POI recommendations for trip

£332 is still 3 times the Dover cost.

is it just me, google wont plan a route through Großglockner for some reason.
it goes half way then goes all the way round instead of just following the 107?

Google will not show you the route through, as the Grossglockner is currently closed due to snow. When the road re-opens the routing will work.
 
£332 is still 3 times the Dover cost.

is it just me, google wont plan a route through Großglockner for some reason.
it goes half way then goes all the way round instead of just following the 107?

That’s because of seasonal closures.
 
Ferries from Hull to Rotterdam are overpriced 1 person and bike £420 return.
which is why we decided on Dunkirk / Calais as its £96 return

I will have the bike loaded ready on the Thursday night.
I finish work at 4pm on the Friday 28/07/2023 and will set off to Dover and get at least half a days travel in on the Saturday morning.
That should give us time to rest and a good start for the full day Sunday.

I hear what you say BUT. You finish work 4pm Friday, on the ferry 7pm Friday. Riding through Europe Saturday morning. You could be in Austria by Saturday evening.
 
£332 is still 3 times the Dover cost.

is it just me, google wont plan a route through Großglockner for some reason.
it goes half way then goes all the way round instead of just following the 107?

You are maybe asking Google for a journey made today.

Try changing your departure date to say, July.
 
Its a limitation of google.
cant have a multiple destinations trip and set a departure date.

Will do the route on MRA using HERE maps and see how i get on.
Think i will break the routes into days and have a clear destination in mind each day.
i will then post the amended route later.

i need to get my mate round and have a sit down to see what he also wants to ride through or see.
i will ask him about the ferry options too, either Hull, Harwich or Dover.
 
Think i will break the routes into days and have a clear destination in mind each day.
i need to get my mate round and have a sit down to see what he also wants to ride through or see.

For a 2,000 mile round trip, that’s not a bad idea. Work out what is and isn’t important to you both, all within the time period available and the miles you want to do on any one day. The alternative is to just wing it each day.

i will ask him about the ferry options too, either Hull, Harwich or Dover.

Good idea.

Will do the route on MRA using HERE maps and see how i get on.

An excellent plan.
 
Definitely stop around Verdun (there’s a good campsite on the edge of town). The forts are quite staggering with a really good audio tour in each.
 
I will have the bike loaded ready on the Thursday night.
I finish work at 4pm on the Friday 28/07/2023 and will set off to Dover and get at least half a days travel in on the Saturday morning.
That should give us time to rest and a good start for the full day Sunday.

you finish work at 4pm ...fuck about for an hour then leave for Dover ?

Rochdale to D or F is 300ish miles.(Newhaven is 25 less ) doing that on a Friday evening across England , hmmm..... good luck with that ! ( ps , m25 is a carpark from 4pm onwards, worse near heathrow , the other side has the crossing to deal with)

So lets say a MINIMUM of 6 hours to D or F ( 5+ to N ) so now it is 11pm . fuck about on the train plus 1 hour time change ? , so now it is 2 am and you are in France knackered , needing somewhere to sleep and maybe fuel .

i think you might want to time your crossing so as to, either , get some kip on the crossing ( think newhaven-dieppe they do a night crossing 5 hrs ( on your date they leave at 11pm you need to be there for 10.30pm ))

or leave R at midnight and catch an early boat/train .

anyway ,

Ulm , nearby is Rommels' grave .

southwest of Strasbourg , is Natzweiler Struthof camp .
 
IMHO you are just missing out on a huge number of awesome roads, your route skims just north of the Alps, I think much of it will still be very pleasant / excellent, but if you have never been to the Alps then you could just swing down a bit further south (the snowy bits on your map)

I also did not think much of the Eagles Nest, it is more like a Disney attraction (done badly) than a historical site, apart from Hitlers gold plated lift (That and the tunnel leading to it are only unspoilt bits) the place has been destroyed, Hitlers office is now a canteen serving glorified school dinners (at vast cost) and the large patio area you see in all the archive footage is like a pop-up food marker you get in London with a few tacky souvenir stalls thrown in.

You don't even get to drive through the main complex where all Hitlers Henchmen had houses, but you do get to see a model of it where you go to get your tickets (Yaaah!)

Talking of over-priced attractions the Grossglocker falls into the same category, huge tourist trap, giant multi-storey car park is not what I want to see at the top of a mountain pass, and hordes of other vehicles and buses chugging along in my way did not add to the experience either, having to pay for all this adds insult to injury....

....But at last you can look forward to parking up at the "bikers rest", I certainly did until I got there and found they let cars up there and there was no space for our bikes, so we just got going back to roads less travelled PDQ (YMMV of course)

Unfortunately, like the Stelvio, these are "must visit" places for many and you need to find out for yourself, you may love it, but there are better roads, and better views that cost nothing and have a lot less traffic around them.


