Intro

This is my third attempt at writing a travel blog.

First was a record of my trip with four mates riding our bikes to Morocco and back. I never completed the blog and thanks to the boys I did complete the trip! link here:  maroc-or-bust
Second attempt was going to be a photographic record of my solo trip to France - Spain and back (using blog software Tumblr - inspired by my friend Alex Kaula and his friend Charlie New Orleans to Panama  - I was inspired by the blog software, not the trip - I'd never be that brave !!) but apart from a few initial photos uploaded prior to departure I was unable to upload anything while I was away.... the bear travels ... another failure. It was a fab trip btw.... apart from attempted murder by a Mercedes-driving Spaniard .... but that's another story.

So this trip is really an excuse to ride through some European countries en route for the annual Water & Ham Festival (aka Festival of San Juan) in Lanjarón in Andalusia, southern Spain. The idea for a crowd of us to meet up for the festival was mooted last June at Kate's 50th b'day bash. Not for me the simple act of jumping on a cheap Ryanair flight.... oh no! The excuse to make it a bike ride was just too great. So the plan started to germinate in my little brain sometime last year and quickly came to fruition just a couple of months ago. The steed of choice was to be Peg - my trusty Italian Mule (Aprilia with a Yamaha 660cc single cylinder engine).  She was in pretty good shape and only really needed fresh rubber for the trip.
I decided to forego another set of 'dual sport' tyres as the rear was wearing at an alarming rate- no doubt something to do with the incredibly shite condition of the Isle of Wight roads.... So proper road jobbies were fitted this time: Avon Storm Ultra 2 for the rubber fetish fiends among you!!

I spent many hours pouring over Google maps planning my route which was to be a quick blast across Belgium to Berlin spend a few days there with my lovely German family and zoom down to Czech Republik with the pretext of checking out some skiing resorts... then a few days in Austria mostly in the Tyrol region culminating with attempting to ride the  Grosglockner high Alpine pass (nearly 3,800m) link here . As I'd always wanted to visit Pompeii (and just seen a couple of TV programmes abut the place) a sojourn into Italy seemed apposite. By now I'm running out of time so decided it might be fun to see if I could get a ferry to Spain from Italy rather than ride around the top of Italy, through Monaco, south east France and into north east Spain (saving around 1,500km of riding). Yes! Grimaldi Lines sail to Barcelona (from Civitavechhia near Rome). I did wonder about getting a ferry to Tunis (which is possible from Sicily- again with Grimaldi) - ride through Algeria into Morocco and ferry from Tangier to Gib or Algericas but (probably fortunately) the border between Algeria and Morocco is closed at present. So ferry to Barca it is. A slightly different ride down Spain is planned: this time taking in the Cazorla National Park wiki link (where I did my 2-day off road training (for the Marok adventure) with Touratrail in 2011.

Plan is to camp as much as possible: at least 3 nights in Spain en route for Lanjaron. 2 or 3 in Italy and probably same in Austria and a couple in Germany. This plan is very dependent on the weather!

I managed to get my timing for the departure completely wrong! I decided to leave a few days before what I thought was the Bank Holiday weekend - turned out I left after the Bank Holiday and same week as half term! Why don't people tell me when it's a Bank Holiday - I always seem to get it wrong?