On the Road Again!

Day 5 - Dali Day Well, it was supposed to be Dali Day. We got up relatively early and breakfasted and then the battle of the GPS' started with both of us trying to make sure our GPS had the best route and could find the centre of Figueres! I led (as usual!) and we opted for a motorway run down into Spain, have the usual coffee break and then go into the Dali Museum. Part 1 accomplished but part two... err never happened. So for the second time we saw the outside and didn't get in. Last time back in 2001 it was closed for lunch, this time the queue to get in was about 300 yards and moving at about a yard every five minutes. It was over 90 degrees in the  Fahrenheit scale and the queue wasn't in the shade at all... Dali Museum & Theatre (N42.16096 E2.57587) Dali Theatre So after a drink outside a bar we buggered off on the next leg of the trip that would take us to Rosas/Roses for lunch and then the coast road back to France and then home. The GPS was set and off we went,...

Day 1 - Motorail Despite scare stories that P&O were charging a supplement on anyone arriving for the wrong boat, either early or late, we had no problems getting an earlier crossing with Steve and Bobby. The mini-group for this tour was Claire and myself on the GS, and Steve and Bobby (S&B) on the FJR1300. Although a Yamaha (!), I have read quite a bit on how this bike is a perfect tourer having luggage capacity as well as the means to get a shift on with its R1 derived engine. Steve has added a Melvyn seat and has changed the OEM panniers for larger Kappa items fitted with a QD kit to let him take it all off the bike, frames as well. Plus a PDA with Tom-Tom GPS software and their intercom. As for our side of things, I had the usual three box BMW luggage and Touratech tank bag. My only new toy was the Quest GPS I bought in June and that I was still getting to terms with. We had nicknamed her "Doris", but the voice she emits is more Joanna Lumley than Barbara Windsor,...

The plan for the run back was to set off after breakfast and head towards the Afsluitsdijk and then south past Amsterdam, rejoining the route up around Utrecht. After petrol and a detour around Sneek we eventually found the top of the dijk. The reason for the detour was one of mapping and roadworks. I took a wrong turn at a newish roundabout that was shown on the Garmin but not with as many of the exits as exist now. In the end our position was shown with our marker in the middle of a blank area. After a few detours we got back to the A7 and headed off without any further mishap. The first stop to have a look and take a drink at Breezanddijk. Amazingly here, less than halfway across the dyke was a caravan park to go with the small harbours housing a load of pleasure boats. From that point it was all plain sailing (as it were) via the Amsterdam ring, then Utrecht, Breda, Antwerp and Gent. We had a few stops for petrol and water intake arriving back at Calais with an hour or ...

Slight change to the plans for Italy . I saw an offer in the London Evening Standard for www.hotels.com and an extra discount they were offering. On the site they had the hotel we were already booked in at a cheaper price before the special offer, that when calculated came out at £104 less than both www.booking.com and www.activehotels.com . This is the biggest expense we have on the trip. In fact it amounts to about 55% of the total cost. Usually when we have a flying holiday it is to a timeshare where the accommodation cost is capped at £115 through RCI. As we planned this before the credit crunch hit we are committed to going. Everything has been paid for so to not go now will cost us dearly. We’ll just have to eat cheaply! Just under 4 weeks to go.

For Claire’s birthday we had a night in a hotel in London and wandered about like tourists all day Saturday. It was nice to get out in a good day and walk around the city of my birth and see it as a tourist sees it. The hotel we chose was the Hilton Docklands. We booked it on the 50% January sales and it came out at a tad over £60 with tax, inc breakfast. We arrived around 11am and parked the car in the car-park outside reception and booked in. Then as rooms weren’t available we set off for the day in London. With the Jubilee Line out of action (or so we were told) we made use of the local buses to get into town. I had bought Claire and Oyster as I have a travelcard for the Tubes and buses. It worked pretty well apart from charging it with £5 wasn’t enough as the travelcard equivalent on Oyster was more than that! On the way up we sussed the C10 and then into London. Our first port of call was Hays Wharf and then along to Tower Bridge and a circuit back to Monument via the...

