On the Road Again!

When in hospital recently I had plenty of time to sit down with nothing to do, I had a bit of time to look at the maps etc to look at the two big trips we have this year. This one with the superb name of SEPOCT26! The other is SP26!! The idea behind this one is a trip that takes in Aulendorf, where Malibu Molly was born. I had thought of taking in Schloss Neuschwansteig and F üssen. After, I was thinking of going into Austria and the Gr ößglockner. At the moment the mapping software, despite the correct date being entered, can't map a direct route over the passes and into Italy. The same is happening with the Stelvio Pass!  

I have been mapping out the possible routes to take on the outward journey from the Shuttle arrival point in Coquelles near Calais. The Shuttle is already booked and so is the first night of the trip. That first night is at a campsite in the Ardennes in Belgium.   I am still looking beyond that and have looked at Bühl in the Black Forest for the second night. The idea for that is that it avoids French pay motorways and it takes us to an area we have never been to before.  Bühl looks like a good overnight spot and thee is a Camping-Car Park (CCP) aire on the outskirts of the town. As the first night is on a site we will have fill power etc in the batteries and the power bank.  The CCP aires all have power and clean water and waste facilities anyway. Awaycation 2025 - Map 1 The route that TomTom Camper Max through the online mapping tool has planned is for a campervan with the dimensions of Malibu Molly in programmed in.  It's also set to avoid toll roads. The nex...

I have been looking at places to go again. Apart from the Shuttle booking and one campsite for the first night we are away,  Ardennen Camping Bertix , I have not planned anything yet. This doesn't mean that over the next four months before we set off that this won't change!  Of course! The current idea is still basically what I had looked at before.  From the Ardennes through Luxembourg, where I hope they still have cheaper fuel (!) into Germany and the Black Forest with an overnight stay in Bühl.  It's close to  Baden Baden . The original plan was to do the Alsace Tour and this could be a good starting point for crossing into France near Strasbourg. Reggie is getting older and he is definitely not a towny kind of  dog and so many places may see us leaving him to sleep in the van whilst we venture out. He doesn't really like traffic all that much!! Admittedly, neither do I go out for a walk. Hopefully, once on the Alsace Tour there will be plenty of o...

It's that time again when I have started to look at where to go for the early Summer holiday.  Whereas I do like Spain I do prefer to go in the autumn away from school holidays and when the weather is less extreme, i.e. hot. We have toured France in the van a few times and we have been across many times on the motorcycle and in the car. After going to the Picos in Spain last May, I do like the idea of a mountain or two.  I was looking for ideas on the internet and came across a site that is essentially about tours in the Alps in France, and one of them is "Alsace".  Places and ideas for stops in a short distance between Strasbourg and Mulhouse. Essentially south along the lands bordering the Rhine, and the border with Germany. This site also has a tour called "Furka Pass".  Looking on the map currently Google Maps can't plot a route as many of the passes are snowed in. Changing the date to June works for some of the alpine passes! But oddly not all. More go...

I am still planning the Awaycation to France and Spain for this Autumn! So this is just an idea at the moment! As I was toying with the online route planner for the TomTom GO Camper Max aka Max  ( https://plan.tomtom.com/ )  for this trip, I picked up a GPX file I have of the Romantic Road in Germany. I found the GPX file online before we went to the Czech Invader Rally in 2022 and used part of it for the return journey on the bikes. Only part of it though. The online planner will also import GPX files as well as plan your own route from scratch. I did a bit of bodging using the map from Wikipedia to check that the GPX covered all bases. It didn't and I have to add a few. Link to Wiki map To set a start point I had to reverse the route in MyRouteApp and create a new view of the Romantic Route from north to south. Starting in Wurzburg and ending in Fussen - excuse the lack of accented letters, this keyboard doesn't do them! The start point is Calais.

The championships started tonight in Munich with the host nation, Germany, playing Scotland. There's always the question on whether England fans (therefore English) would support Scotland tonight. One of the online betting companies found in a poll that 61% of English would support Scotland, where only 35% of Scots would support England. That level of parochialism is pretty pathetic. So to reciprocate I am hoping Germany batter the Sweaties. Update Germany 5-1 Scotland  Even the Scotland goal was scored by the Germans!!! Shame eh? 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪

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...

Plus any bits I might like to buy when I call into Louis in Germany next year..... https://www.louis.eu/magazin/rund-ums-bike/bike-datenbank/suzuki-dl-1000-v-strom-l8-l9-euro-4/dd12/3564

The last time that England beat the Germans in the finals of a tournament was 1966!  We have turned them over previously but in qualification for World Cups or Euros. I watched the 1966 World Cup Final as a 10yo boy and it was one of the greatest games I had seen to that point. After all when you are a supporter of Oldham Athletic then it wasn't hard. Today though was something else.  Chances from both sides and one monumental cock up from Muller and a couple of excellent saves from Pickford from Havertz and it could have all gone the wrong way. But once Grealish came on it seemed to give Shaw more freedom and it was his cross that was turned in by Sterling.   Later his drive from the halfway line and pass to Grealish, led to another cross and Kane stooped to head in. Up to then Kane hasn't been convincing as our main goal scorer but has done enough now I think to keep his place. We'll enjoy a few beers tonight in celebration. Highlights -...

