Almost every single year, my dad and me embark on a week or two of travel on our motorcycles. We’ve been through the Alps, the Pyrenees, to the North Cape, all around Scotland and all through Norway in the past. This year, for our tenth trip, if I’ve counted correctly, we decided to go all around the Irish coast. Taking the ferry from Cherbourg in France to Dublin, we went westwards, then northernly, through Northern Ireland and back to Dublin. From Düsseldorf to Cherbourg, Dublin to Dublin and from Cherbourg back to Düsseldorf, the trip was 4,391 kilometres long and took 13 days. As usual, I was riding my trusty Moto Guzzi V7 Special and my dad was riding his Honda CB 1100 RS. What follows are a series of impressions, photographs and thoughts on our journey.

The first day took us from western Germany through the southern part of the Netherlands and central Belgium into France. Bypassing Paris on a northernly route, we went past Amiens and Rouen towards Le Havre (all on motorways). Crossing the Pont de Normandie, we arrived at our first stop in Honfleur.

After the first 699 kilometres, we parked our bikes on the Cours des Fossés in Honfleur

For the end of May, it was a pretty warm day and it had gotten nice and sunny by the time we rode into France. We were looking forward to a balmy evening around the little harbour close to our hotel. After a quick shower, we had dinner on the front porch of the hotel restaurant and then headed over to the quaint fishing harbour.

Honfleur used to be a notorious pirate’s den in the 16th century

A feisty local seagull

The evening indeed turned out to be very sunny and the temperatures stayed warm even after the sun went down. We walked around the small streets and looked at a few of the sights, before settling down in front of a nice little harbour bar, enjoying a well-earned cigar after our first 700 kilometres and a long day in the saddle.

The town’s oldest church, Église Saint-Étienne, was built in the 14th century and now houses the local naval museum

As the sun went down over the harbour and the moon came out, it felt like the perfect first day of summer. Especially since it had rained relentlessly at home for weeks and we were now hoping for very fine weather on the other side of the channel in Ireland, as all predictions at this point looked excellent.

The Honfleur sky at night

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