Out of Spain into France. So that was the Atlantic Ocean over to the Mediterranean Sea then. And goodbye Spain, hello France. 910km so far, riding the BMW R1250RT along the N-260 (and others) from La Seu d’Urgell in the Spanish Pyrenees to Banyuls-sur-Mer on the French coast. We also diverted up to ride the infamous Gorges de Galamus.
Once we got to our hotel and parked up – after the BMW Connected app decided we should approach it from a footpath above – we checked in to our room.
Côté Thalasso Banyuls-sur-Mer
I have no idea what that clicking is in the video, and no, I didn’t mean the old biddy walking down the corridor…
Food at the Côté Thalasso Banyuls-sur-Mer exceeded expectations; the tasting menu was superb with the beef and dauphinois potatoes a high point before this dessert. A lovely local red wine too.
Me too, jetée, me too
War Memorial
Me after another hot day on the bike
RT outside Reception
I laugh in the face of danger
So Banyuls-sur-Mer was better than expected and they were kind enough to let us keep the RT parked outside reception where they could keep an eye on it. We decided to pin it to win it to get to our next stay, but first we explored the harbour.
After breakfast, we set off and after a few hours on the fabulous N-260 road, we were still 3 hours away from the night’s stop. Sadly the cafe we stopped at wasn’t serving food due to a staffing problem, so it was just a Coke and a water for now (plus one of Alison’s Rice Krispies bars).
RT roadside in Boltaña
Then it was on to our next Parador, the Parador de La Seu d’Urgell with the mileage now up to 637km so far having enjoyed all the sweeping bends of the N-260 today.
Secure parking for your motorbike is always a bonus, so I was pleased they even had a special shed for motorbikes too, which is nice. Luckily they don’t do Aperol Spritzes either…
The food was good, but not as good as the night before, sadly.
Day 2 dawned bright and early as we had to be up and out of our cabin a half hour before docking into Santander at 8.00am and we wanted breakfast before as well.
I had already planned a route and imported it into the pitiful BMW Connected app and set it to “Winding”. That setting gives you three options: “Min:, “Max” and a middle setting. and I assume – because there’s no help file – that Min means it’s not too windy and max means it’s going to take you all round Will’s mother’s.
So off we went. And yes, it decided that what we really wanted to do on an RT touring bike on road tyres, two-up with luggage was to use gravel tracks… And that was when it was actually keeping Connected. I think BMW Motorrad are taking the piss calling it that, because for any navigation you have to use their app. To do so, you have to pair the phone to your bike – woe betide you if you want to use your phone with your intercom on any other bike, because the bike has to be the intermediary and you have to unpair your phone and intercom.
Once you’ve connected via Bluetooth and planned your route, you tell the app to navigate and then you have to set up an additional wireless connection to the RT just to see the maps.
So far, so good(!), but at a random – or many random – points on your journey, that wireless connection will drop out and to top it off the Bluetooth connection might also randomly drop out, leaving you to have to stop by the side of the road, open the storage compartment, re-establish the connection – which may or may not mean restarting the RT – and then get going again.
Later on, the RT decided it might just reboot itself completely, leaving you with a blank screen without any speed information, let alone any navigation.
It is utterly pants. It’s not even like the navigation system properly displays POIs or warns you of safety cameras, for instance. Indeed, at the start of Day 3, I was very low on fuel and the Connected (cr)app was telling me the nearest petrol station was 87km away when there was actually one showing on Google Maps and Apple Maps 3/4km away. But you can’t use those apps on the RT because BMW are too stupid to get CarPlay working on their bikes, whilst it’s working on their cars. It Connected or nothing!
Anyway, whinge over, we set off and then rerouted manually to at least see some scenic roads and stops for coffee along the way to our first night’s hotel, the Parador de Sos del Rey Católico.
Now I’d first heard of Paradores on the wonderful Harry’s Garage YouTube channel from some of his road trip videos and unknown to me to start with, this particular Parador was featured in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’t excellent series, The Trip to Spain.
