As soon as we were back from the trip to Spain and France it was time to start looking for somewhere to go for our early summer trip next year.
We have toured France and Spain a few times on the motorcycle, car and motorhome.
I prefer Spain (cheaper cost of living and fuel!) and Claire likes France. She is pretty decent at speaking French whereas I last learned at school. That was 51 years ago!
So my thoughts have turned to further east, and to Germany. It's another country we have been to good number of times, but apart from wine festivals mostly driving through.
In 1986 we went across Germany on the A3 through Austris to visit a friend in Brno and then onwards to Hungary for the FIM Rally. In the late 80's, before the Wall came down, I did a few trips to the Suzuki Owners Club Czech Centre "Invader Rally" on the bike and that meant either the A3 route to Nuremburg or the A4 route via Dresden, both going via Prague.
In the car the route has been one of the two, A3 or A4! In 1992 we went in the Fiat Panda to Brno in February. I was made redundant from GrandMet just before Christmas and then had just finished a course in London to qualify to teach English as a Foreign Language but was struggling to get a job. Language schools wanting recent graduates who they assumed would work for peanuts rather than a 36yo! Who actually did work for peanuts. We "did" the Eiffel Mountains and then the A3 route.
In 2011 we went in the car, a Peugeot 207CC, to visit my former colleagues from the Gimnazium in Zastavka u Brna. This time we went the A4 route, with a stop over at the youth hostel in Colditz Castle for a couple of nights to visit the museum. On the way back through Austria and into Bavaria we did part of the Romantic Route.
The last time was in 2022 when we once again went on the bikes to the SOC's "Invader Rally". We did the Romantic Route on the way back from Fussen, and the Schwangau castles, to Rothenburg o.d. Tauber.
So where to this time? Germany is on the cards. But the Castles Road or "die Burgenstraße".
It's nigh on 500 miles from Mannheim to Bayreuth. I have downloaded the GPX files from the official site but need to find something to import them with, as MyRouteApp claims there are no waypoints! I have the map (in English) and the "old timer guide (in German) to work my way through.
The route does pass through Rothenburg o.d. T and so that might be a good point to split off and have another look at the Romantic Route. Claire hasn't been to the Neuschwanstein castles and that might be a fitting end to the outward journey.
By then the "Molly" will have morphed into "Malibu Molly"! That change alone should make parking easier. Once I have worked out a rough idea of stops I can start to get each day into MyRouteApp and then from there into the TomTom Camper Max.
There's plenty of time....
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