As for route, you could head from Black Forest towards Ravensburg, then Imst picking up some nice passes, hop over the Motorway to the Timmelsjoch (toll pass, but much better than the Gross-pricing-structure-Glockner) then maybe a quick skim across the Northern end of the Dolomites before heading back towards the Grossglocker / Eagles nest.

We did a similar trip in 2013 and went across the Alps via the Vosges on the way in, onto Andermatt Andermatt (Via some great Swiss Passes)

From Andermatt to Bormio for a night (but Livigno also very good) You can easily spend a few days here (and we have in the past) but on this occasion the target was Dolomites and Austria so we pressed on.

Over the Stelvio and onto the Dolomites for a few nights (you can easily spend a week here, but we had 3 glorious days on what I consider some of the Alps finest roads)

From Dolomites to Austria for a few nights to ride the Nockalm and Grossglockner, from there we headed back past Eagles Nest and home via the Austrian Tirrol, Black Forest and Verdun.

This was 14 days door-to-door with only the first and last day not being on predominantly good - amazing roads.

Write up here:

https://www.zx14r.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=9758&start=15

Pictures all missing courtesy of Photobucket :wasntme
 
The view from the Eagles Nest is fantastic - on a nice day. If the weather is bad or cloudy - you won't see a thing, but it's still a good experience.

The big brass lift taking you up is also impresive and the old guy crushing you all in was quite jolly too.
 
you finish work at 4pm ...fuck about for an hour then leave for Dover ?

Rochdale to D or F is 300ish miles.(Newhaven is 25 less ) doing that on a Friday evening across England…..

I can’t make much sense of the plan either.

I am not sure that we are reading this correctly:

I will have the bike loaded ready on the Thursday night.
I finish work at 4pm on the Friday 28/07/2023 and will set off to Dover and get at least half a days travel in on the Saturday morning.
That should give us time to rest and a good start for the full day Sunday.


Barnoe, just to clear it up for us, are you saying that:

A. You leave Rochdale on Friday from work at 16:00

B. You then ride 300 miles all the way to the Chunnel, arriving in Folkestone at roughly 22:30 assuming you go non-stop and have no delays en-route

C. You catch a train if you are lucky at 22:50 or, more likely at 23:20

D. Assuming it’s the 23:20 with no departure delay and a 40 minute crossing time, you will then arrive in France at 01:00 local time

E. You then continue to ride into France for some unspecified distance before stopping - to camp - somewhere along, I guess, the motorway.

Is that correct?

Note: If you miss the 23:20 train for some reason, the next scheduled trains are at: 01:20, 03:20, 05:20 and 05:50. In other words there are two hour gaps in the overnight timetable.

But you said Dover, so I assume you plan on taking the ferry? If so, I think it only gets worse as your crossing will probably be the 23:15 or, failing that the 00:00, 00:45, 01:30…….

The sea crossing time is obviously longer (it’s an hour and a half) and you’ll still lose the hour time difference. Even if you catch the 23:15 you won’t be in Calais much before 01:45 local time.

I assume we must be misunderstanding you? Can you set out your timetable for Friday, Saturday and Sunday a lot clearer, please. I only ask as, based on those timings (and with you camping) the North Sea crossing, though more expensive, is looking much more practicable. I can only assume that is why people from your neck of the woods take it?


PS The one bit of good news from your late afternoon departure from Rochdale, is that a lot of the heavy Friday night congestion on the M25 / M20 / M2 may well have gone by the time you get there. I live in London E1, so pretty convenient for the roads to the Kent coast. Even so, I try to be at the Chunnel by 15:00 latest. Not doing so and arriving later, often adds well over an hour to my journey time. This is simply due to the weight of traffic, crossing the Thames (at either the QE2 bridge or the Blackwall Tunnel) or Judy pouring out of London.
 
I will have the bike loaded ready on the Thursday night.
I finish work at 4pm on the Friday 28/07/2023 and will set off to Dover and get at least half a days travel in on the Saturday morning.
That should give us time to rest and a good start for the full day Sunday.

sounds to me he maybe stopping in Dover for the night then getting a boat the following morning then doing 4-5 hrs travel down through Northern France to first camp site. I maybe wrong.
 
I will have the bike loaded ready on the Thursday night.
I finish work at 4pm on the Friday 28/07/2023 and will set off to Dover and get at least half a days travel in on the Saturday morning.
That should give us time to rest and a good start for the full day Sunday.

sounds to me he maybe stopping in Dover for the night then getting a boat the following morning then doing 4-5 hrs travel down through Northern France to first camp site. I maybe wrong.

