On the Road Again!

It looks as though my brother Neill is onboard for the trip. He has been planning routes of his own and the way out is roughly the same as mine until we get to the south west of France. His route angles off before mine and goes through the Túnel de Somport . It makes the route down slightly shorter but not much in it. It would be nice to go over the pass and ignore the tunnel but I don't think we have the time.  From Somport it is still about 4 hours to the hotel. I would like to keep my route back though. It would give some variation to the trip. We can look at other places to stop off on the way.

In blog-time it's not that long since I made the first post. I have been working on this in reality for the best part of two weeks though! So where are we at the moment? Day 1 - Shuttle or Ferry to Calais. Overnight - Tours Première Classe Day 2 - Tours to Bayonne. Overnight - Bayonne Première Classe Day 3 - Bayonne to Morella. Overnight - Morella El Cid Day 4 - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Morella. Overnight Morella El Cid Day 5 - Plan A - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Morella. Overnight Morella El Cid            - Plan B - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Lleida. Overnight TBC Day 6 - Lleida to Cahors. Overnight Cahors Campanile Day 7 - Cahors to Chartres. Overnight Chartres Hôtel Inn Design Resto Novo Day 8 - Chartres to Shuttle or Ferry - Overnight Home. There are a few ends to tie up but this looks like this could be the final plan. If the weather is still nice and warm, hot even, I might get to wear my bandana again!  Without anyone laughing! It...

Plan B already! Working with Google Maps and MyRouteApp in different windows I can see that with the road conditions crossing the Pyrenees, either by the suggested (shortest?) route and my alternative route via Andorra are going to be over ambitious. So Andorra is definitely dropped. Google Maps gives three options from Morella. Via the Bielsa Tunnel, the Somport Tunnel and via the N-232 to Pont de Reu and the border there. I am moving more towards a re-vamp of the plan as follows. Lleida is about 110 miles from the El Cid and about 75 miles from Motorland Aragón, Packing up my stuff at the hotel on the morning of race day and after the racing finishes mid-afternoon go from there to a hotel in Lleida. I've had a look and there quite a few at a very reasonable price! This would cut down the mileage on Monday by that 110 from the El Cid. From Lleida to the currently planned stop at Cahors is around 280 miles and six hours on the road. It takes the N-230 to the border which is a bridg...

On the way out I have planned the no toll route that basically is get to Rouen or nearby on the free sections of the motorways and then head across to join the N10 (or whatever it is numbered in each départmente) and head south or south-west.  What about coming back?  Do I want to tread the same path? Or seek out a new one. First step fire up MyRouteApp and select Google Maps. I am currently booked into the El Cid Hotel in Morella. It's about 43 miles from the circuit at Motorland Aragón.  What if I change the El Cid booking and pack my meagre belongings into my panniers on the Sunday morning and head to the track and then use that 43 miles to head off to a new hotel on the way home?   Something to ponder? For now I am assuming I will be solo on this trip. If my brother Neill decides to join me then it will halve the cost of the hotels, and I'll have to change the sleeping arrangements at each hotel!! So what does MyRouteApp come up with. Well. It depends on the...

I have been looking at the non-toll route to the El Cid hotel that will get me/us there on the Friday afternoon.  Having decided on Option 1, ride both ways, I now have to decide how long to take and how long Claire will suffer me being away.  I was looking at a week away or in reality 8 days - two overnights out, three at the GP end, and then two nights back.  If Neill comes along he might want to take longer and that will need some debate. I have booked the hotels in twin bedded rooms but if it is a solo trip, then I will see about changing to a double room and have a big bed just for me.... It's pretty much the same route I took way back in the 80's when I rode with my ex-partner to Biarritz for a week in a villa owned by a colleague at Reuters. We wanted to avoid the toll motorways and what was then called the N10 went all the way from the outskirts of Paris (where we got lost near Versailles) to the Spanish border. Back then I was on the Kettle aka Suzi Triplo. I hav...

As you can imagine with a Covid restricted crowd as big as 20000 in 2021 and a circuit basically built in the middle of nowhere, there is pressure on all accommodation and on hotels! In non COVID years the crowd is even bigger. Last weekend they estimated that there were 75000 at Valencia for the final GP of the year and to see Valentino Rossi's last GP. If you like to camp then that's okay with me. See you another time. I've been a hotel or b&b only man for about 22 years. Having camped at GP events before I know first-hand there's not a lot of sleep to be had! Looking on booking.com wasn't that good either. I use them as they offer easy accessible information on hotels and also you can book with "free cancellation" and most often no prepayment. Many of the hotels come up as full or sold out.  Gradually you get further and further from Alcañiz and the circuit itself that is to the north-west of the town.  At the same time, the hotels that are coming ...