Dirk Wright wrote:
>>I don't know about England. What place were you at - London?
>
>I was in Sheffield, in the Midlands.
Simon says
> Hmmm, Sheffield's in Yorkshire, and folk up there won't take
> kindly to being told they're in the Midlands ;-)
And there's folk in Yorkshire who think Sheffield is in another
country!
Sheffield had a particularly fine bus system, thanks to an enlightened
local government who supported it financially to a great extent. It
was extensive, reliable and cheap from what I recall. Until central
government got hold of it and told them to stop it. The West Yorkshire
conurbation (Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Halifax)
also had a good set of trains and buses which seemed reasonably well
co-ordinated last time I was up there.
> Also Britain (which has countries other than England in it!) is a
relatively
> small island, but is still ~1,000 miles long. Arterial routes are
motorways,
> but the pace slows dramatically when you get to the smaller roads.
> France & Spain, for example, are much bigger than GB. It would
surely take
> more like 24 hours of continuous driving to cross either
North-South. I have
> read bike journalists' accounts of head-down full throttle trips
across
> France on the autoroutes which, if they are to be believed, spend
much of
> their time with the speedo above 140mph.
Mainland Britain is about 800 miles top to bottom, but most of it is
quite narrow side to side. I'm not sure if you could manage a
reasonably direct 500 miles in England (unless you got lost and did
few circuits of the M25!) but you could certainly do it in Britain.
France is about the same (800 miles) top to bottom, but is much bigger
because it is a solid mass as wide as it is tall. Spain likewise, I
think. Italy is long and thin (except at the top) but you might
manage 500 northwest to southeast. In all cases you will find plenty
of variety to eat, drink, and of course exercise your Zuikos - no
hundreds of miles of corn prairie this side of the pond.
On the other hand, you could start from Olafo's in the Netherlands and
500 miles could easily take you into Belgium, France, Germany and
Luxembourg, with Switzerland, Italy, Lichtenstein and Austria probably
thrown in. Remembering which word to use for "yes" would be quite a
challenge after the first couple of hundred miles!
John
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