In 2012, we did do; go to Europe (*Picture Heavy*)

[derillius24]

In July 2012, myself and two good friends set off from Aberdeen to head across to Europe on our trusty(ish) machinery for a first punt at this Euro tour thing. I’m heading away again this year and I’m bloody well excited about it. I’ve always meant to write this up but never have got round to it / been sufficiently arsed.

We had 15 days away to squeeze in as much as we could and ultimately managed to ride just shy of 3000 miles. We took in, with varying lengths of stay; Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Predominantly, we based ourselves in South-West Germany and South-east France.

I was on my 2010 Kawasaki Z750, Pal One on his ’99 – 2000ish SV650 and Pal Two should have been on his STR but a lorry reversed over it two days before our departure so my dad offered up his somewhat tatty 1981 (I think) BMW R100 with the worlds narrowest bars and widest separated foot pegs.

Options were limited so enter the Heinkel! It never missed a beat, despite being ridden like it was stolen throughout the trip with the piston head guards being ground out and progressively worn away while nailing up and down the mountain passes for weeks on end. Proper.

Given that this was a few years ago, I can’t exactly remember the names of all the places we visited and what we did on each day, but I’ll try to remember the gist of what we did and chuck a few pictures in.

An early start to shoot from Aberdeen to North Shields to catch the ferry to Ijmuiden. Great crossing as it sails at 5pm and arrives at 9am the following morning. So effectively, you get on board, get rid of all yo’ shit, avoid the outrageously priced ‘restaurants’, have a few beers and wake up in Holland.

Lovely night for a crossing it was, too.

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Next morning, get off the boat, have Pal One chuck it down the road within, ooh, 0.3 miles of the port, shout, ‘you f***ing twat’, at him and thank the stars everything is still going / alive. Then realise you’re the only previous boat occupant without a sat-nav and that you don’t have a clue where you’re going.

Holland is dull to ride through but progress can be made and the service stations are pretty special - immaculate and with deli counters offering made to order sandwiches etc. Not half bad. We ploughed on through to Bonn, Germany, where we stayed with one of my German friends I was at University with. Her mum made us a great dinner and had loads of beer in. The following day we went for a walk around the town, which is beautiful, before heading South towards Baden-Baden, about 220 miles, in absolutely torrential rain and thunder. Miserable!

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The next day, we rode in to the Black Forest and had an excellent day on some stunning roads. The weather was glorious, too. We went from Baden-Baden to Titisee in Baden-Wurttemberg via Freudenstadt, taking in the famous B500 among many other fantastic branch roads.

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We stayed in Titisee for a few nights despite a disastrous start; having arrived, we started pitching the tents in what was a lovely evening before we decided we were overdue a few beers in reward for the day’s riding we’d completed. Wander into town, pub get, many beers, thunder storm, many waterz in tent, f*ck!!

Everything was soaking.

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Regardless, we stayed for a few days before getting on the internets and deciding to chase the weather. Next we reached Switzerland and absolutely hated it. We went in via the North border and everyone we met was cold and hostile. It was very expensive and none of us could be bothered obtaining a vignette to get to where we intended to go at any sort of respectable rate. Instead, we dove West into Mulhouse, France. Another shithole, yayy!

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By this point, morale was wavering. Next morning, alarm clocks set to dart down South towards Annecy. Annecy is absolutely stunning. I’d been through it before and always wanted to return. If you’ve not been, I’d recommend putting it on your list of destinations. It’s just a gorgeous little town with bags of character, a lovely, bustling atmosphere, lovely architecture and an enormous, fresh water, temperate lake at it’s heart. We stayed here for a few days to give our arses a rest (from the bike seats).

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From here, Bourg-Saint-Maurice was the next stop. This would be our base for the next 6 days. It’s an amazing base for exploring the French Alps on a bike. Much like Annecy, just a great, happening, characterful little village with easy access to roads you couldn’t dream to be better. We entered via the D1090 – if you’ve not heard of it, check it out on Google Maps…! Mistakes = potato.

