August 24: I’ve been home for a week now, and the introverted, contemplative, analytical person that I am has done some calculating and assessing. Herewith, some conclusions:
The trip lasted 60 days (June15 to August 15), excluding August 15 which I spent getting home. I include June 16, the day of arrival, as a full day because I did travel to the first hotel, and spend time in the afternoon doing various things to try and stay awake, including this sketch. I had 52 days with the bike, and I actually rode 42 days. Total mileage on the bike was 7,600 km or roughly 180 km per day. Of those days, I only had 3 days of real rain and unfortunately, one was the last day back to Heidelberg. It rained all day in 12C temperatures, so not a really pleasant way to end that part of the trip.
Total cost for everything was roughly $17,500 (excluding the motorcycle). This includes airfare ($610), shipping the bike ($1400), travel connections like renting the car and taking the train four times, renting the house in Sablet ($900), all fuel, food and accommodation. This works out to be roughly $290 a day all in. Some things are obviously more expensive – gas was roughly 1.45 Euro a litre, and I probably bought a tank of fuel every other day – while others are comparable with Toronto prices. I found Switzerland most expensive, but not by a wide margin over Germany. Food and fuel were most expensive, but that might be a reflection of staying in a bigger city like Lausanne with a preponderance of Swiss bankers.
In the end though, the cost is almost irrelevant; if you want to do certain things, you have to pay for the privilege. I will still look for better value in things like hotel prices (since I see them as essentially places to sleep and little else), but I’m more ready now to spend a bit more for a good meal, another glass of really good wine, or the efficiency of a taxi rather than walking. As I have said before: “Why not…?”
I actually found the eight week duration of the trip to be too long. The fairly constant moving, packing and being alone took a toll. As well, I realized early in the trip that my efforts to write in my journal every day; to sketch as often as I could; to run every other day (I managed to run 24 times); to update this page frequently; and, to deal with daily e-mail and messages from home was too much to expect, and I often took a day off from all of that. At times I felt that taking a day to rest in a hotel with the bike parked was “wasting time”, but of course it was a perfectly appropriate response and a way of preserving my focus and sanity.
I went where I had planned and saw most of the things I hoped to see. There were some rough patches – particularly at the early stages of the trip – but no disasters so I am happy about that. Highlights would include a seven-course gourmet meal in Waldau, Germany; celebrating my birthday in Lausanne; sitting on the patio of my room in Talloires with a glass of rose; the wine bar in Tain l’Hermitage; the Corniche des Cevennes at St Jean du Gard; and, the view off the top of the Col. Any Col.
Until next year, then.