Just returned from an interesting exploration of Europe. The goal here was to bypass the larger cities and concentrate on the parts of Europe most people don't take the time to see as tourists. I bought a Garmin Europe map on microSD for my Garmin 1300, and enabled the routing to avoid highways and toll-roads when possible. This made for really slow going, as most country roads were very narrow and windy, with slow traffic. But in the end, the payout was huge.
My travel buddy and I rented a car in London, ferried the car from Dover to Calais, France, and headed in a southeastern direction with the intent of making a giant loop, with the Alps as the center point.
After Calais, France, we headed towards Belgium, and drove through the width of the country, from west to east.
After entering Germany at Aachen, we drove to Weimar, then south along the Czech border to Passau, along the Austrian border.
In Austria, we clung to the western part, staying at Salzburg for the night, then down to Udine, Italy.
The goal in Italy was to take in Tuscany, so we made the beautiful town of Siena our goal. From Siena, we headed to the Cote d' Azur.
Passing through Monaco and the congested French Riviera, we headed north through the entire north-south length of France, ending back up in Calais for the ferry.
I had hoped to take in northern Spain, and Barcelona, but in the end we ran out of time. We covered about 3500 miles in 9 days, which isn't too bad for traveling in a gutless Ford Focus diesel. Next trip will be on a BMW or Multistrada, and I hope to see even more of the backcountry, and cover more miles, including Spain and some of the Eastern European countries.
The European countryside really exceeded all my expectations, and opened my eyes regarding the problems we have here in the US and how other parts of the world have figured things out. Its a gorgeous place and we have a lot to learn from them.
A few untouched photos here:
Europe September 2011 - Imgur