splodger

Last Monday evening I returned to Blighty after 4 great days touring Normandy and Brittany. It was my fourth tour of France and the roads and company were as superb as ever. The dual carriageways were so smooth that one of the guys got a 90 euro fine for speeding, but most of the time we were making rapid (and safe) progress on the small "D" roads. French roads are soooooooo much better than ours.

We averaged 250 miles/day, our route was:
Thurs overnight ferry Portsmouth - Le Havre
Fri Le Havre, Honfleur, Mt St Michel, Lorient
Sat Lorient - La Rochelle
Sun La Rochelle, Poitiers, Chinon, Le Mans
Mon Le Mans, Normandy (D Day) coast, ferry from Ouistreham to Portsmouth.
Apart from the Monday, weather was fine.

This was the first time I have toured in the Honda and definitely the first that I had to keep up with 6 Westfields and Caterhams. Much to their surprise and admiration (and my immense pleasure), the Honda did keep up with them at all times (although it did become necessary to enter into the VTEC zone on more than a couple of occasions. ).

On all previous Se7ens tours I have been in a Westfield and know first hand how quick those little cars can be, so I was dead chuffed to find that the Honda kept up, even when it was "tail end Charlie" behind 2 or 3 cars.

If you haven't driven on French "D" roads, I warmly recommend them.

I will be looking to repeat the experience next year, possibly doing the Alps instead of northern France.

BTW, I was using TomTom with my XDA2. The new itinerary feature works. BUT you must switch off the auto recalculate as this ignores your itinerary and simply plots the quickest route from where you are to you final destination, ignoring all your waypoints.