The plan was to get away for a few days over the May Half Term holiday to Italy, and more specifically to Naples, to visit Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. Claire has been before and I have never been south of Rome . And then only once. Unfortunately, airfares were a bit on the high side as it is a kid’s holiday and so we had to cast about for dates where the weather would be t-shirts and so earlier in May was chosen. Flights with Easyjet were pretty reasonable outside Bank Holidays and so I booked and then checked on a few websites to get a hotel around Sorrento . In the end Active Hotels came up with the Casale Antonietta hotel. It looks pretty good and has car parking and free wifi! The car park will come in useful as I have booked a car. The airport to hotel transfers were pretty expensive although the train system looks pretty good, but I like the freedom of my own transport. We can always use the trains if need be. Searching the net came up with a FIAT Panda from Opodo with Hertz...

Chateau de Val , originally uploaded by Invicta Moto . I first saw a picture like this back in the 60's when my grandfather was given a calendar on it as a bit of a laugh. After that we joined in the joke and said it was our old ancestral home. Of course it's not!

Planning Part 2! Looking at places to go within easy reach of the gîte. Oradour sur Glane. Since I read about it many years ago I have wanted to go. It's only about 20 miles from where we will be staying. Chateau de Val. Medieval chateau with pepper-pot towers that used to command a valley above the Dordogne near to Bort les Orgues. Now more scenic as they flooded the valley with a dam and it now sits on a small promontory above the water line. Given its name we used to joke it was the only family castle.... Well, that's two places for me. Claire would like to go to Limoges which even nearer and I am certain that pottery will come into it somewhere! Links Oradour sur Glane - http://www.oradour.info/ Chateau de Val - http://www.chateau-de-val.com/english.htm

From the ashes of the Hungary trip, embers still glowing in the dark, we have decided to go away still. After all leave has been booked at work and by August we’ll need another holiday! Part One - Accommodation To keep the costs down we had a look on a few sites for gîtes, firstly the Gîtes de France site, but hardly anything leaped off the page and said “book me”, or rather to rephrase, nothing leaped of the page and said “book me”, at a price I could afford or wanted to think about paying. Then someone pointed us at another site, Holiday Lets and this led to Holiday Lettings (links at foot of page) and then I spent a few hours over a couple of evenings searching and searching. A small apartment in Collioure on the Mediterranean coast took our fancy, but it was a bit on the expensive side and we “shortlisted” it for later. More searching and even in Spain eventually brought us to a gîte in the Limousin. Good price for a week and available. Like most of the owners on the two websites, ...

Oh yes, planning has to start nice for a trip, and early to fill those long and boring days sitting on the train on the way to and from work! I thought I might go to Czech and take part in the 25th Anniversary of the Czech Centre of the SOC, but Spain has always beckoned... The plan, such as it is, is to go on the long ferry, either Portsmouth/Bilbao or Plymouth/Santander at the end of May covering the Bank Holiday and the school half term. Working in "education" means that it is easier to get a more expensive holiday for that period! I posted a note on UKGSer's forum to get opinions of the boats and it was pretty much split down the middle. The problem for me is spending two nights on the P&O boat to Bilbao. On the plus side, Pompey is easier to get to than Plymouth! Places to go? I'd like to take Claire to see the aqueduct at Segovia, the walls of Avilá and the museums of Madrid, like the Prado, the Santiago Bernabeu..... the royal palace... ...

Valencia I decided to park in an underground car park opposite the El Corte Ingles store. It makes it much easier when you can follow their signs as well to find where you have left the car! Getting into the city was straight forward with the GPS doing all the hard work for us, Although she did take us past the Valencia CF football ground twice as we had a problem deciphering the directions she was giving us. The first pic I took was of the bullring at the end of Carrer Colon. Next door is the railway station but its ornate and early Edwardian facade was very hard to get a decent angle on with all the damned traffic! From here it was a right turn towards the similarly ornate and hard to photograph Correos and then the Town Hall. This is easier to photograph,m even if the guide book is misleading when it says the city's coat of arms is left aloft by two naked females. Not quite what I had expected. The bat is there above the shield as this is in memory of the fact that a bat is sup...

