More changes..

It looks as though my brother Neill is onboard for the trip.

He has been planning routes of his own and the way out is roughly the same as mine until we get to the south west of France. His route angles off before mine and goes through the Túnel de Somport.

It makes the route down slightly shorter but not much in it. It would be nice to go over the pass and ignore the tunnel but I don't think we have the time.  From Somport it is still about 4 hours to the hotel.

I would like to keep my route back though. It would give some variation to the trip.

We can look at other places to stop off on the way.

The Routes - So Far

In blog-time it's not that long since I made the first post. I have been working on this in reality for the best part of two weeks though!

So where are we at the moment?

Day 1 - Shuttle or Ferry to Calais. Overnight - Tours Première Classe

Day 2 - Tours to Bayonne. Overnight - Bayonne Première Classe

Day 3 - Bayonne to Morella. Overnight - Morella El Cid

Day 4 - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Morella. Overnight Morella El Cid

Day 5 - Plan A - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Morella. Overnight Morella El Cid

           - Plan B - Morella to Motorland Aragón to Lleida. Overnight TBC

Day 6 - Lleida to Cahors. Overnight Cahors Campanile

Day 7 - Cahors to Chartres. Overnight Chartres Hôtel Inn Design Resto Novo

Day 8 - Chartres to Shuttle or Ferry - Overnight Home.

There are a few ends to tie up but this looks like this could be the final plan.

If the weather is still nice and warm, hot even, I might get to wear my bandana again!  Without anyone laughing!

It's rude to laugh!

Inward Route and Hotels - Plan B

Plan B already!

Working with Google Maps and MyRouteApp in different windows I can see that with the road conditions crossing the Pyrenees, either by the suggested (shortest?) route and my alternative route via Andorra are going to be over ambitious.

So Andorra is definitely dropped.

Google Maps gives three options from Morella. Via the Bielsa Tunnel, the Somport Tunnel and via the N-232 to Pont de Reu and the border there.

I am moving more towards a re-vamp of the plan as follows.

Lleida is about 110 miles from the El Cid and about 75 miles from Motorland Aragón, Packing up my stuff at the hotel on the morning of race day and after the racing finishes mid-afternoon go from there to a hotel in Lleida. I've had a look and there quite a few at a very reasonable price!

This would cut down the mileage on Monday by that 110 from the El Cid. From Lleida to the currently planned stop at Cahors is around 280 miles and six hours on the road. It takes the N-230 to the border which is a bridge over the River Garonne at Pont de Reu (3)

It's a further 150 miles to the Campanile already booked in Cahors. From there it is pretty much as already planned up the N20 as far as Orleans before diverting off to Chartres.

The N20 and A20 are toll free for all but a short distance near Orleans so we can make good time on the dual carriageway sections.

I haven't changed any bookings as yet. You never know what changes are still to come.

Inward Route and Hotels - Plan A

On the way out I have planned the no toll route that basically is get to Rouen or nearby on the free sections of the motorways and then head across to join the N10 (or whatever it is numbered in each départmente) and head south or south-west. 

What about coming back?  Do I want to tread the same path? Or seek out a new one. First step fire up MyRouteApp and select Google Maps.

I am currently booked into the El Cid Hotel in Morella. It's about 43 miles from the circuit at Motorland Aragón. 

What if I change the El Cid booking and pack my meagre belongings into my panniers on the Sunday morning and head to the track and then use that 43 miles to head off to a new hotel on the way home?  

Something to ponder?

For now I am assuming I will be solo on this trip. If my brother Neill decides to join me then it will halve the cost of the hotels, and I'll have to change the sleeping arrangements at each hotel!!

So what does MyRouteApp come up with. Well. It depends on the map settings.  If I leave the default mapping as OpenStreetMap the route from Morella is via the motorways passing Barcelona, Lyon and Paris back to the Shuttle at Calais. Around 980 miles.

Change that to Here or TomTom mapping and it reverts to the motorway version of the ride down and around 960 miles.

Neill is adverse to paying motorway tolls and although I am also a bit averse it depends on whether I want to go faster and get somewhere more quickly. Coming home I tend to want to click off the miles.

To vary the suggested route I need to locate a first night overnight stop and get the waypoint in and then see what it does. Is there another no tolls route available? We shall see.

First night on the way back I looked along the N20 (and it name variants) as it is a north/south route. I found another Campanile hotel in Cahors that fits the bill. This means leaving the El Cid and heading up past Alcañiz (!) and to Lleida to the border.  The off putting thing about this is the Tunel de Bielsa! This may force a major re-think of the route as it looks a bit nasty from the write-up on that website.

Pause for thought!

Avoiding Bielsa makes it hard work getting to Cahors and so an alternative hotel needs to be booked. Also the mileage for the day would be too high given the conditions riding into the Pyrenees either side of that tunnel on very minor roads. 

I am looking at Montauban as the first overnight stop.  El Cid Hotel to Andorra is 200 miles.

