Route planning was left to our fearless leader, Dave, who not only likes that "sort of stuff", but has proven to be an excellent run leader in the past. What impressed me wasn't so much the ability not to get us lost in the middle of some Welsh forest, ... it was more the caring nature of ensuring each run had a pub stop for lunch, with often one at the end too. I left him to it.
Broadly speaking, the plan would be :
- Blast down to Plymouth, catch the ferry to Santander
- Across the top of Spain, and traverse the Pyrenees
- Hob nob with the rich & famous along the Southern Coast of France
- Scoff Pizza as we pass through the top of Italy
- Through Slovenia and onto the EC funded empty roads of Croatia
- Dodge the unexploded ordinances in Bosnia
- Thru the beautiful Montenegro taking in the Kotor Rotor
- Avoid the Mafia in Albania, then into Greece
- Aim for Gallipoli then Turkey by ferry
- Down the Asian bit of Turkey, to catch the ferry to Cyprus at Mersin
- Blag our way through Turkish controlled Northern Cyprus, & through the UN buffer zone
- Sweet talk Border Control into allowing us to enter the Greek controlled Southern side of Cyprus, where our villa and a 6 day rest awaits
- Leave S. Cyprus, back through the buffer zone, and take the ferry back to Turkey
- Ride up through the mountainous Cappadocia region to Istanbul
- Cross the Bosphorus and into Bulgaria
- Bit more of Greece then war torn Kosovo & Serbia
- Umpteen border crossings through Balkan states I have never heard of
- Rejoin civilization in Hungary, then skirt Slovakia
- Follow the southern Czech/Austria border to enter Germany
- Knock back some Steins then blast thru Belgium to the Chunnel
- Home in time for the Goodwood Festival of Speed
..... what could possibly go wrong ?
