Early November Jaunt around Western Europe on the Motorbike

OK - So I know this blog hasn't been updated for a couple of years, but I thought the time had come to resurrect it.

So I ended up on an 'enforced' two weeks off work recently, and decided after sitting around the house for a week, that my time could be much better spent riding the Yamaha around Western Europe for 5 days.

After hatching a very rough idea of a plan on the Saturday, I decided to book the ferry from Dover to Calais on the Sunday night [£20 return - sweet!!!], and also some accommodation to lob into for the first night [International Youth Hostel in Kortrijk, Belgium].

So before I left for my trip, my plan looked like:
Day 1: Hammersmith to Kortrijk (Belgium)
Day 2: Kortrijk maybe to Maastricht (Netherlands)
Day 3: ???
Day 4: Profit
Day 5: Home

(Obviously a small homage to the South Park - Underpants Gnome episode...) :-)

I didn't really know what my route was shaping up to be, and before I headed off I only had a very vague idea of what my path was going to look like. I had a sketchy plan of trying to visit as many countries whilst staying off motorways as I could in 5 days, but without racking up stupid mileage and taking it all relatively easy.

I saddled up on Monday morning, said a fond farewell to Nikki, and headed off down to the ferry at Dover on a very foggy, dull and overcast morning. I must admit to stuffing around at the service station for a little too long, and turning up with only about 20 mins left to departure time and nearly missing the ferry - it ended up all good though, even if I wasn't exactly relishing the weather. Temps were nice enough, but the greyness was quite dull.

Departing Hammersmith

On board the ferry from Dover to Calais

After disembarking from Calais, I headed north-east up towards Dunkirk, with the intention of then turning right, and heading across the northern french countryside into Belgium. Riding off the ferry, the cloak of grey lifted, and revealed a beautiful, clear Autumn day that you would kill for.

After setting the Sat Nav to avoid motorways (I only set it back to include motorways on Friday morning, when I realised I was a bit of a way from home), I ended up riding along a number of beautiful, sweeping roads towards the Belgian border through spectacular countryside. I had a number of photo stops, and then spent a very enjoyable afternoon riding through the Belgian countryside. I arrived into Kortijk at about 5:30 local time, and then spent an enjoyable night checking out the main part of town, a decent dinner in the main Grote Markt, and then a few Belgian beers in a bar nearby. I retired back to the hostel at about 10pm, and then spent a couple of hours having excessively alcoholic beers with Johann the Hostel manager. It was a fantastic night.

Route de l'Europe

Oost Cappel, French/Belgian Border

Route de l'Europe

Church in Kortrijk

Grote Markt, Kortrijk

Enjoying a beer in Grote Markt

Broel Towers, Kortrijk

Broel Towers, Kortrijk

I saddled up in the morning, with a rough plan to head to Maastricht, and was planning on heading through a small town called Wavre, just so that I could avoid Brussels as much as possible. The route turned out to be fabulous, and on a couple of occasions I was the only vehicle that I could see on a road for hours! I ended up getting into Maastricht late afternoon, and started looking for accommodation. This wasn't quite as easy as I had hoped, but I managed to find a fantastic place right in the middle of town for a good price. It was very weird though - I had to enter it through a shop... Either way, I ended up absolutely knackered after a long day in the saddle. Riding like this was just awesome though, because I think on the Sat Nav the duration was something like 4 hours, and I ended up riding for about 7 hours.

Maastricht was a huge surprise to me - I had never heard of it before (even though I've subsequently been informed of the importance of this city to the EU...). It was a lovely place, with a lot of large squares, and many pretty buildings, a lovely old town and a nice river. I really really enjoyed being in Maastricht and have decided to go back there another time with Nikki.

I enjoyed Maastricht so much, that the following morning, I really wanted to have a wander around the city and take some photos, so once again I wasn't in the saddle particularly early, but I eventually saddled up around about 10:30 or so. My next destination was a place called Kalenborn in Germany (kinda near the Nurburgring - which was going to be my ultimate destination). I read a story in the MCN (Motorcycle News) which I had packed to take for some reading and one of the staff riders mentioned that they stayed in Kalenborn, so that was good enough for me - and also proved to be the inspiration to take me to the 'ring. My mate Ken had been banging onto me forever about us getting out to the 'Ring, so I decided to take the opportunity to go there while I was heading in the general neck of the woods – big sorry that it was without you mate – though with all that said, far be it from me to not go there again... ?

I got to Kalenborn about 15:30, and dumped all my luggage, and went out to fuel up with Super Unleaded and went for a ride. I ended up just pootling (or not so much pootling as far as the roads go...) around the area near where I was staying (well within about an hours radius), and ended up at a lookout looking over a place called Schloßhof which was absolutely amazing. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Schlo%C3%9Fhof-Baden-Wurttemberg-Germany/116405835039603... Absolutely loved the place, and will certainly be taking Nikki back there too. I could completely recommend this place to anyone looking for some fantastic twisty roads in Europe, coupled with a wine region and a beautiful valley.

