In Conclusion

Although the trip was 2 weeks it feels to have been a lot longer. It is nice, however, just to have to unpack for once.

We did roughly 2,500 miles excluding the ferries.

Highlights:

• Castellane (location and hotel)
• The Grand Hotel - Sete
• The restaurant in Andermatt
• Bad Oberdorf (easy call as this is our home from home)
• All the route apart from blind hairpins and German Autobahns.

Room for Improvement:

• Sete - didn't realise it would be so touristy. I expected nice sea food restaurants not a mass of all you can eat for €20 establishments.
• Val D'Isere - if it closes for summer it should say so.
• Andermatt - currently under reconstruction.
• German autobahns - unbelievable road works!

Thanks go to all those who contributed to the trip with route and accommodation suggestions (oh - that will be me...), my pillion photographer, and last but by no means least the bike which lugged us and our copious luggage across Europe without missing a beat.

Thanks for reading. I hope it was worth it (even for the one view the blog has had from Iran!).

The tour + Le Tour

The timing of our tour purposefully clashes with the start of the Tour de France as it is good at the end of a days ride to check in and watch the end of the days stage - or, as in some cases after long days this year, the highlights in the evening!

Whilst Cavendish looks to be saved for the Olympics it is great to see Wiggins in yellow. It's just disappointing that the story for cycling still relates to doping as opposed to the effort made by Team Sky to conquer the Tour.

The route across the South Coast of France and in the Pyrenees actually retraces some of our route and so I will be looking forward to relieving parts of our trip.

Mc Surfing

The hotel WIFI was too poor to mess around with photos so I'm taking advantage of Ronald's hospitality.

Guess which country we are in?

Do the bikes give it away? This one hasn't moved for a while!

Killing time now with an hour to go before we can board our ferry home from Rotterdam to Hull.

The Moselle (German Mosel) River

Our destination for the evening was Klotten near Cochem, right on the side of the river.

I specifically asked for a river view. What I didn't know was the main railway line also runs along this part of the river i.e. no open windows if you want to sleep.

The river hosts some big boats,

The hotel caters for bikers and has a great garage which must have been some former dance hall.

At least it is handy for the station.

R+R (Rain + Roadworks!!!!!)

Today should have been a steady blast along Germany's famed de-restricted autobahns making 500km less than 5 hours including a few stops. It took us 7 1/2 hours!!!

Every motorway had some works going on. On the motorbike you are able to filter which at least keeps you moving. Most people accept filtering - apart from one guy, but I put this down to part of my education of learning new hand gestures.

The worst section without doubt was the A8 between Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, a busy stretch at the best of times with plenty of intersections, and now all being dug up. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh.

I would like to see the people responsible for this put up at the side of the road similar to the end of Spartacus.....

I have a 'Swabian' friend in Stuttgart who is investigating - when he returns from his next trip to Rio.

And breathe

It's been well over a week since I had the opportunity to clean the bike - so

A proper biker's wardrobe

And relax

To Bavaria (Bad Oberdorf)

Coming out of Switzerland we pass Lake Lucerne - one of my favourites for the crystal blue colour.

Onwards to Lake Constance (German Bodensee) which serves as the border between Switzerland, Austria and Germany. It's Europe's third largest lake at 40 miles long and is the source of the river Rhine.

Our stop off is at Bregenz in Austria where we previously went to the opera to see La Tosca.

Opera - me!

Well yes as the location is a bit special - it's on the Lake. It was used in the first James Bond film with Daniel Craig.

The current show is Andrea Chenier.

The impressive stage is on the lake and the auditorium on the shore.

Bregenz mind games

The trip is drawing to a close as we get back on familiar ground. The forecast for our day off in Bad Oberdorf is not good :(

Then one nights stop on the Moselle before heading back for the ferry and again the forecast is not good - but this is nothing compared with the weather back in the UK so no complaints.