hope you had a wonderful trip.
It was excellent, thank you.
For the first time in my life I think that (other than to get a good overall look at where I was in relation to places and / or get a good look overview of the day's ride) I could easily have just gone with the routes on my Nav V and nothing else. Other than the one time I asked it to make a recalculation, just to see what it would do, the Nav V's BaseCamp routes and the device's overall minute-by-minute performance could not be faulted. Its one and only routing error in the pre-prepared routes was one I made, not the device itself. This and the recalculation error were both easily overcome on the move, so I can't complain.
In all it was finally 21 nights away, with two full days off the bike in Berlin and Garmische, a full day off in Dresden, a nearly full day off in Lubeck, a full afternoon in Arnhem and no hotel arrival on any day later than 18:00. We also had a full day (on our bikes) going around Rugland Island, in the Baltic. Of course it would be easy to cut the time away down, which is what I would ordinarily have done. But, that was not the purpose of the trip, not least as we were not entirely sure how well my friend's wife's new hip would stand the jaunt on her CBR 650F Honda *. As it was, all was well. Indeed, it was better than well.
Similarly, I - had I given it a bit more thought - wish now that we had completed the full circle back to Hamburg. It was never our intention to do so; the only reason we didn't was the dullish ride back to Calais from there and half an eye the possible hip issue. It would certainly suit anyone who crosses into Holland via the Hook, that's for sure.
I'll do it again some time, I hope and do the full circle; it really was that good and very different from the many European trips I've done before. The weather, which was fantastic for all bar one day right at the end in France (and even that was OK) certainly helped. But.... I think Italy (top to toe) Sicily and Sardinia might be calling me next.....Probably around the same time of year.
For once in my life I had a look at the data, worthwhile only as it was a longish time away, doing something different. Average speed 41 MPH, average fuel consumption 49.1 MPG, maximum speed 113 MPH, all according to the Garmin trip log thing screen. Not too shabby, I guess but it wasn't a dash, that's for sure, nor was it ever meant to be. Those figures were for my 1600 GT. My friend's Triumph Adventure averaged 49.3 MPG, no significant difference between them on that score. No idea about the little Honda.
* Proof, if any were needed, that you can do it on any bike, even one with a chain, 17.5 litre tank and no screen to speak of. She's 67, too. So nobody tell me that only a GS with 32 litres of fuel and 100 litres of panniers is the minimum required.