That’s the way I sort of read it, as any other way would be tricky. The North Sea crossing still looks best but I can understand the expense element.
 
If it was me then I’d get the ferry from Harwich which is later setting off and cheaper than the P&O crossing from Hull and at 260 miles from Rochdale is easily achievable if he has the bike loaded and ready to go as soon as he gets home.

You’re away before 9am at the Hook meaning Baden Baden is a pretty easy day out and you’re straight away up on the game without suffering from sleep deprivation :D
 
Following this with interest as buddy and I are planning similar trip in July albeit taking a 4 day break to attend a wedding at lake iseo in the middle.
We’re in Yorkshire and have done both Northsea crossing and the Dover / Folkestone- Calais.
In our experience, Dover Calais has always followed an early morning start, 5:30th, ferry at 1q or so, lose the hour and pop a few hours quick south bound or south east.
We have made it to Pommerloch, Lux doing this before now but that is a 500+mile day plus the hour loss, a big day…
Last year we did hull grotterdam and made it to Baden Baden first night, quite easy but most of the time was on the autobahn(in the rain)
On the rich line between cash and time, I’m way over to the time end so the Dover route holds its attractions but if I had to leave after noon, I’d not be considering South coast options.
 
Just done some price checking, harwich ferry 268, hull ferry 336 which suggests hull is favourite.

Dover Calais about 90, Chunnel at 113, either would get us well into Europe same day given an early start
 
We did plan on leaving at 4pm or just after and head fastest route to the ferry.

Reading your comments it may be better to get home sleep for a few hours and set off midnight ish??
 
It really is up to you, Barnoe. It’s your holiday, not ours.

But, just for the sake of it, the timings (based on a midnight departure from home in Rochdale) would roughly be:

A. You leave Rochdale on Saturday at 00:01.

B. You ride 300 miles to the Chunnel, arriving in Folkestone at roughly 05:00 assuming you go non-stop and have no delays en-route. Let’s guess that you’ll maybe lose 30 minutes on the way for a fuel / wee stop with your friends. That’ll be 05:30 arrival at the train check-in.

C. Let’s assume that you catch the 06:36 train; you will arrive in France at 08:11 French time. Add in 10 minutes for the doors opening and your party riding off / gathering-up at the top of the ramp, that’ll be wheels rolling at 08:20 and a potential full Saturday ahead of you. You might catch the 06:20 but the 16 minutes time saving is not going to be life changing.

D. You can then ride as far / as long as as you like in France on Saturday before stopping to camp. But let’s guess that you’ll stop at 17:00, having left the Chunnel area at 08:20. That is eight and half hours, if you don’t stop. But of course you’ll stop somewhere, for say a hour and a half during the day. That is a true moving time of seven hours. Assuming you are on the motorway and heading due south, you will be camping somewhere around or past, say, Dijon. In other words, about halfway down France. Go down N / D roads all the way and you’ll logically go a bit slower than on the motorway.

If you leave home at 00:30 (ie half past midnight) simply add 30 minutes to your time, give or take a bit for which train you catch.

You can do all the sums for yourself.


PS There are no trains departing Folkestone between 03:20 and 05:36 so there is very little point in leaving Rochdale much before midnight. I haven’t looked at the Dover boat sailing times.

PPS The North Sea crossing still has its merits (as you’ll sleep on the boat and avoid the flog through the night) but the cost is something else and you’ll lose a bit of time as the Hook of Holland is up above Calais.
 
You could do Newhaven Dieppe 11pm sailing, one way on your date would be £66.00 or there abouts including 4 berth inside cabin and this would get you in to Dieppe arond 5.00 am the following morning by the time you have disembarked, this way you would get some kip on the boat and a good early start the next day.
You could then do tunnel or ferry back at your leisure. Just a thought.
 
Just an update

the route is still in draft mode but has changed a bit
ROUTE

my mate wants to pass through Bielefeld as its twinned with Rochdale and want to visit "Rochdale Park" :rolleyes:
i think he just wants a photo at the sign, he has a thing about signs lol

we are now sailing from Hull and doing the route in reverse.
a big chunk of the travelling will be done by the time we get to the Black forest and we will have a clear idea of time.
the plan being that we have days to play with and can spend more time here.

Also from Grossglockner we pick up the Deutsch Alpenstrasse which leads us nicely to the black forest.
from Salzburg to Baden will be the main section of this trip that we want to soak up... it does look amazing.

Some of you have recommended venturing further south for dolomites and swiss alps, I intent to do another trip next year down to Anzio in Italy.
So the dolomites and swiss alps will come into play on that trip.

there is a long section between shaping points 3 and 4 that i am looking for places to stop/pass/travel if anyone has an idea.
anything else close to the route, im all ears ;)

thanks for the input so far guys :thumb
 


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