In the end it may be better to scrap all idea of evading the toll roads until we get into France and see what that does to the overall mileage and possible cost implications.

The Pyrenees form a pretty decent barrier to north/south travel. So whatever route is chosen getting across will give limited options.

Outward Route and Hotels

I have been looking at the non-toll route to the El Cid hotel that will get me/us there on the Friday afternoon. 

Having decided on Option 1, ride both ways, I now have to decide how long to take and how long Claire will suffer me being away.  I was looking at a week away or in reality 8 days - two overnights out, three at the GP end, and then two nights back. 

If Neill comes along he might want to take longer and that will need some debate. I have booked the hotels in twin bedded rooms but if it is a solo trip, then I will see about changing to a double room and have a big bed just for me....

It's pretty much the same route I took way back in the 80's when I rode with my ex-partner to Biarritz for a week in a villa owned by a colleague at Reuters. We wanted to avoid the toll motorways and what was then called the N10 went all the way from the outskirts of Paris (where we got lost near Versailles) to the Spanish border.

Back then I was on the Kettle aka Suzi Triplo. I have an embarrassing photo somewhere of that trip.

But I digress. 

This time I fully expect to be riding Vera Strom.

I looked at distances and let MyRouteApp and Google work together to choose the route itself and then dip in and out to get a decent and achievable mileage and time on the road.

Day one may not be the longest day on the way out. It all depends on what sort of time we arrive in France from the Shuttle. 

I have booked a cheap Première Classe Hotel near Tours that night. Google reckons 308 miles from the Shuttle and 6h 18m riding time. Usual free cancellation etc terms.

Common architecture!

Over the years I have used Première Classe hotels many times. They are budget and they are often quite neatly placed near a Campanile hotel. Part of the same group of hotels but with a restaurant that is usually good value. If you are looking to stay somewhere luxurious with a pool then look elsewhere. The most we have stayed in one was two nights when we took the nephews to Futuroscope in the car!

Continuing south on the N10 (or its new designation) past Bordeaux and the Atlantic coastal dunes.

At Mont de Marsan, the suggested route takes a left turn and heads towards the Pyrenees. I have changed this as the choice of hotels between the fork in the road and the Spanish border is very limited. When I say limited I mean not many and none that match my budget!

Instead I looked around the Bayonne/Biarritz area and found a Première Classe near Bayonne. 

Google makes it a long day at 356 miles in the saddle. Around 6h 20m on the road. Not too bad before you factor in fuel and lunch/pee breaks.

Okay, it looks a bit in need of a clean up!

This Première Classe also has a Campanile in walking distance. Oddly it has no twin rooms, only doubles and a triple.  In the end I booked the triple. If I am on my own I can change to a double!

From Bayonne it's still on the N10/D810 to the border near Hendaye or so I thought. Google and MyRouteApp had other ideas  

From Bayonne we avoid the last bit of the N10/D810 and branch off southwards on the D932 and then D20 towards Cambo-les-Bains and then onto the border.

The third day on the road should be around 280 and a calculated 5h 20m on the frog and toad.

This route joins the original route at Zaragoza. It's a little further on my route but the hotels are cheap and cheerful but for overnight stops I'd rather save a few quid.

At the end of the day I/we should be in Morella and the El Cid Hotel.  

This is the rough route at the moment. It might change.... 😉

Hotel near Motorland Aragón

As you can imagine with a Covid restricted crowd as big as 20000 in 2021 and a circuit basically built in the middle of nowhere, there is pressure on all accommodation and on hotels! In non COVID years the crowd is even bigger.

Last weekend they estimated that there were 75000 at Valencia for the final GP of the year and to see Valentino Rossi's last GP.

If you like to camp then that's okay with me. See you another time. I've been a hotel or b&b only man for about 22 years.

Having camped at GP events before I know first-hand there's not a lot of sleep to be had!

Looking on booking.com wasn't that good either. I use them as they offer easy accessible information on hotels and also you can book with "free cancellation" and most often no prepayment.

Many of the hotels come up as full or sold out.  Gradually you get further and further from Alcañiz and the circuit itself that is to the north-west of the town.  At the same time, the hotels that are coming up are eye wateringly expensive. Even the Parador is fully booked!

So as I worked my way in an ever expanding circle,  I finally arrived in Morella. The El Cid Hotel.  It's £145 for three nights for a twin room with private facilities so fits in with my £50 a day target. It has parking on site.  There is also a restaurant and it's in a scenic bit of northern Valencia province.

Hotel El Cid

I have been to Morella before back in 2008 as we drove inland from Marina D'Or where we went for Claire's birthday week.  

Morella

A reminder of Marina D'Or.  A completely manufactured resort town where they had ploughed over the orange groves and built hotels etc.

Morella though is about 43 miles to the circuit.  It's a "holding" hotel and I will check to see if others come online during the next six months or so. I have seen a few others nearer but they don't look too good and they don't have free cancellation should things go a little pear shaped...

Morella is on the main N-232 road that goes from the coast towards Zaragoza and right past the track as well as the hotel!