Day 4 - A day in the mountains. First stop to check we were on the right track was just outside Cabanes, just 14km from the coast. Another "Spanish" village with loads of building of flats on the outskirts, and some at crazy prices. Crazy LOW! Two bed and two bathrooms with underground parking for €93000?! On the outskirts they have rescued a roman archway and it is now sited in the middle of a new roundabout. It looks as though it could be quite new! From Cabanes the GPS took us further inland and after a short distance we began to get cold feet about the lack of fuel in the tank. The Panda seems to have quite a small fuel tank and we couldn't find a local petrol station. So we opted to return to the coast, to one of the many stations that line the N340 towards Benicarlo and then tank up, returning across the mountains towards Morella. Once we had a full tank we let the GPS take us off the N340 and into the mountains. Even up here there is evidence of building with roads...

Day 3 As it was Monday we thought that most of the museums etc might be closed as they are in France and so we set off for Castelló (Castellon in Castillian Spanish) to have a look around and maybe have a look in the El Corte Ingles store. In the end the morning took on an altogether more exciting turn as it was the first day of the Fete of Saint Magdalene. All the shops were shut and the people were out in their thousands in the street, many in traditional dress and many more taking part in a carnival procession through the streets. We stopped to look and Claire expended a few megabytes on hard drive from the borrowed video camera. I took a few pics of the processions and it reminded me of the carnivals we used to have when I was a kid in Oldham and more recently in Congleton. Of course as soon as we saw the "Churros and Chocolate" stall we had to stop and have some. Churros is like having a long extruded doughnut and the chocolate is rich and very thick, you can either dunk...

Day 1 Luckily we set off with plenty of time built in to the trip across to Gatwick. Not that I was expecting too many hold-ups on the way, but you never know. In the end it was the car-park that was the stumbling block. I booked the same place we always use, Courtlands, just off the airport itself. Sadly, when we arrived the entrances were all closed up and it was deserted. A quick phone call revealed they had merged with a neighbouring place and the other entrance was in use. Actually easier to find off the roundabout not far from the South Terminal building. Flight no problems. Easyjet very good and as we were there so early we got to hand in the luggage very early and earn ourselves a chance to get on theplane first. It is all very civilised at Gatwick, not the mad and unseemly scrum that you often get at the Spanish end! Car hire with http://www.carjet.com/ no problems as usual. At Valencia we had booked the cheapest car available and expected a Ka but in the end got a four do...

Holiday here soon! Oropesa del Mar

Another night planned and booked. I have decided to look elsewhere, as the Youth Hostel in Zadar couldn't (or rather wouldn't) commit to letting us have a double room. Like I said in Croatia (1) going to somewhere with islands and not going on one would be a mistake. So I have booked a place on the Island of Pag. Not because Pag are my three forename initials! ;) After some searching and emails I have booked Pension Gligora in Mandre on the west of the Island. Prices in Croatia for decent clean accommodation seems to be on the rise and at €40 a night B&B, it isn't expensive by western European standards. On the website it looks very clean. Somewhere to get to reasonably early from Split and a bit of R&R. ViaMichelin gives a distance of 129 miles but that looks the motorway route rather than the coast road. The next day will be a longer drag up to Ljubjana for our last night of the holiday, with the exception of the train to Germany. Okay, according to ViaMichelin i...

The fourth and last of the eastern European states we will visit next year is Slovenia. I have been before, but not for very long, maybe two visits and a total of less than an hour, maybe as much as two hours! The first time in 1986 when we travelled across the top of Istria to Trieste from Rijeka and the second in 1999 when Steve Hazlehurst and I dipped a toe in the country in the extreme northwest to "bag" the country as we rode northwards from a day trip to Venice to the Wassbüffel Treffen in Austria. So maybe my first estimate of an hour was accurate after all. In 2008 we have an overnight at the highly recommended Alibi Rooms Hostel in the city centre at Ljubjana. This is the last full day on the road to get to Ljubjana and one of the longest of Week 2. Setting off from the Island of Pag that morning. It doesn't look far on the motorways but we'll have to see. I am hoping for a stop off in Postojna caves on the way, at east for a look even if there isn't ti...