On the Road Again!

This trip hasn't been looked at since Christmas Day 2022. So I am having another look to see what we can do on this trip. The options are to stay once again in France or to go east and look at Germany and maybe Austria? The last blog was about going to Germany and maybe as far as Fussen and Neuschwanstein Castle. I have read a few reviews of the parking near the Castle and they aren't all that good. When I was there last June with my bike mates, the Castle had been sold out for ages to the many coach parties. Claire and I did part of the Romantic Road already and the bike lads and I did a bit of it last year on the way home. So where to go? This trip we will be on the P&O Ferry to Calais and arriving at around 12.25pm. We will of course have to do a shop and so we have about five hours or so to the first stop of the trip. I will be checking the ACSI site to see what there is available around that time and distance. Maybe limit the total distance to the Mosel and Rhein? Even...

It's almost a week since I got home and I have just got around to checking the exact mileage and calculating the overall fuel consumption rates, what we call mpg. A bit lazy I know.  The return trip from home to home worked out at 1767.3 miles on Trip 2. Mpg ranged from 44.09 to 54.52.  I haven't sorted them in date order only lowest to highest. But at a quick glance at dates the highest consumption was on the way out in the middle of the trip. Getting 54.52 mpg on a 2300cc cruiser is pretty decent I think. The cross country sections in Bavaria and Czech were frustrating in parts due to traffic, trucks in the main,  but apart from a few miles the surface was better than anything we have locally in Kent or anywhere in the UK. So much smooth tarmac perfectly made for bikes. And at moderate speeds the mpg went up. On the way back, one section, when we had to detour off S19 north of Pisek due to the Ždákovský most (bridge) being closed,  was cobbled. Not just by the edge...

The beer that I have got in for Christmas.  Most of it is the 99p offering from Aldi called "Bavaria". Despite its name it is actually from Holland. The others are two large Leffe Blonds and a few Shepherd-Neame  brews.

I blame Henry Cole, who's programme on the Travel Channel called "World''s Greatest Motorcycle Rides", for this amendment. The last programme we had on Sky+ was about the German Romantische Strasse . Places like Donauworth, Dinkelsbühl and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. So we will be in the car but the roads looked pretty open and traffic free when he did the ride. Claire is most interested in a visit to http://www.wohlfahrt.com/index.php?article_id=1&clang=1  in Rothenburg.  Depending on time and miles we may "do" one or maybe of the places. On the run back from Prague the plan was Heilbronn and the Sinsheim Museum. This has now changed to a tour of some ancient and umbombed Bavarian towns. Due to the vagaries of the Tom Tom mapping where Czech doesn't exist I can't actually map all the way from Prague!! So to check the distances I have to map from Waidhaus on the German side of the border!! As a result, I have changed the booking from DJH at Hei...