2013 Euro Tour - Beginnings of another Experience of a Lifetime

After watching this and following my 1st successful Euro tour (solo) from Cardiff to Barcelona via France, now thinking about next year. Firstly, the advice given on this site was great. Thanks.

Is anyone interested in doing a Euro Tour joint or group trip next year (2013)? I want to start developing my plans so here is as good a place as any. If interested feel free to post suggestions on locations, dates, accommodation, events etc here. I've started with the following criteria:

1. Between May - August 2013, max 2 weeks. I spent just over £1k on Insurance/Legal Cover, Recovery, return ferry to Caen, Petrol, Accommodation, More Petrol and shenanigans in Barcelona. Could be done for much less.
2. Anywhere in Europe (France/Spain/Italy first come to mind);
3. Companions welcome, male or female, couple, young, old or in-between. Just anyone who is interested;
4. Prefer not to camp so hostels/B&B's
5. No Motorways unless unavoidable to get to somewhere (Last year I spent a whole 3Euro and that was after taking a wrong turn).

If anyone's interested add your ideas here. I'll start updating with ideas and info as and when so watch this space.

Lets do this thing - EuroTour 2013 begins!

[Tomor]

I would be up for this, I know a few more guys from the GM would do this also

Ah good thinking. I'll post a link in there too. Cheers

I'm in, lived in Germany for 3 yrs but never rode as far South as France (apart from Belgium to Calais) so would be well up for this, work permitting of course, the sooner the dates are sorted the better my chances of getting leave.

Also Austria has some pretty gnarly roads, just thought I'd mention it!

You'll get a gist of it from my vids shortly. Riding through the Loire Valley and into the South of France, Millau, Montpellier and Narbonne was a pleasure. The road quality is far better than here and there is a distinct absence of traffic in the summer. I have heard Austria/Switzerland is a good tour route and would definitely give it a go.

[littleoldman2]

I fancy the Balkans.

[Doinitmyway]

Would love to go back sometime next summer

Let me start from the beginning. Here is the route I took on the way to Barcelona, including the route info, petrol stops and rough cost estimate for fuel (I can tell you it was a lot more than this due to the awesomeness of most roads )



So literally went as straight as possible whilst avoiding the "Peages". I was on fasttrack to Barca and so didn't do any planned scenic routes on the way there. But wow was it lovely

I'd potentially be up for this.

Budget dependent. £1k plus food might stretch me a little.

Originally Posted by Spank86

I'd potentially be up for this. Budget dependent. £1k plus food might stretch me a little.

It'll be a lot cheaper now that I have an idea of what I'm doing. Included breakdown/recovery & extra insurance cover. Ferry alone was £200 to Caen but can be done cheaper. If more than 1 goes then some stuff can be shared like tools, so potential petrol savings (every little helps) & I spent over 100Eu for 1 night in France 65Eu for my first night in Barca having left it late to find decent budget accommodation.

£1k should cover everything for 2 weeks but I didn't eat extravagantly. But Barca can be expensive, as are some of the cities in France. On this trip I'll have more time to go off the beaten track and sample some more rustic food in little cafe's and provincial restaraunts so this again should be a bit cheaper.

Other ents such as Tours and boat trips etc were either very reasonable or very expensive so it would be difficult to set an accurate budget for these things. Really depends on the individual. But there is otherwise more than enough to do and see for free.

The Viaduct spanning Millau is a good example. As its actually part of the motorway network you had to pay something like 6Euro to cross it. So after going there specifically to ride it, i decided not to ... and rode a couple of the other viaducts all around that area for free. Maybe they're not as high up but the view was truly stunning.