Eurotunnel or Ferry?

This is always the dilemma when you live near the "ports". Eurotunnel's "Le Shuttle" train to Calais or the ferry with P&O or DFDS.

I usually do a fare check and then decided that as I live about 5 miles from Eurotunnel and 15 from Dover, I choose Eurotunnel.

So with over 250 days until departure it may be a little early to look for fares. But. There's no harm in taking a look. 😊

The plan to leave UK around 0820 on the 25th May and returning 1820 on the 31st.

So today's prices:

• Eurotunnel - £90 return for a bike and rider.
• P&O - £88.50 return bike and rider
• DFDS - not as forward thinking and bookings can only be made up to Christmas!

At the moment it looks as though Eurotunnel wins. As long as the service is running on time and there are no delays the crossing is half the time of the ferry and for less than the price of a coffee more expensive.

There will always be the argument that on the ferry you can find a chair somewhere and have a rest after along ride, or somewhere to eat. On the Shuttle you can't.

As a regular user of the Shuttle (until Covid!!!!) I can be quite critical of their handling on the day of motorcycles and motorcyclists, but at both ends there are shops and restaurants if you want to eat and drink, if you want to. 

Maybe I need to get a drinks holder for Vera so I can carry my coffee with me to the waiting queue before departure? I think this deserves another 😉

Routes - Day 6 Part 2 - Mittelbau-Dora to DJH Hagen

Whilst I am in the area I thought about checking out some other sights.  

I had, with my brother Neill, a trip planned for the beginning of August 2021 on the path of the Dambusters with visits to the three main dams, Möhne, Eder and Sorpe.  Incorporating some of the crash sites and memorials to the aircrews of the downed Lancasters. That got scrapped due to Covid when Germany closed the borders to us from the UK.

All three dams are not that far off the A44 run between Dora and Hagen. So I have added a loop to visit all three.

It will be a long old day and plenty of sights to visit, but what else am I  going to do?

Routes - Day 7 - DJH Hagen to Home

Just a simple get up, have breakfast, pack up and go. A straight run to Eurotunnel and home.

MyRouteApp reckons on four and half hours, but we all know that Antwerp is a bottleneck and it can take up to an hour to thread through the traffic and the tunnels to get through it.  

Maybe I'll look to see if there is a way around Antwerp but not via Brussels as that too is a motorists' nightmare too.

So I reckon with fuel stops and lunch it will be more like six and a half. Plus of course that all important chocolate and beer shopping on Belgium!

Routes - Day 6 Part 1 - Schloss Colditz to Mittelbau-Dora

This is planned as the first stop for me. Once again, a revisit to a place that needs to be seen to remember the horrors of the Holocaust. This is technically not a death camp, but that doesn't mean that hundreds of captive workers died as slave labour for the Nazis.

Once on the motorway it is a quite run westwards from Colditz.

Routes - Day 5 Part 1 - Vernířovice to Schloss Colditz

The rally traditionally starts on Friday and ends on Sunday before lunchtime.  I have already booked an overnight stop at the Youth Hostel in Colditz Castle. I stayed there with Claire way back in 2011 and we had two nights and did the tour on the morning of the full day we were local. 

The tour takes a couple of hours and is in English, but seems at the moment only on Sundays and Mondays. See the website for more details. 

Having done the tour a decade ago I am not all that worried about doing it again.  The current route (below) takes me back towards Prague on pretty much the same route that I went on.

As I am not that bothered with the Colditz tour I will look at some alternative stops on the way. Dresden maybe?

Routes - Day 3 - Plzeň to Vernířovice

Is this the last update we shall see?  The trip isn't for about 8 months so much could change in that time. Hopefully the overnight stops  have been sorted once and for all.

All there is no do is maybe look out some more places to stop off along the route without making too much deviation.

The hotels I have booked are all on booking.com and apart from Plzeň are either doubles or twins. I don't expect to share with anyone in any case. All I will say ids that is because I not only snore badly, but have a few medical needs that might keep others awake.  Unless of course it is my brother Neill and then that's okay!

To use a phrase I hate, I have already "reached out" to Rosta about a stop off on the way past Hradec Králové to meet face to face for the first time since 2011.  We are so much older that we might recognise each other!

The basic route looks like this:

Plenty of time to add places to stop and be a tourist. 

In fact at one point the route passes less than a kilometre from the Polish border and so maybe I can "bag" Poland on this trip too? And there is a very interesting old church in the village of Boboszów just crying out to be visited. ;)

Routes - Day 2 Part 2 - Würzburg to Plzeň

A change of the second night hotel means this is all change. I had previously booked into a hotel in Königstein in der Oberpfalz but after considering the journey the next day to Vernířovice I decided to make Day 2 a little longer and cross into Czech.

The obvious route would be to stay on the motorway from Würzburg and kill off as many miles as possible.  After a search around booking.com I decided on the Hotel Plzeň in Plzeň. It looks very clean and very modern in the 145 photos on the booking.com page and from their own website.

I have only booked a single room and it works out at about £30 including breakfast. I have asked them about parking the bike.  Even if I have to pay €6 for secure parking that will be okay. 

I  can't remember stopping in Plzeň before for more than a few minutes.  I think once we stopped for petrol and then for lunch along the main road.  Long before the dalnice was built from the border towards Prague the ordinary silnice went right through the city centre. So this time it will be a first.

They have sent some voucher to use on entry.  It looks as though they expect visitors to use an electronic entry system and times mentioned are 2200-0600. I'll be emailing to check that there is a human on site in daylight hours!

