Hi all, long time no posts sorry! Took the B off the road for the Winter . . .

Anyway, two bits of news. First, thanks to my fantastic boyfriend I now have a lovely new black mohair hood. When I bought her last April the old vinyl one had a cracked rear window, but now it's good to be proud of her looks with the hood up as well as down.

Second piece of news, have just booked a 10 day tour round Europe in her in April, while my son is away on a ski trip. We're taking the overnight ferry, Potsmouth to Caen, then driving along the coast to Honfleur, then up to Bruges, Brussels, a trip round the Nurburgring if we can, down to Turckheim, then down to Lake Geneva and Annecy, then back up to Caen via Fontainebleu - all gorgeous places!

Let's just hope she stays in one piece and the European April weather lets us get the top down!

Get loads of pics !!! and have a good time

Fantastic! Sounds like the perfect kind of trip for the B.

I'm angling for a new role at work which will be entirely web-based. If I can pull it off (currently about a 50% possibility) I'm seriously thinking about moving to Berlin as a base and also doing loads of driving round Europe this summer. As long as I always have a rock-solid internet connection wherever I go I should be OK.

But yeah, as Doc says, enjoy the drive and take loads of photos and post them up here

As a well travelled person (I know I looked at your Flickr) and very good pixs they are too, you may be aware that the Ferry people wake you up at a unearthly hour minus 1. I bathed my lips with booze til late and was then awoken too few hours later at 5am (UK time) for disembarking by 7pm Frog time. Other than that I'm jealous, especially of the Bruges bit. And of course I hope the weather is perfect for lidless motoring.

Most excellent!!!

Enjoy and make sure you post a photo diary of your tour! We have driven to the South of France in our Citroen bus thing but would love to do it in the b - trouble is the kids are 5 and 8 so we have more of a problem than xs in where to store them!!

Have a fantastic trip!!! :slayer:

You will have a great time I took my b on a camping trip around Europe a couple of years ago calling in at Paris, Monaco, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Cologne. Had an amazing time.

Great photos btw

Superb photo's!!

I am just 'getting into' photography and am still very much wearing L plates........

What camera do you use (I assume more than 1!!), how do you get the lighting effects and the misty movement in the water? FIlters and shutter speed I guess..............?

I keep toying with the idea of enrolling in a course for beginners at the local Uni.

That sounds great! I think a few of us would like to tag along...
Fab photos, will look forward to seeing more of your trip.

xS

Congratulations on the new hood as well. Its such an upgrade on the original PVC. I didn't want to take the hood down after I had mine fitted.

I want to take my B over to France later in the year. Nice car for a road trip.

nicholasb said:

I want to take my B over to France later in the year. Nice car for a road trip.

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I've driven down to the South of France a couple of times - not in the b yet, but if you plan a stop over for a visit to Paris I can recommend a place to stay in Chartres and then it is an easy ride in to Paris on the train from there.

xS

nice trip

a word of warning on the Belgian leg thou: they have gone completely SpeedCam crazy nowadays and speeding foreigners get pulled over and pay the fine on the spot or they get their car impounded on the spot.

If you've got a GPS system which can load speedcam locations, a visit to something like www.flitspaal.nl might be worth it.

To illustrate the crazyness: the most "productive" cam sits near Leuven.
Imagine:
- Motorway : speed limit 120 KPH
- Exit ramp joining a 4-lane express road:
--- speed limit on ramp 90 KPH
--- speed limit on 4-lane express road 70 KPH
- Halfway the curve of the exit ramp: speed limit sign 50 KPH AND speedcam
- 200 yards later speed limit sign 70 KPH
- 400 yards later speed limit sign 50 KPH
- 25 yards later traffic lights + SpeedCam
- after traffic lights speed limit sign 70 KPH
- 400 yards later speed limit sign 50 KPH
- 25 yards later traffic lights + SpeedCam
- after traffic lights speed limit sign 70 KPH
- 500 yards later - agglomeration sign "Leuven" - no speed limit sign
note: agglomeration limit is 50 KPH

If you dont pay attention, and zoom through the green lights at +50 KPH, they you are "a winner".
It is possible to get FOUR speeding tickets within a few minutes on a 1-mile stretch. They've got you coming AND going there.
Oh, and the tickets are cumulative also.. so if you zoom by several times in a couple of hours time you can remorgage your house.

