tablet-android-att-us&biw=1280&bih=800&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ECmTWaTrFMKRaOLPl6AH&q=croatia+north+road+8&oq=croatia+north+road+8&gs_l=mobile-gws-img.3...120564.126911.0.129766.9.9.0.0.0.0.2632.7906.4-3j1j2j0j1j1.8.0....0...1.1j4.64.mobile-gws-img..5.0.0.QiuCfXxvx9U#imgrc=m0OZmhNSU5hDEM:

I am camping in a place tonight that not long ago, I might have said I wouldn't travel to. Bosnia was news & it wasn't good. However, it is a beautiful place with fine & friendly people. I am glad I have come here and it just goes to show how little we know of the world from what we have heard, particularly from that great distortion machine known as television. Add this to the memory box; another fine moment in life. Yesteday, I made my one stop in Montenegro (Budva), whose coast is quite crowded with tourist this time of year. I haven't been taking riding landscape pictures since I am usually settled in by the time the sun gets this low (another room, 102°F - I have learned to reserve those in the high season).

Greetings from Albania! A way-too-hot Albania, that is (102°F today). I am tonight updating this blog from an air-conditioned hotel in Durrës, after giving up on camping for a couple days until it cools down a little. I have never been in a country without a MacDonald's before, but this seems to be it. No KFC's, either. I have seen these and a few Burger Kings everywhere else. Another indication of a forgotten place is the Cellular I have - UK "3" which works everywhere in the EU (60 countries!) but not here!  I have discovered that Albanian drivers are no better than Greek drivers - these places have been the most dangerous for me to ride in since cars ignore all the rules, crowd me in my lane while passing and even pass me on the right-shoulder! Then there are the Albanian mountains! Switchbacks galore with some radii no more than a few feet. On top of that, I am trying to get around one of these and not hit oncoming cars half in my lane & then I must also avoid an unattended  mule in the curve munching on some grass on the edge.  Another adventure, I am afraid...but once again I made it!
P.S.; power out a few time, once for a while, but it comes back on. I wondered if it was going to be another hot night! I am reminded that even in the US/CAN, it sometimes does that on really heavy-use days.

I guess I picked a fine time to be in southern Europe! Good thing I am sticking to the beaches, but there is not much choice - this is where the campgrounds are...
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/world/lucifer-heat-wave-europe-1.4237714

Made it to the west coast of Greece yesterday after getting an oil change & new brakes in Kalamata (mountain roads hard on those) .  So I swam in the Mediterranean Sea this time, but more accurately it is the Ionian Sea. It has been above 100°F for days now & I am glad to be heading north. I have been camping along the sea(s) & taking a swim before setting up the tent and again after. However, I swore I wouldn't complain about heat after the Sweeden/Norway cold I experienced in July. So I looked up the picture of hail surrounding my tent taken on July 5th to remind me (it had been there for a couple hours after falling in the early morning). Next stop - Albania!

After checking out my EU trip, please visit my music site - ron-marcel.com. A link to my 2016 Australia trip can also be found there.

I stayed 2 nights at the campground near Volos, as I met some really interesting people there. I had a great time talking & playing music with a harmanica player and a Greek baglamas player. One of my new friends suggested a few places nearby that are famous as destinations in Greece. I did go to Makrinitsa, which is a small town in the foothills of Mt. Pelion. This picture of Volos was taken at about 2,000 ft elevation - there are more houses on the mountain behind me!