I felt I needed some practice before joining the club trips later this year, so in November I travelled down through France for a week, and I have just returned from a trip to Rome.

Except for spending three nights in Rome I spent in order, one night in each of: Reims, Strasbourg, Munich, Merano, Verona, Florence, Rome (3 nights), Pisa, Allesandria, Grenoble, Dijon and Reims a second time.  The distance was 2,707 miles and took from Saturday 20th April to Saturday 4th May.

The temperature was just above freezing when I left home at 5-45 am.  Along the M4 I relied on cruise control to look after my speed because of the sun’s glare.  On the M25 there was thick fog with visibility down to 100yds, but this burnt out where I left the M25.

The channel tunnel system worked well, and I had the company of another BMW motorcyclist who used his 2004 K1200 to taxi people around London.

Leaving the train at Calais I immediately met a Welsh couple who were travelling South, on another BMW.  So I led them down all of the minor roads towards Reims.  By using the smaller roads on my trips I can stop for a coffee etc, and meet the people in their home villages.  We split near to Reims where I arrived at about 4pm.  Then I wandered off to find some food.  I had not eaten for about 11 hours which was a bad idea that I made sure I did not repeat.

Refreshed I wandered around Reims and went into the Cathedral.  Entry was free and the building seemed to be part of the population’s environment.  It was very plain inside, had lovely stained glass windows and had been adorned with paintings on wooden boards – I assume that these are modern paintings.

I tended to rise at 7-00am each morning, and having eaten breakfast, leave at about 8-00am.  The next stop was Strasbourg.  On the way I stopped for lunch and had streak tartar.  I did not realise it was raw meat, but it was easy to swallow which is now my technique for eating underdone steak.  Also I had Earl Grey tea with milk.  Tea with milk seems a difficult concept in Europe.

I nearly lost this jersey three times on the trip, but more about that later.

There were many scooters and other bikes in the cities.  This use of two wheels is far in advance of the UK.

A remarkably atmospheric event was where a folk band with a singer played outside the Cathedral.  The public all joined in to dance around the band and singer.  There was one affect where a man was hitting an upturned metal beaker on the floor in time to the beat.  This had a tremendous resonance.  Again the people seemed to own the Cathedral, just wandering in and out.

I had lunch in the square and then went for a boat trip.  Old Strasbourg is on an island where the river Ill meets the Rhine.

Soon after leaving Strasbourg for Munich, we (me and my RT) crossed the Rhine and then climbed some high peaks.  There was some snow, but there was also a lot of grit on the roads which worried me a bit.  I had been to Munich about 50 years ago with the scouts, but can only remember getting drunk for the first time, and eating fish and chips there.

I went round the Cathedral in Munich.  It was brick outside, and the whole interior was painted white,  With no lights on, the building was still very light, unlike the previous Cathedrals which were dark.

Hicks’ advice had resulted in me buying a pass for the Austrian roads.  So I travelled smoothly right across Austria.  There were some steep hills down into Innsbruck, and some steep hills out again, until l eventually I snaked parallel to the motorway route and over the Brenner Pass.  This was all enjoyable, with snow built up alongside the road.  I had one particular moment where mud on the road made me lose my rear wheel.  Without thought my right foot went down and threw me upright.  This caused some ache in my right ankle, but that went after 5 minutes.

When I arrived at my Merano hotel my landlord suggested I walk along a footpath.  So I did, and above is the view.  I just chilled out that afternoon.

The trip to Verona started as wall to wall grape vines.  Then it became more pastoral.

I liked Verona a lot.  There was much to see and photograph.  It had a coliseum where they were preparing for an anniversary concert with Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Andrea Bocelli.  I would have liked to have been there for that.  There were lots of buildings to see and statues and artworks to admire.

But I enjoy the bike riding most, so on to Florence.  Several of the buildings had white facings, perhaps of marble, which surprised me.  The dome was magnificent, but I did not dare to try to climb up, in case I ran out of energy.

I suppose that the bridge is a small version of the old London Bridge.

I particularly liked seeing a Grandmother giving her husband a pink coat and a crash helmet for their Granddaughter, him kitting her out and then them both driving off on his bike.  The Grandmother was in a car, so the bike must have had advantages for them.

I had had a couple of problems with toll roads, where I had accidently gone onto them.  I had to work out that I had to take tickets then pay when I left the road.  I also had to work out how to use the automated petrol stations.

I travelled to Rome on the Friday.  In Rome I had to stop a few times to look at the map to try to find how to reach the hotel.  The speed of the GPS was just a bit slower than the speed at which the required road arrived.

My hotel was very close to this Remembrance building and to the ruins.  The room cost a lot, but it was worth it.  Trajan’s column was just behind me where I took this picture.

This combination had drive to the sidecar wheel and had a boxer engine.  I could find no manufacturer marking, but it had electrical switches that looked modern.  There was a lever that did not have any interim positions, so it could be a hand brake, or a clutch, but probably not a gear lever.  In any  event there was a double acting foot gear change.

 

 

The bikes were interesting, but so too were the buildings.  I could not grasp that I was looking at 2000 year old brickwork buildings.  Apparently they were up to 7 stories high.  So there was not much difference between then and now.  Even the roadways with their huge cobbles, do not look much different to the pedestrian precincts of today.

 

When I went to look around the Coliseum for the first time, I noticed that I no longer had my blue jersey.  So I started walking back along my route and found it on the back of a chair about 20 yards away.  It needed a wash, but that was no problem.