And who puts a speedcam on an exit ramp anyways?
No wonder the local priest has excommunicated the SpeedCam

They are going crazy with the bloody cameras all over Europe it seems. I do remember last year hoofing it towards Calais out of Gent, empty road and was wondering why the car in front was braking, rather too late for me to see the Vectra parked in a break in the central reservation Luckily for me I heard nowt

I stuck to the speed limit the entire trip to Perpignan and back, I actually set the speed warning gadget on the Picasso to 5 kph under the speed limit just in case and thankfully did not 'score' any points - I could not believe how many camera's we passed.

Those of you who know me and my driving style will understand why this was such an achievement for me!!

My trip was a bit less sedate with 130mph indicated at times [in Germany of course]... then I remembered I had a full luggage rack

Had to do 3000 miles in 2 weeks somehow

silverbarchetta said:

Had to do 3000 miles in 2 weeks somehow

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Good going!! We managed about 2.5k as we did a lot of mileage while we were in Perpignan, including a trip into Spain.............

It's so much easier to do a lot of miles in a day on the continent than in the UK. Near empty Autoroutes in France and drivers pull back in after overtaking. We got from Nottingham to near Lyon in one day despite getting a bit trapped on the Paris peripherique. On previous trips have made it as far as Toulouse in one day.

silverbarchetta said:

It's so much easier to do a lot of miles in a day on the continent than in the UK. Near empty Autoroutes in France and drivers pull back in after overtaking. We got from Nottingham to near Lyon in one day despite getting a bit trapped on the Paris peripherique. On previous trips have made it as far as Toulouse in one day.

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Left Calais at about 22.00-ish arrived in Perpignan about 10.00 ish the following morning, great roads, loads of services - the only drivers causing problems and having accidents had GB, D or B country plates on!!

One of the joys of b ownership...hit mainland europe three months after I bought it.

No sat nav, no navigator, one map, got lost a bit, but who cares. Finally met up with friends somewhere in France [via Switzerland and Italy] to chill out for a week.

Would still have the swiss road tax? sticker in the windscreen, if it hadn't got hit by a stone and had to be replaced as it was a MOT failure.

You will enjoy the trip, I'll ignore the fact that the b was laid up for winter

LittleRedB said:

Left Calais at about 22.00-ish arrived in Perpignan about 10.00 ish the following morning, great roads, loads of services - the only drivers causing problems and having accidents had GB, D or B country plates on!!

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Nessum Dorma for LRB! For a goodly no of years now I've 'done' France & Spain. If driving to Perpignan direction from Calais the choice is to 'maintain progress' to the max then it's the boring M'way route to Reims Dijon Lyon. Or fewer tolls plus bypassing Paris via Reims Le Mans or my much preferred route of Amien Paris Clermont & the Millau Bridge (a must imo) with spectacular views en route. Either way, Calais to the South is a full day (or nights) work. Then for me another full day to the Costa Blanca. Incidently and of no use to anyone the journey is the same distance (Lon-CB) as from Toronto - Orlando. Not a lot of people know that !!! AND to the best of my current knowledge the camera fines DO not follow you home. I've been stopped and fined for allegedly trangressing laws, but if you ain't stopped you've won. I've caused many a speed camera to flash. Canadians take their fines & points home from the USA and the UK (Europe) plans to follow suit, we won't escape.

CasaPaulo said:

Or fewer tolls plus bypassing Paris via Reims Le Mans or my much preferred route of Amien Paris Clermont & the Millau Bridge (a must imo) with spectacular views en route.

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Yup, that is the route I took (there and back) just because I wanted to cross the bridge.............wow is about the only way to describe it!!