That night, I was staying at quite a remote hotel, and as it was a public holiday in Germany, the hotel’s restaurant was not open – fortunately there was a Beer Garden about a 400m walk away, so I walked up there, ordered some food off the menu which I had no idea what I was ordering (turned out to be smoked salmon, which I don’t really like...), and had a couple of quiet beers. Strange beer garden, as it was in a horse-riding ring, and there were people training.





Up relatively early the next morning, I had a hearty breakfast, and then got all my stuff ready to head off to the Nurburgring which was about a half hour ride away. I headed off with a nervous trepidation – so far the weather had been clear blue skies, and mild days – perfect riding weather. Today, it was a bit more overcast, and the roads were a bit damp from an overnight downpour. I was quite nervous, as I was worried about being on-track with the high-powered sports cars, and, as I’ve only been riding for a couple of years, generally a little in my own ability. The ride to the Nurburging from Kalenborn was absolutely perfect – you couldn’t ask for more from roads, but even still I chose to take it relatively easy.

I ended up checking out the Nurburgring Information Centre (which is huge), and spent a bit of time there just nervously hanging out before going to do the Nordschleife. I rocked up to the booth at Nordschleife and spoke with the guy behind the counter and he was uber-helpful – I knew he could tell that I was nervous, and he was very reassuring and explained to me about how a lot of the powerful cars in Germany & Switzerland only get 6 months registration over the summer months, and that this usually ran out in September or October and as a consequence of this and the weather, the track was really quiet. I stayed watching cars go on track for about half an hour and decided to go for it. So I pays my money (€24 for one lap), get my Nurburgring card, and make my way very nervously out to the boom gates. I swipe my card, and I was off!

If I’m honest, I don’t remember a large amount about the lap, as it all happened so quickly. I do remember seeing a few of the kilometre markers as I was going around, and was very surprised at how quickly all 21 of them were going past. I also remember getting taken up the inside going into Karrusel (sp?) by a Porsche, but I was watching my mirrors like a hawk, and I knew he was coming behind me before he knew it... It had started to slightly drizzle just before I went out, and the track marshall also mentioned that there would likely be a lot of leaves on the track and to watch out for them. As it turned out, I think I only got overtaken by 3 cars in the entire distance, and not too long after I had finished it started raining properly! I was absolutely ecstatic at having completed it, and wanted to do it again, but also didn’t want to risk it again. So with the weather closing in, I decided to head back to the info centre, and found out that they had a go-karting track there, and some racing simulators – this could be my afternoon sorted then! ? Had a quick go on both of them, and then decided that I was going to go to Luxembourg (another country... ;-)) for the night – on a previous trip we went on with Ken & Kristina, we’d briefly stopped off at a town called Durbuy, and so I decided that this would be my destination for the night. (As it turns out, I understand that it is one of the smallest cities in the world – it claims to be the smallest, but I am unable to verify the veracity of that claim...)

The ride from the Nurburgring to Durbuy were definitely the best roads I’ve ever ridden, and I can thoroughly recommend them to anyone if you are ever in that neck of the woods. Also, I stayed in a hotel right on the main square of Durbuy as I decided to treat myself this night. I went to a place called Cafe Volcano for dinner for a Pizza, and a few local brews – they make one called Durboyse Blond which was bloody loverly.

So the next morning I woke up, saddled up, punched ‘Home’ in the Sat Nav, then crapped myself as I thought that I had 6 hours of riding to get to the ferry at Calais by 15:30, and the time was currently 11:00, however fortunately it dawned on me a few k’s down the road that it was calculating the time to ‘Home’ and not to ‘Calais’. After changing the Sat Nav, and getting the right amount of time I was able to cruise on the motorway for 2 hours, then ditch the motorway and spend the rest of the day riding on back roads all the way to the ferry.

After disembarking the ferry, I noticed that my speedo had stopped working, so it was just a case of cruising home at a reasonable speed. Having ridden around Europe for a week, and not having any problems with or even seeing Monsieur Plod or his mates, I was pulled over by the cops on the King St in Hammersmith (2 blocks away from where I live...). As it turned out, the guy rode bikes himself, and basically just had a go at me for accelerating a bit quick in a built up area. Then he proceeded to talk all things bike with me for about half an hour! Better than getting a ticket, and he turned out to be an ok fella.

After riding 1400 miles over 5 days, and using the motorway for only about 6 hours of riding in the entire time, I had a fantastic trip. I had been through 6 countries in 5 days, stayed in 4 different countries over 4 nights, and had ridden through 4 countries in one day. It had absolutely been a trip of a lifetime!

Here is a rough look at what my route looked like (though for all the days through Belgium, Netherlands, Germany I was riding for much longer than shown on the maps as I was trying to find the most obscure routes possible)...
http://tinyurl.com/cbw76p3

Hope this hasn't been too boring.