help wanted with planning a tour of eroupe

[brockzila]

Hay

Was sitting at the table with my map the other day planing my eroupe trip. I am planing to folow the van tour around and do most of eroupe. am starting in pamps for the running of the bulls (early june) and finishing in octoberfest but have no plans for inbetween other than trying to get to a f1, gp, a1, superbike events, also duke, the prancing horse and BMW factories and a blat around the ring.

Due to the fact that im from NZ and have no clue about the roads in europe any one willing to share experence or local knowledge will be lisened to.
I lived in California for a while so the LHD thing wont bother me.

any other tips would also be good.

[Jak]

Isn't the running of the bulls in July?

Perhaps you could make it across for the Catalunya MotoGP on the 8th June instead? Phuk's mentioned that he's going down for that too. There are some great mountain roads in that area - only done it in a car though. The road from Pamplona to Barcelona (through Zaragoza/Lleida) is just dual carriageway or motorway (depending on if you want to pay to ride the toll road).

LHD is easy after you suss out the roundabouts

[brockzila]

Isn't the running of the bulls in July?

yeah Jak you are correct. its the 7th to the 14th of july. i am working for a tour company so have to be there on the 1st to set up the tents and organise a few things befor the buses arrive. I have been thinking june for some reason. thats sweet as it gives me a whole extra month to earn some more cash to fund the tour.
am going to try and avoid tolls and motorway type roads as im going to be doing alot of ks and dont want to sq my tyres on the boring stuff.

[col]

Cant really help with route planning but must see's for me would be.
Paris, Normandy and beaches, barcelona, Florence, rome, Berlin, Rhine valley, Lap the nurburgring,
Prague, Brugge, Ypres and menin gate, francochamps region of belgium, Amsterdam, dutch bulb fields
then upto Assen (the cathedral of bike racing).
The rest of the time would be spent just soaking up the scenery of some of the beautifully smooth swoop roads that
litter mainland europe.
god i'm so jealous, i've only manged half of the stuff on my list and i'm off to NZ for good this year so i can realistically
only hope to squeeze in one more short trip.
what ever you do you'll love it.

p.s learn some lingo, it really helps

[Jak]

p.s learn some lingo, it really helps

Totally agree with that - even if it's just please, thank you and "sorry I don't speak ..." When I was driving through Spain I was glad I'd done that because in the little mountain towns/villages they don't speak anything other than Spanish and the petrol stations were attendant service - really helped that I knew what to say. Plus being veggie - I had to have a phrasebook/dictionary for the cafes/restaurants anyway!

[col]

Mind you my schoolboy french didnt help when i stopped into a shop and asked for
"a hot roast chicken please and could you wrap it in tin foil and two plastic bags as i intend
to bungee strapp it to the panniers on my motorcycle and eat it later on for my lunch" but we got there in the end
and he threw in a free baguett to go with it. You dont get service like that in Tesco.