When my brother called to to ask if I would join him and two colleagues for a short trip to France the next day, I did not have to think twice.. weather looking good, steel work horse in good condition, so: Let's go.

The Fazer thou was just cooled down from a 1300km one day stint from Budapest but I guess a bit of oil and she was good to go again. The other guys were on BMW GS (1100 and 1150) and a Diversion 900, so I was the only chain driven bike (not that it matters, but my job demands that I'm fixated/conditioned on facts like that)

As I was the last to join I thought they had the whole trip planned and figured out. No Sir! Since I was the one with the SatNav they'd liked me to ride up front. Normandy, France, was the general direction, and we had 4 days.(from NL)
But first thing to do is to remove all fixed speed camera positions from the TomTom Rider satnav. You can get a fine of 1500 Euro's in France for possesion of a satnav with those installed. Doesn't matter wether it is turned off or in your pocket. You will probably loose the device too

First part trough Belgium to Calais was on motorways. We thought about grabbing a bite in Calais and then diverting to secondairy roads.
First impression of Calais was not so good, factories and terminals and people looking for an illegal way to get to the UK. So we moved on to Boulogne-sur-mer. Nice waterfront.

and we had some of the local specialities: mussels, very good.
Sea food is abundant and fresh in the whole of Normandy.
We then moved on to Le Havre.

As we did not have a route planned (just a global destination for the day) and we didn't like to go the shortest or fastest way, we used the "winding road" button on the TomTom Rider. Brilliant invention. It takes you down the ideal roads for a motorcycle and you are travelling roads you could not dream up yourselves.

Good roads with little to no traffic at all took us to the intimidating Pont de Normandie, which crosses the river Seine in Le Havre.


We stopped for the night in Deauville, quite a posh town for the rich and famous.




Just our luck we picked the same "inmate" shirt from our bags as we hit the town... like a pair of escaped convicts.


The next day we pushed the "winding route" button again to move on to the D-Day beaches.

As you can see I am using the reliable Krauser K5 panniers mounted to SW Motec Quick Lock racks.
They can be used as top or side cases. I fitted one as top box and one to the left side. The bike keeps a bit of a narrow profile to enable me to filter trough traffic. (two side cases would make it very wide)

Of course we visited the mandatory but still impressive D-Day beaches and a museum (to escape from a rogue thunderstorm) and then moved on to our hotel Kyriad Carentan for our last night in France.


D-Day Museum:


Some more delicious seafood.


The final day we grabbed some souvenirs with substantial value (as in stuff you can eat and drink) and headed home.
If you are there, grab some Normandy sausages, ciders and also the famous Calvados spirits.


We then headed home on the motorway, sure it started to rain, which made passing the many toll booths very annoying. (gloves on off, zippers, creditcards, wet toll tickets, booh)

Bikes performed fine, no hassles whatsoever. The beamers and my Fazer Thou needed some oil during the trip, not the air cooled Diversion 900

Great area to visit if you're short on time.
Wait, reminds me, I still got a bottle of Calvados