An idea is born

Original planning for this trip started back in the autumn of last year.  It's seven years since we last went to Brno and the Czech Republic and I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate a trip to the MotoGP as well as see friends.

We had been to the Dutch TT two years running and wanted another MotoGP visit.  I thought about Cataluña but as it clashed with the TT on the Isle of Man I decided to look at Czech.

Tickets went on sale in December and the English version of the official website was easy to follow and I booked two general admission tickets for around €45 each for the weekend.  The weekend ticket covers Friday to Sunday practice and race days.

The original plan was to go to by bike of course. All the initial planning, route and stops etc, was based on a bike day in the saddle.  Then Claire's hip decided to get involved and it has become far too painful for her to pillion anywhere, so we decided to bite the bullet and go by car.  Luckily, she has recently traded the Getz 1.1 for a Peugeot 206CC with a much bigger more powerful engine. Plus, it is far more comfortable!

Now that we have decided that the Czech Trip will be by car, I set about my monthly check of ferry and shuttle fares and found that with a discount code (I will not reveal so don't ask!) I could get the car and two people to France and return for £67.50 in August. It's with Seafrance.  The fare without discount is only £75. I booked it.  The Shuttle for the same dates and approx times was £147.  No contest.

In the weeks since we decided to make it a car trip I have begun to re-assess the routes.  All mine had been planned on our Acer Notebook in Mapsource for my Garmin Quest.  Claire has her own Tom-Tom for the car and it works on postcodes and addresses.

Irritatingly, when she bought it the maps loaded were for the entire western Europe plus Poland and Czech.  One of the reasons we bought it.  On the first map update from the "Home" website at Tom-Tom, it decided that the new maps were too big for the memory on the satnav and we had to choose one of four regions! Needless to say there isn't one with UK and Czech in the same set. So at the moment I have the choice of changing the maps (it is free) to the Eastern Set before we go, or simply take the cradle and the Quest and use that for Czech! I'll most likely do both.  The Quest will give us a backup!

I have also invested in a new Michelin map of Germany and already have a recent Czech map to add to the mountain of paperwork we'll have with us. Wherever possible I have tried to choose hotels with free wifi so that we can keep in touch with home and I will investigate roaming with my iPhone.

The next job is to check out European cover extension to the RAC that we already have and get that paid for.

As things get arranged and places booked I'll update.