euro trip may 23

[coolblackbird]

My son and I are going on a 16-day trip around Europe.
the trip has changed because my son can only take 16 days now
1. Santander-Spain
2.
3. across Spain to Benidorm and up toward Barcelona
4. France's east coast
5. north Italy
6. Switzerland
oh I nearly forgot the Pyrenees
we are after fantastic places to visit and stay along the way, no camping
all suggestions welcome including low skill off road

[AnTyx]

That's a LOT of ground to cover for 20 days. Realistically all you would be doing is riding, at this pace.

If you want to spend some quality time, riding nice roads for part of each day, having time to see pretty things, have some good food and wine etc., I would say AT MOST you should aim for a Spain-Portugal loop in that timeframe.

[AnTyx]

How I would do it... Assuming you are off the overnight ferry in the morning and ready to go:

Day 1: Santander - Picos de Europa - end the day in Leon. 4.5 hrs / 350 km pure drive time.

Day 2: Leon to Chaves (start of Portugal N2) to Peso da Regua on the Douro riverbank - 365 km, almost 5 hours pure drive time if sticking to the N2.

Day 3: west on the N222 and over to 516 Arouca bridge, then back down to the N2 and down as far as Abrantes or Tomar - 350 km, 6,5 hrs pure drive time.

Day 4: Tomar to Evora to Cordoba - 500+ km, almost 7 hours pure drive time.

Day 5: Cordoba - Granada - Pico de Veleta, 211 km, 4 hours ride time, hiking time on the mountain, back down to Granada for sightseeing and overnight

Day 6: Granada - Valencia, 500 km / 5 hours, and that's on the highway.

Day 7: Valencia - Barcelona, 350 km / 3,5-4 hours on the highway, maybe a detour to Montserrat.

Day 8: Barcelona - Andorra - let's say Pamplona, on mountain roads that's 625 km and 9.5 hours pure drive time. Personally I would detour to e.g. Fortalet on the French side.

Day 9: Pamplona to Bilbao via the coast: 225 km / 4 hours.

Add some rest and sightseeing days, add Seville, Ronda, Gibraltar, Toledo and Madrid, add Coimbra or Lisbon... you could easily fill up 20 days and it will still feel rushed!

[backofbeyond]

I'm with AnTyx on this one as I did something similar back in August and even the month we had felt rushed at times. There's so much to see and do off the bike, plus it's the stuff that happens / people you meet en route that you can't plan for. Rushing from town to town (or even country to country) looks good on a map but all you see is tarmac. A loop round Spain / Portugal and then maybe a couple of days on the French autoroute to get back (= my fate tomorrow ) would be my suggestion



Cordoba





Toledo




Granada

[Alanymarce]

I agree - in 20 days, to cover what I guess will be 6000 km if you do it all, you'll be riding most of the time. If this is what you want, then fine.

We drove (car not bike) 4000 km in 21 days round Central Europe (essentially Prague-Warsaw-Krakow-Eastern Hungary-Bucharest-Sofia-Timişoara-Bratislava-Budapest-Prague) and this gave us enough time to appreciate all of the stops, but was still "ambitious", some days were very long - e.g., Prague-Wroclaw-Warsaw saw us start early, stop for 3 hours in Wroclaw, and arrive in Warsaw around 10 pm (with speed limits of 140 km/h much of the way - and no one told us that this appears to be the minimum speed limit!).

I think you'll find the trip too much unless you simply want to get from A to B (to C, ..... to Z).

The road along the south side of the Pyrenees is a really good journey, from the east end to Barcelona is good, then if you make your way to Central Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Ávila, etc.) and on into Portugal (from North to South), then back to Santander, perhaps via Valencia, this is going to be around 4000 km which is as much as I'd try in a car, and about 1000 km more than on a bike. Our preferred average daily distance in a car is 170 km/day and my maximum average daily distance on a bike is the same (albeit on mostly unsurfaced roads).