in planning » A first Euro tour.

A European tour was high on the agenda for the RS when I bought it back in 2020, life has kind of stopped that happening however and it's taken until now to finally got the ferries booked.

Despite living within a fog horn sound of the DFDS port at North Shields, as per posts elsewhere the cost of that route has sent me south to the Hull Rotterdam route.

So I have 10 days to plan and a bit of pillion management to go in to that. Rough idea is to head to Reims for the first night and hop down the centre of France to the south coast before a day off the bike and a leisurely ride back. I want to keep it to about five hours a day on the bike preferably off the motorway. Although a couple of Motorway days to do big miles may have to happen. My Pillion does have a bit of experience and has done a couple of weekend tours, but this is going to be a bit of test for her to. It can't be a full on blast and will be more a relaxed pace to give at least the façade of a 'holiday.'

So a rough route per day is Rotterdam - Reims, Dijon, Vienne, Nimes followed by Nimes-Issoire, Orleans and Orleans - Brugges for a couple of evenings of eating rubbish and drinking beers. The idea of heading so far south does seem challenging for a relatively short tour, but the idea behind this is to try to get down to potentially better weather.

I've not done a lot of research about the roads yet. (D906 around Ales does look interesting though.) It's still early days and nothing is set in stone other than the dates for the boats. Initial plans for the high passes have been shelved because of time and also that the trip is end of September so weather may be an issue.

Any thoughts, ideas, recommendations or just pointers would be great to hear from those more seasoned travellers. Oh and I've sent off for the air quality certificate already.

Thanks Wessie, I'm going to look at all of those suggestions tonight. Sounds exactly what I'm looking for.

I have to admit the route back north via Orleans and the outskirts of Paris was the bit of the plan I was most unhappy with, but was an attempt not to retrace the southern journey.

Rather than maps, I find it has helped me over the years to have a small collection of travel books like Bikers' Europe by Simon Weir (who seems to have cornered the market on route books). There will also be a load of suggestions on the Ride website:-

https://www.ride.co.uk/routes

Just checked Amazon, and Bikers' Europe appears out of print but you can now get Europe for Bikers also by Simon Weir.

Yes I've used Mr Weir's books a lot for UK tours and have picked up the European book too. Think Wessie's got it sorted east of Reims on the way down is the way to go. I love a bit of military history to and there is loads in that area to visit. The Pillion already had Hotel Les Ducs on the radar as well. looks like its all coming together. Thanks everyone :)