Euro Trip May 26th-1st June 2007

Well, I've been back less than a week & we've already preliminary planned the next Euro Trip. LTB & I are proud to present another outing of loons & malcontents to the continent.

Date is as above & is the same as the BTF organised by Lee.

This trip is going to be a bit different than the others. We are planning to rent a villa/chataeux/sheep hut in the area to use as a base for a few days.

The plan is for us to travel from Dover mid morning on Sat 26th May & undertake a long drive to the place we find (depending on the exact location we might stay overnight en-route). We will then spend 4-5 days at the same location while we explore the area. The area is full of outstanding roads & beautiful scenery with many attractions.

As organisers we will be initially doing this by invite only with preference given to those we know & have driven with before. Maximum will be approx 9 cars & you must be an S owner! Too many draw too much attention on the roads. Once those invited have confirmed we will open places up to anyone known to those who already booked.

Apologies if this sounds harsh or arsey but we have a lot of responsibility in this & we have to know we can trust everyone without regard. We hope you understand our position.

With what we have in mind this would suit couples although singles are more than welcome.

Ed & Lee

 

Ed you forgot to mention that I will be liaising with my Continenetal colleague and we hope to hold some kind of EuroTrash meet up involving the French, Italian & German S2k clubs. We hope to do this over the bank holiday period (Sun 27 & Mon 28 May), but as such this is just one option and I will have to co-ordinate with T0mS2k from the French forum when he returns from his holidays at the end of September.

On a more serious note, pay attention at the back and face the front, I've been in touch with Rudy from the French forum today and together we have come up with the following provisional plan:

Day 1 (26 May) - Dover to Sadroc

Assemble at Dover ferry port at approx 7am for the 8am sailing. I would ask that everyone has a full tank of petrol at the port to reduce fannying around with multiple petrol stops in France.

Arrive at Dunkerque at 11am French time and take the motorway down to the 'Parc Asterix' where we will meet up with a French contingent. We should arrive at around 13:15 if all goes well and we'll take a short break to meet the enemy and stretch our legs.

Back on the road again at around 13:30 for the drive down to Sadroc which should take around four and a half hours non stop so realistically five and a half hours with petrol/fatigue breaks/meet & greet the Gendarmes.

We'll be staying over night in Sadroc and I'll be sending all accommodation details and other pertinent information in an information pack closer to departure date.



Day 2 (27 May) - Sadroc to Condom

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Reasonably early start, but not too early in order to get down to the chateau in good time. Drive should take around three and a half hours so if we set off at 9:30 we should arrive around 13:00. We could knock around 50 minutes off this time if we took the motorway all the way, but I think we will be sick of motorways and a more agricultural route would be everyone's choice (Please say if you would prefer motorway and I'll change it)

The rest of the day will pretty much be free and will give us time to unwind after plenty of driving and also give us a chance to stock up on beer and food plus we'll probably do a small drive to get to know the lay of the land.



Day 3 (28 May) - Jacky Slag Euro Hoon in Andorra

Yet again self explanatory. Will be an early start, but can't say what time yet as I'll need to go over it in finer detail with the French as it all comes down on what they have planned once we get to Andorra. We'll be meeting a fair few of the South of France contingent en-route to Andorra and we are planning a route that passes close to Toulouse and Perpignan to facilitate meeting places which will hopefully be kept to a minimum. As yet I have no idea what drives the French have got planned for the Andorra section, but rest assured they will be fantastic.

The outward leg map will look pretty much like this:



The route back will be a variation on that theme.

Days 4 & 5 (29 & 30 May) - TBC

The plan for these two days is that we make it up as we go along in the spirit of adventure and all that. I'm currently checking into activities that we can do and we can plan what we want to do on the day or the evening before according to how people feel. You can do as much or as little as you want and it will be largely up to you what we do.

Day 6 (31 May) - Long drive up to Paris

Mainly on motorways and the drive should take six and a half hours non stop so realistically eight hours. So if we set off at around 10:00 we should arrive in Paris at around 18:00 where we will be going on a little 'Paris by night' drive or 'Champs Elysee at 9000 RPM' hoon, take your pick. This again will be organised by our French hosts with who wil also be reserving a restaurant on our behalf for a kind of end of tour/last night blow out.



Day 7 (1 June) - Paris to Dunkerque)

The final push from Paris up to Dunkerque which should take around three hours at most. The plan is to stop off for a few hours on route for a lazy lunch and some sight seeing. This far the historic town of Arras has been pencilled in, mainly because it rhymes with arse. The ferry sails at 18:00 so we will need to be at the port no later than 17:00.



And there you have it. As I said earlier this is just a provisional plan and it will no doubt change quite a bit before the actual trip.

Where I would like your input is for the middle two 'free' days. These days will be done pretty much on the hoof so if you could have a little think about what you would like to do on these days please it would be appreciated.

 

Too much to remember already!!

 

Something you boys want to tell us ?

 

You know i have eyes only for you Badger Botherer!

 

I'll be there

 

For those interested, this is the place that Ed and I are going to try and book.

Chateau

Obviously this may change as we haven't secured a booking yet, but it will give you a feel of what we are planning to do this time.

 

Do we need to PM you Ed?

Bit close to LM.

 

With the type of accomodation we are looking at we are going to probably need a deposit & soon. Obviously these places are popular & some we have already looked at are booked up for the period we need. Lee & i are talking to accomdation agents now & as soon as we get an proper idea of numbers who are coming we will book the villa/chateaux/castle & pay a deposit so please confirm asap. We want to book within weeks not months.

If you have a problem with paying a deposit then this trip obviously isn't for you.

On the outward journey we are planning an early Sat crossing & a long drive through France to the villa. A rough distance estimate is 600+ miles with Autoroute. This is do-able in a day with a good rest break. I know someone who drives from the ports to the south coast in one dash in an Espace. If he can, we can. If this is an issue please think before confirming.

We are looking to book from Sat 26th May. Bookings are generally for a week ie. Sat-Sat. However, we are looking at getting the return ferry on Sat 2nd June so we will be leaving the villa on the Friday morning with that night being spent at Nitry as we usually do. This means losing a nights stay at the villa whilst having to pay another 70-90 Euros at a hotel. We hope everyone is ok with this as we think a stopover on the long drive back is essential.

Some rough accomodation costs are

 

Just to reiterate what Ed has already said, the first thing that we did was set out a few ground rules for the trip before we entered into the organisation stage, mainly that the trip be exclusively for S owners and that we will invite people to participate.

The reason behind this being that it helps to control numbers (we envisgae difficulties if we have more than 9 cars) and it also means that we will be driving with people that we know and trust. The other reason is that we are an S2000 club after all and if we opened it up to other marques then we risk having 2 or 3 S's and 6 porsches/others.

We hope you understand our reasons for doing this and if any of you want to discuss this then I would request that you do that by PM and not clog up this thread with such discussions.

Thanks.