Planning a trip abroad.....

I ordered my luggage from Louis.de in mid May... They had to cancel the first order because they confused the details, and told me to place a second order... They then cancelled the second order instead of the first, but told me otherwise... Had to faff around to figure out what happened... Then placed a third order on 26th May... Got worried a couple of weeks ago, so made contact to find where it was... told it was arriving in week 24 (last week). Last week I got a message to say that it was landing on week 25 (this week), which is okay... still time to make my ferry on week 27...

This morning I got a new message to say that they weren't honest about the previous details and they had placed the order and it would arrive on week 28 (in germany)...

I'm now fooked. Have placed a new order with the manufacturer, which they say will dispatch in 3-4 days and at an additional €110 cost... Will it arrive on time... will it not... it all just adds to the excitement.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a throwover set that I can get quickly? in case it all falls apart... I actually sold my Givi CRM throwovers to buy this set...

Bike is a Moto Guzzi V7 and the luggage is SW Motech Legend. If theres anything to take from this, it's 'don't order anything important from Louis'... at most you could trust them with a logo print t-shirt...

Louis.de refunded the money after a long struggle... They are a nightmare.

I ordered a new set on Tuesday direct from SW Motech and apparently they've arrived in the country already. I should have them tomorrow!

Just back from a week in Normandy, first trip on the Continent bar one, in years. First trip ever for the SO on her bike.

We did it on a whim: saw weather here was going to be shite, so Thursday 3rd August looked on AirBnB and Irish Ferries and booked both and sailed 5th August. Sailed back 12th August.

Costs: 2 bikes, with cabin, Dublin-Cherbourd-Dubln €1300-odd. Gites in Normandy with a pool, for a week, €1100. All expenses in the week: fuel for both bikes, food, attractions etc €1200. So the entire week for everything: €3600. Just to give you an idea of how expensive peak time ferries are: I did the same route in Oct 2021 when I came back from NL with my new bike and the ferry was just €178 including cabin, so we did travel on probably the most expensive week of the entire year. I think it shouldn't be hard to half those ferry and accomodation costs at another time of the year.

Petrol varied from €1.84 - €2.10 a litre depending on where.

For any trip abroad I create a folder on my Google Drive and I drop copies of our passports, vehicle logbooks, insurances, E111 cards, accommodation and ferry bookings, travel insurance etc.I can then access them from anywhere out on the road.

We didn't do huge mileage : it was supposed to be a holiday : no more than a couple of hours a day. Travelled on backroads mostly, the odd ring road, and filtered. Was religious about not speeding : thank God for cruise control ! When we hit mad traffic (e.g. at Mont St Michel, we filtered (her for the first time) and found french drivers actually pull in an wave you on. Bliss)

Each day was - not - planned. We literally followed our nose. Saw something, somewhere nice and: just stopped right there.

Did find lots of places closed (N. France goes to S. France for their holidays that week), so we even came across petrol stations, hotels and supermarkets that were closed for holidays. LIDL, however, doesn't. Met a couple in Fougeres shopping LIDL : their Dunnes Store bag gave them away. And yes, they were shopping in the middle aisle. :)

Weather was fab. Nearly too fab tbh. Wore all the heavy gear on the way out, and once it was packed away on the bike at the ferry it never came out of the bags again until we got as far as Athlone on the way home on the 13th. Temps started off around 20 degrees, but hit 27-29 degrees by week end. Too hot for me tbh, and I always ATGATT.

I brought 2 big locks and one smaller one and I used them everywhere, locking the bikes to one another. The SO's bike being an NC750, she could lock here helmet in the 'tank' when we got to parking - If i packed my jacket etc on the bike, I used the small lock to lock my helmet to the seat.

We also made a special effort to travel light. She had the top box on here bike, and I had one on mine, and I had 2 panniers. Which, despite it being a behemoth (GoldWing), are useless. And i carried locks, puncture repair kit, first aid kit etc. That basically took up one entire pannier (yes, they're that small, and stupidly-shaped). I haid raingear in the other. France has washing machines & driers. Launderettes too. No reason to carry piles of clothes around, half of which you'll never wear.

We're definitely doing it again next year, but will try to avoid peak travel dates (for cost reasons).

I have been playing around with the Rosslare Bilbao ferry bookings for random dates. Kinda surprised with the cost. A bike and two passengers seems to come in around 800 quid. Is this about right does anyone know?

It's a long aul' trip so you'd have to factor that in - also no easy alternative route like there is going IRL - FRA

I paid €203 for Rosslare to Bilbao for 19/05/2023 for a chair, no cabin

I payed €220 rosslare to Bilbao and roscoff to Cork. No cabins first week of October. It was scorching in Spain very lucky with the weather. Perfect for camping. I doubt id be that lucky again though.

I had a very cheap stay the biggest expense was fuel, camping was €10-18, coming back up through france was shite, I had ideas of a nice drive stopping every so often but I chose to stay in spain longer so I had to horse it up the main roads through france. My god is it boring. Google maps shows speed cameras in Spain but not France. I used Waze in France and it was very good it showed all the fixed point cameras, not that I was speeding or anything...

Edit: Spelling