The World in Pictures - Day 6 I have been challenged by Neill Devall to post a picture, every day, for the next 10 days. The picture can be of anything you like but each picture must have been taken in a different country. You can tell us about the photo or not, as you wish but must at least specify the country. I'm not going to challenge anyone, but if friends want to take part so well and good! Germany

After being made redundant for the second time in 7 years I decided to re-train as an English teacher. Despite being obviously quite thick at school or rather crap at remembering stuff for exams, I managed to talk myself onto an accredited course at a large training centre in London.  As I wasn't already a teacher of some kind, and also didn't have at least an undergraduate degree, I had to prove that I could do the course in an interview. The CTEFLA course is very hard and intensive. I passed and armed with my qualification I began looking for jobs. Only a month but learning and teaching everyday was very hard.  I began to search the EFL ads in the Times Education Supplement and the Guardian newspapers.   I then ran into rampant ageism. At 37 I was "too old" to compete with younger, often graduates, who with no experience of life away from mummy and daddy would be better suited. And possibly cheaper.  I applied for loads of jobs across the UK and in EU Europe. ...

Late July 1993. Time to leave Zastávka and head for home. Tony and Heather were back with the kids. The plan to ride across to southern Germany for an overnight. I would continue north and they would split off and head south.  Outside the flat on Sportovní We headed west on the dálnice past Prague and into Germany.  The overnight stop was in a youth hostel in a castle in Bavaria near Ellwangen.  In those days in Bavaria anyone over 26yo couldn't stay in a YH unless they were part of a family group. We qualified and they had a family room and I got stuck in a dorm with three cyclists. After breakfast I rode all the way home tugging the trailer.  At the German border* In case of fuel problems I had two cans bungied to the rack on the trailer. In the end I didn't need to use either. This was the last long journey on the Kettle for a few years.  I started at University in Luton in late September. To earn a few quid I signed up with a local courier company.  Aft...

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...

With the "Indian Summer" not really going to happen the decision to take the car rather than the "Wild Hogs" bike trip is now a reality. Shame, but safety and comfort have to come first.  It should be comfortable in Neill's Avensis! Plus the car will give us room for a little shopping! Christmas is coming. Beer. We have decided to stay in the hotel right by the Veltins Arena. It's a short walk across the car-park and means we have a quick exit after they let us out! We booked two as soon as we knew the date of the game and as it was booking.com we could cancel right up to the day before. I might suggest that Neill takes the Arsenal stickers out of the car. You never know! The hotel is the Arena Hotel . The car is booked on the Shuttle for 0920 on Tuesday and back on the 1820 on Wednesday. Now which shirt shall I take for this game? The Legend's Number and my nom-de-plume

On the map it looks like a pretty straight line. Get off the train in France and then point the front wheel east and 260 miles later arrive at the hotel. Simples? And that is about it.  Had the Arsenal drawn Anderlecht from Brussels or Lille from er.. Lille, then maybe the journey would have been shorter, but Gelsenkirchen is defintely doable in maybe 4 hours? Some years ago, maybe even as long ago as the mid-eighties, we did a trip to the bike show at the Messe in Cologne.  There was me on my new 1000 Katana, Tony on a BMW R100RT and his mate Jim on another BMW.  "Three figure touring" Jim said.  Once up to three figures on the A3 it was the last I saw of either of them for an hour.  In the end I stopped at the side of the autobahn and they eventually caught me up!  It took as just over three hours from the Port at Calais to Cologne outskirts and another hour to get to the place we were staying in Leverkeusen. If we make the trip to Gelsenkirchen for th...

This Flickr album contains about 103 of the pix taken on the trip. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldevall/sets/72157625772506567/ Favourite beer Cerna Hora......

The YHA at Creglingen was relatively cheap for an en-suite twin room. Breakfast was the usual German youth hostel fare; rolls, cheese, ham and salami plus cereal and coffee. The coffee was some of the best all trip and I gorged three cups. The plan was to spend all day to meander to the Etap at Düren. And we did. The first part was along a bit more of the Romantische Strasse and then across the 'green' routes on the Michelin map towards the Rhein. First stop was Rüdesheim am Rhein. We have been here before, but on a river boat trip not by road. We had lunch. Here I learned that rindwurst is beef. Once again we had sausage and for the first time (and last!) chips. A walk round the tourist heart wasn't complete without another Käthe Wohlfahrt visit. In Rothenburg our beer was served in lidless steins and it kept it cooler longer, so I was on the lookout for one. In the end it was the afore mentioned shop that had them, and more surprisingly they were cheaper than any I had se...

  Colditz Castle , originally uploaded by InvictaMoto . This is the view from the back of the castle. As prisoners were marched from the station they would have approached across the river bridge on the far corner. More pictures:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldevall/sets/72157627313023949/

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...

Not all of this trip will be about eating and drinking and watching bike racing.  There will be local sights, folklore and culture!!! On the way home from Brno we have a stop in Prague . As it is really about 160 miles that day we have a stop in Prague . I have two cultural stops on the way back. The first at Žďár nad Sázavou to pay a visit to the Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk on Zelena hora Hill. This was built in the shape of a star in 1719. More info on the Church  - http://www.santini.cz/zdar-nad-sazavou-en.html The other place on the Brno-Prague route is the Church of Bones at Kutna Hora.  I first saw it in a travel book many years ago and then it was featured in the "Long Way Round" TV series with celeb actor luvvies Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. This is a bizarre church where skeletons of the long deceased are used as decorative materials!  It must be worth a half hour to visit. More info on Church of Bones - http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...