I had contrived to be in Rome when my daughter Katie, her partner Chris and their friend Lucy were there.  So I had some refreshing English speaking for a while.  We went into the Coliseum and suffered from some drizzle.  We had a couple of meals together, and tried to go round the Cistine Chapple, but it was too busy.

I really liked the Pantheon.  I believe it to be the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.  As a civil engineer, I find that impressive.  It has been made into a church now.

Having said goodbye to my daughter and company, I headed out of Rome.  Unfortunately, my pannier lid became loose and I lost a bag of items; gone forever I suppose.  It had all of the bookings for the remaining hotels, three atlases, and copies of my passport, license, insurance, a camera battery charger and the spare microphone for my headset.  It also had two fleeces and a spare pair of trousers.  It did not have any money, my passport, my cheque book, my credit cards, or anything that messed me up.  I reported this to the police, and retraced my route, but nothing has cropped up yet.

As long as people do not use the information, it has just cost me money.  By accident my blue jersey was in my top box, so I did not lose it for a second time.

I had a long trip up to Pisa.  Firstly I had to spend time finding the police station and retracing my route, then I decided to try to find a BMW dealer using my GPS to buy a bag for my pannier.  I found the garage, but they did not have a bag.  In the end I got to Pisa at 5pm.

 

I walked round Pisa, having ice cream at the shop advised by my landlord.  When I went to his prised restaurant, they were too busy, so I found a reasonable one round the corner, and had spaghetti bolognaise again.  I think that one in three meals were spaghetti bolognaise, some were steaks, and one was a McDonalds.  There they gave me hot milk and a tea bag in response to my request for tea.

I saw this nice steelwork in Pisa.

After Pisa I travelled on to Allesandria.  I asked the hotel manager where the sites were and he said that there were less than in Pisa.  I asked him if he had a map, and instantly saw a citadel at the edge of the town.  This is a huge engineering defence work.  It must be one of the last defence system built to defend an army, with killing areas that can be defended against.

 

When I went into the citadel, a man cutting the grass asked if he could help me.  Speaking no English he took me to see a colleague who could also speak no English, but who took me to a manager who was in a meeting discussing the site.  She came over to me and said I was free to go round and could take photographs, and could ask them to unlock any doors if I wanted.  Then she left me to walk round the site and went back to her meeting.

After the Citadel I went into the town for tea, but the Manager of the restaurant said it was then too late for me to have spaghetti.   So I had thin, cooked, cold beef with lemon.  This was good.  Then he did not have any vegetables so he made me up a salad which had olives in it.  They tasted fine though.  Then I had a fruit salad.

What I had not realised was that I had not yet gone over the South West corner of the Alps.  So my trip to Grenoble the next morning was a bit unexpected.

Again the trip over the Alps had snow at the sides of the road.  Some local motorcyclists were going rather faster than I would have done around the winding roads, but I was moving on quite well.  I had another slip of the back wheel, but it recovered before I had to put my foot down.  The slip was on mud and not on ice or water.  Once off of the Alps there was torrential rain.  I got soaking wet.

I went into the hotel at Grenoble and that all worked out fine, but when I got home I found out that I had gone into the wrong hotel.  I went into the one next door.  So I have to pay a charge for not turning up.

At Grenoble there is a cable car which travels up to a fort that post dates Napoleon.  The views from the fort were spectacular.

I had the McDonalds McNuggets at Grenoble, with the hot milk and tea bag.

From Grenoble I went to Dijon.  During the journey it was my habit to stop at about 10-30 am for a bun and some coffee.  At the cafe, the lady said that I would have to go to the Brassiere (is this the right name?) for the bun, but I could have the coffee.  So I took off my coat and equipment, and sat down.  Then she came up to me and said that she would get me the buns, and I could pay her for them.  It appears that one of her friends went and got them for me.  This was very good of her, and I was very grateful, which I showed.

I found the way to my hotel at Dijon, and settled in, then wandered around looking at the buildings as usual.  It seemed to be a nice place with a Cathedral and a good range of buildings.  It especially had a fine market building made from preformed steelwork, like we would have had in the Victorian era.

I watched the Sky News for a while, then went out for tea.  As soon as I entered the restaurant, it thundered down with 1/4 inch hailstones.  I had well done steak, which was still red, but I smothered it with Dijon mustard, which I felt was appropriate.

The next morning I had my breakfast and then went back to my room to find that my blue jersey was missing again.  I went back to the breakfast room to find it on the back of a chair.  That was three times that I had mislaid, but then recovered my jersey.

After Dijon, it was back to Reims.  Although this time I only went on minor roads for the first third of the route, I then remapped the GPS to allow Motorways and toll roads.  This speeded up the journey at the cost of the scenery.  However it had been raining hard, so I wanted to get out of my wet clothes.  I didn’t lose much for the speed.

I gently wandered round Reims without worrying about photos, generally looking at the shops.  Then got ready for the last day back to home.

I left the hotel without breakfast at about 7-00am.  It was initially misty but this was soon burned off.  Travelling on the speedier roads meant that I got to the tunnel at about 10-30am, so I was offered an earlier train if I paid for the change.  Unfortunately when we were all on the train they could not close the doors, so we had to disembark and board another train.  This took an extra hour, so in the end I am not sure that I had any benefit.

I met a GS rider on the train who lives 10 minutes away from North Oxford Garage.  He was going to see his mother in Dover, rather than driving straight back to Oxford, so when we arrived in England, I sped off back home.  On the way I stopped for a full English breakfast and some tea.  The lady did not ask me if I wanted milk, or what type of tea I wanted – and I got it in a mug.