So the current route, V4.1 looks like this:

There should be opportunities to stop off on the way somewhere scenic. 

Although not visible in the Würzburg end of the map above, I also added a stop at the Würzburg branch of Louis motorcycle shop.  

Nearby is another bike shop called Polo. On the map there are two waypoints superimposed. I think this company rose from the ashes of Hein Gericke, but maybe just coincidence. 

The local bikers are well serviced as it looks as both are J&S style shops.

The day's mileage is about 350, but a lot of it is on motorway between "sights".

Routes - Day 2 Part 1 - Kobern-Gondorf to Würzburg

Once I had decided to change the destination hotel for the end of Day 2 it meant the overall route had to change.

The first part from the hotel in Kobern-Gobern to Afschaffenburg and Würzburg hasn't changed. 

The same plan  as https://czechinvader2022.blogspot.com/2021/09/routes-day-2-kobern-gondorf-to.html

This is an all motorway route. With places to visit in Afschaffenburg and Würzburg, getting around quickly between them and the hotel is important.

Routes - Day 2 - Kobern-Gondorf to Königstein in der Oberpfalz

I have an "overall" route for each day  that I use as the basis for splitting the day up into chunks. day was ended up in three pieces to ensure that parts could be planned as "no highway" and others to include highways/motorways.

Day 2 "overall" is only 250 miles and so that could be knocked off in about four hours plus a fuel stop. But I want to get off the motorway and visit something.

I have split Day 2 into two pieces. The first to utilise the motorways to get to places I want to visit, and the second, off-motorway to take in what I hope if some countryside.

For part One I am currently investigating Pompejanum, a replica Roman villa with elaborate mosaics and ancient artworks, and Schloss Johannisburg a 17th-century Renaissance palace in Aschaffenburg. With the stops that should be about 3 hours after setting off from the hotel and it will be lunch time. 

Looking for "biker" style cafes seems to have become more difficult once you get into Bavaria. I posted a note on the "Stromtrooper" V-Strom forum in the Europe section in case someone knows of places but so far no response.

Searching about on Google and Google maps looks equally futile.  

Parking in cities is also a problem.  Usually there is street parking.

I emailed one of the parking garage operators in Würzburg and they replied to say that there are no spaces reserved for motorcycles at all. I have tried the Tourist Board as well. In desperation  I even posted the question on the Bavaria Tripadvisor Forum.

The Tourist Office in Würzburg have come up trumps.  They said that they didn't have a list of places themselves but suggested I try this link - https://www.kilometerfresser.eu/motorradparkplaetze-wuerzburg/ 

See http://invictamoto.blogspot.com/2021/09/kilometerfresser.html for more info on Kilometerfresser.

So after Würzburg and the Castle I might get a chance to visit the old town. The "off-motorway" route here takes me down from the Castle to the Main riverside and the old bridge over the river. There may be time and space to stop for the photo opportunity or a coffee!

The area around Königstein is full of caves and I have added a couple to the route that are near enough to the road so that the bike isn't left unattended for too long and the walk is about ten to fifteen minutes.

Now that I have mastered the changing the odometer to kms from miles, I need to see if I can easily change Fuelly in the same way. I am sure it can't be complicated.

Routes - Day 1 - Eurotunnel to Kobern-Gondorf

Whilst I am working from home and waiting for someone to log a call on the MIS Helpdesk,  I have turned my attention to places to visit on the way across from Calais Eurotunnel to Vernířovice. 

With a longish day from Eurotunnel to the first overnight stop in Kobern-Gondorf, a break other than at the motorway services might be nice.

When my brother, Neill,  plans our trips and those that he goes on every year with his mate Patrick, he includes fuel stops as Patrick's Shadow has a lot lower tank capacity than his BMW. I tend not to do that but maybe once I know what sort of mileage I can expect from Vera's tank, then I can add that into my planning.

Anyway, I digress.  Places to visit/stop on the way across Belgium and western Germany. Where to look? The internet I guess! Or maybe for POI's in MyRouteApp? Success.

I have started to split to overall routes into bite sized chunks, by day and parts of days.  

Day 1 Part 1 is Eurotunnel to the Biker Ranch Eifel near Simmerath.  This will be all on motorway into Germany and then exiting for Simmerath.

Depending on what time I get to France on Eurotunnel, the Biker Ranch should be about lunchtime. Then we reset TomTom with Part Two.

Day 1 Part 2 is a ride through the Eifel Naturpark from the Biker Ranch to Bad Münstereifel.  I chose this as it cuts off the corner that would be the motorway routes. Bad Münstereifel is also the twin town of Ashford in Kent near where I live.

Sadly, in the massive floods or "hochwasser" earlier in July '21 many buildings in the town centre were badly damaged. Hopefully things will have improved by May. 

It's not that far and I was sent the route by a friend in Germany as a "tasting" as he put it. I have driven in this area before in my old Fiat Panda!

According to Google Maps the total trip should take about 5 hours and is about 250 miles. Add on petrol stops and lunch at the Biker ranch that looks more like 6 hours at least.

Day 1 Part 3 takes us from Bad Münstereifel to the hotel in Kobern-Gondorf. Once again this is off motorway.

Waypoint 2 is another biker stop at the Haus Waldfrieden Biker-Treff.  Depending on what is consumed in Bad Münstereifel this looks like another watering hole for both ends.....

That adds another hour and a half and some more decent looking miles under the wheels.

Day 2?  Work in progress.