Oświęcim, Poland to calais 19th to 23rd

joegrimes

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ill be in Oświęcim, Poland and was wondering does anyone have any ideas on a route back to calais, im leaving Oświęcim on the 19th and have to get the tunnel 7pm on the 23rd, i need ideas on the route back dont mind long days/miles, anything worth the slog to berlin or elsewhere on route, bear in mind i cant visit anywhere in france as i have to transit straight through to tunnel, and i know ill get a ribbing for travelling in these times but ive weighed up the risks and consequences and anyway ill be on my own and tend to stay to myself.
outward journey ill have done the dams and colditz, stallg III and auschwitz.
Bit last minute but myself and few friends were holding out france coming off quarantine list but not happening so decided to go alone.
 
Direct, according to Google, it’s 1,400 km or 870 miles, over the five days available, so that is easy.

Me? I’d probably cut down towards Prague, then cut down a bit further into the lower part of Germany, roughly along the axis: Bayreuth, Wurzburg, Worms, Echternacherbruch. Then cut north thro’ the Ardennes, via Bastogne to Calais. That’s I guess about 900 miles over five days, so that’s OK.
 
I put the places into Kurviger, which gave:

https://kurv.gr/PTZH2

Depending on the setting you have chosen, Kurviger does sometimes put in some pretty daft little roads, so a bit of common sense is sometimes required. Putting the same towns as suggested above into viaMichelin and choosing the motorcycle, avoid motorways, and Michelin recommended options, gives some ‘better’ (arguably more sensible) roads. Play around with the settings of both Kurviger and viaMichelin, you can’t break them.

But hey, you can do it all with a half decent map, too.
 
Here are two examples of the arguably ‘silly’ routing directions that Kurviger can throw up.

a3cc3187727d5fb242b50b672ebdb072.png


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Of course it’s all to do with the algorithms used and you can tune them out a bit and / or just use a bit of common sense when creating your bespoke route.

I find that using a mixture of mediums: maps, viaMichein and Kurviger, gives some pretty good overall results but it requires a bit of patience and imagination.
 
Putting the same towns into viaMichelin, throws up:

87c7cbe05aa2ad85b3a3cc30c97c3ef3.plist


With the added advantage that you can zoom into the underlying Michelin maps, to see if there are some little bits that might interest you.

a08cb74d0c1ad26dd5cf1f67cf8d8b96.plist


An alternative might be to forget the east to west line and go: Berlin, then hang a north to Stralsund. Then follow the German Baltic coast to say, Lubeck. From there, motorway back past Hamburg, Bremen to Arnhem. Then motorway again to Calais. More motorway that way but you’d get to see the small roads and towns of the Baltic.

Something like this:

bd4ef66ef75662ef2f9da1998b3d0e82.plist


That’s 1,200 miles. So further but has more motorway in it.
 
Not sure your routes using Belgium and Lux are possible if I interpret the OP right. I am pretty sure he will be doing the Aachen to tunnel hop in one go to avoid quarantine.

Answering the OP: save Berlin for a city break and fly in. It's a lovely city but enjoy autumn in the German countryside. Goslar would be a nice base for 2 nights to explore the Harz.

The area west of Kassel in the High Sauerland and North Rhine-Westphalia is rather nice with lots of fairly quiet roads in river valleys and forests. I stopped over in Freudenberg when travelling west from Goslar. 300 mile hop from there to the tunnel, refuel in Aachen and then no need to stop to interact with people before you get to the tunnel.
 
Aha, I see what you mean.

In which case, I’d maybe do the Baltic coast idea and then the motorways from Arnhem. That being said, your proposal works, too. The loophole of “I didn’t stop in and I used the Chunnel”, is an interesting one.
 
Yes, sorry I should have made it clear, by the book If I only stop for petrol in France I'm good, so I'll try to avoid belgium and all unless it all changes again thursday, Goslar and the harz sound ideal any must sees in the area
 
Yes, sorry I should have made it clear, by the book If I only stop for petrol in France I'm good, so I'll try to avoid belgium and all unless it all changes again thursday, Goslar and the harz sound ideal any must sees in the area

Goslar is a pleasant city to have a wander. I found a sculpture by Henry Moore in the grounds of the Imperial Palace which was rather unexpected.

Just get a large scale map and plot some roads. Harz is not a big area. You can get a steam train to the top of the highest peak for quite a lot of euros.
 
Plzen is ok for a stopover, just get there in time to do the Pilsner Urquell brewery tour.
Or
Karlovy Vary, where they filmed some of Casino Royal.
Both easily reachable in a day from your starting point, and put you a day away from Goslar.
 
Maybe you could consider coming back via the Hook of Holland as this would avoid France completely.

Surely using the ferry would leave you open to needing to quarantine yourself for 2 weeks on your return?
 
Back homewards via harz it is then, should be an interesting one as there's usually 5 or 6 of us but the rest dropped out as France was the planned destination, guess I'll just have to take it all in myself.
 
back home again

Thanks to everyone and their suggestions had a great 12 days away, dams visited, colditz done, stalag iii done(very interesting forest section not mueseum) auschwitz done and found it very educational, definitely a must with the tour guide, very informative and well versed in the history.Harz mountain forest done, spent 2 nights in Goslar as suggested and used it as a base. Interesting area with some great roads, back via berlin city and Cochem into Gladbech, 2 hour stop in couin to see a grave the tunnel home, took head stagger and went from Couin to tunnel then stranraer and home in one sitting, temp just happened to drop that night and coming up past cumbria it went to -2, knew i should have went via holyhead.
All in all great trip very informative, lifesaver was an otg cable which alloed me to plug the phone directly into the satnav and add .gpx files from kurviger.
Definitely need to head back poland direction when thing clear up, again thanks for suggestions.
 
Excellent that it all worked out. Thank you for taking the time to let everyone know, many don’t.
 


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