From here we covered 150 – 300 miles each day in any which direction, taking in the passes around Val D’Isere, Tignes and Les Arcs. We stayed at Hotel La Petite Auberge and I can’t recommend it highly enough for bike holidays. The owners are English and the husband is a biker. We were greeted with chilled beers on arrival, a lovely room and a bunch of epic motorcycle itineraries for the surrounding area, many of which we completed during our time there.

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Pal One had two more crashes on these ride outs. Never half-cocked himself, somehow. Jesus. Meanwhile, Pal Two was literally embarrassing people on the R100, in a t-shirt. He’s a bit of a nutter but excellent on a bike. I tend not to chase…

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On leaving, it was time to shoot back up North towards Ijmuiden. We spent about three days doing this, via Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland. Luxembourg was cool. Belgium was wet and miserable. Proper wet and miserable. Can’t feel hands to use controls properly type miserable. And severely lacking in motorway service stations. There was a serious squeaky bum fuel situation heading back through it without so much as a hard shoulder to stop on, had it come to it. Being charged for fuel had never felt so good.

Waterproofs on (it was glorious setting off in the morning…!) and of course it never rained again from here on in.

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Our final stop was Amsterdam for a bit of a blow out before heading back to Ijmuiden and the big boat back to the UK.

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I’ll stop rambling now. Many details omitted and / or forgotten, I don’t doubt. I’m also most of the way through a bottle of Aldi’s Rioja now so forgive me if things have tapered somewhat towards the end.

Cheers,

Mark
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CG125, CBF250, DRZ400-SM, Z750, Street Triple R, Tuono V4R

[rubyhorse2]

nice little write up mate and some stunning pics, looks amazing, got me itching to go now.

[derillius24]

Thank you for taking the time to read through my ramblings and I'm glad you enjoyed .

I guess the real beauty of a trip like this is that there's very little planning required other than booking a crossing and making sure your bike is in decent working order. We had very few places booked along the way, we tended to just have a think the night before about roughly where we wanted to head and booked somewhere on-line the night before. If it was cool (B-S-M for example), we stayed for a while and if it was crap (Mulhouse) we made tracks. It also means you can chase the weather to an extent.

Cheers,

Mark
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CG125, CBF250, DRZ400-SM, Z750, Street Triple R, Tuono V4R

[Lupo]

Really enjoyed reading that, and very nice pictures too, it is very interesting reading about people trips. Thanks.
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A por ellos, que son pocos y cobardes.

[derillius24]

Thank you for the comment, glad you enjoyed the read
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CG125, CBF250, DRZ400-SM, Z750, Street Triple R, Tuono V4R

[TCFA]

Good to hear of some of the places in France, I'll try to add them to the list for May. Heading via the GP in Le Mans, down to (near) Andorra then over to Chambery which I think i really close to Annecy before back up to Calais
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Then: Kawasaki ZZR250 > Suzuki Across 250 > Suzuki SV650 > Honda CB750
Now: Honda CBR600F and Triumph Tiger 800 XRT

[derillius24]

TCFA, glad you enjoyed the read .

Annecy is only about 35 miles from Chambery, it really is worth a visit if you can squeeze it in. Even for a day off the bikes, you can rent a boat for a few hours for a fairly small fee and go exploring / swimming. Brilliant fun and a nice temperature to swim in!

Cheers,

Mark
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CG125, CBF250, DRZ400-SM, Z750, Street Triple R, Tuono V4R

[D_redd]

Hi Mark,

Enjoyed the read. I've partly joined up to read threads exactly like this. Me and a friend are thinking of doing a long weekender to Europe this year as a taster for something longer in future. ?Hope you put up your plans/trip for this year.

Good work, thanks.
Matt

[derillius24]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for taking the time to read the write up, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope it's provided you with a bit of food for thought.

Good luck planning your trip, you'll definitely want to do something longer once you're back!

Cheers,

Mark
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CG125, CBF250, DRZ400-SM, Z750, Street Triple R, Tuono V4R

[-Matt-]

Great pics and write-up. Really interesting to read through, thanks for taking time to post .

[derillius24]

Thanks, man
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CG125, CBF250, DRZ400-SM, Z750, Street Triple R, Tuono V4R