View from the terrace at the Parador de Sos del Rey Católico
Parador de Sos del Rey Católico Room
After a shower and a freshen-up – it had been quite a warm ride with us seeing 37°C at one point – we decided that wine and generous gins on an empty stomach would help help…
Gin!
The view from…
More Gin
Wine!
The view from the terrace
More Wine!
Before dinner, we headed off into Sos del Rey Católico itself for a little exercise despite it still being pretty bloody hot. The place is very hilly but very picturesque.
And then dinner: local food cooked to a very high standard. Very much recommended.
So yes, Day 2 of the trip (and Day 1 on the RT) was 323km and 5 hours on the bike.
And finally, a little bit of footage from on the bike:
As I mentioned in an earlier post, following the shakedown trip to Berlin, we were heading off on a tour of Spain, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium in July.
We had ummed and ahhed about buying mesh jackets to wear instead of the Klim kit we have but thought that we would struggle for luggage space because we would need to stack the Latitude and Altitude gear somewhere if we were wearing mesh jackets and we were packing a lot of clothing already, given the quality of the hotels and restaurants we had booked, so decent shoes, trousers, shirts and dresses were already taking up a fair bit of space.
How much space? Well there was all the standard luggage space (including the optional top case) and on top of the top case we were again using the Kriega US-40 Rackpack but this time we had added one of my venerable old Kriega US-20 Drypacks on top using the wonderful strapping system engineered into these bags.
I also thought about buying a new drone to use on the journey but with only a week to go decided against buying it for now as the trip was going to be pretty mileage-intensive so stopping, setting up, filming, returning, repacking, etc. was probably off the table. Maybe next year?
A couple of days beforehand, I thought I’d just print out our travel documents. You may know we’d originally booked it for a week or two before before but Angelina’s graduation date was announced and clashed, so we had had to rebook… without the CClub Lounge access on our original booking. Luckily there must have been a last minute cancellation, so I managed to book the last two spots, meaning we could relax in a bit more peaceful surroundings and enjoy complimentary food and wine.
We headed off to Portsmouth after work on the Thursday, boarded and found our cabin. Two nights and one full day aboard awaited us. Sadly, Brittany Ferries’ “Salamanca” ship doesn’t have an actual gym or fitness suite and the spa was just a couple of chairs and a table near to the kids’ zone. Hardly relaxing. But the cabin was fine, the porthole looking out to sea was nice to have and the quality of the food and drink in the Lounge was good enough for us not to need to eat in the restaurants.
Overall? Pricey at £747 all-in one way, but comfortable if a bit boring and it got us to Santander on the Saturday morning ready to go. Would we do it again? Well, it gets you right into Northern Spain but £750 pays for a nice hotel or two and the petrol to ride down the West coast and through the Pyrenees.
If you’ve read this blog then you will know that I booked Eurothrash 2024 for July 2024 to suit other actual or potential family clashes; ah, the benefits of having a mahoosive family!
Today, the Tour de France organisers have announced both the dates and the route for this year’s race. Now, for a bit of context, you should know that for as long as I can recall I have watched the highlights on TV wherever I’ve been at the time and as it’s usually in July, it usually coincides with a holiday.
On Eurothrashes over the years the big climbs and famous finishes have featured in our planning and this year was going to be similar, with a visit to the Gorges du Tarn, Mont Ventoux and the Gorges du Verdon all featuring in my planning.
So anyway, here’s the route and dates:
Tour de France 2024 Route
So on the Gruissan to Nimes state – Stage 16 – we will be riding past but to the North of the route as we are heading to the Millau Bridge and Gorges du Tarn that day before making our way to our rest day at what was “the First Dates Hotel”.
On our ‘rest day’ we included an optional jaunt up to Mont Ventoux which – thankfully – would be slightly to the South of Stage 17, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to SuperDévoluy. The following day will be absolutely fine as we will be heading further South to Frejus.
On the Friday we head over to Grenoble via the Gorges du Verdon and l’Alpe d’Huez, so fortunately we will be to the West of Stage 19.
Phew!
I’m sure we’d be OK though as the RT will look pretty much identical to the Tour’s camera bikes 🙂
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