On the Road Again!

Another route filled out with prospective fuel stops.  This is liable to change and  have have shared it with my brother.  I suggested that we go down to Spain his way and come back mine.  This is the bare bones route, overnight hotels and the fuel stops.   There's plenty of time to see about some stops on the way to break up the journey and take a lunch or tourist type break! It is a holiday/vacation not simply a rubber and fuel burning exercise!

From the previous post I laid out two options, Plan A and Plan B. The latter was to leave after racing and stay in a hotel in Lleida. We have decided to do that. So I have amended the booking at the El Cid and removed the Sunday night and added another hotel instead. The new one in Lleida is the Ramon Berenguer IV. Quite budget but all of Lleida is cheaper in comparison to hotels nearer the Catalan coast.  The hotel has private parking at €7 a night for a car space and in my booking I asked for a space to be reserved.  Although there is street parking if the option to have secure parking is there, it's worth taking! That change saves us about 110 miles on the way home on Monday. The saving will allow us more time to thread our way through the Pyrenees at Pont de Reu and then into France.  We need to check the distances and overnight stops on the way upwards.

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...