Putting meat on the bones

Now we had rough lay out for our trip it was now time to fill the detail, not only the exact route from day to day. But also the Hotels. My French language is almost zero ( the French aren't exactly renowned for their use of foreign languages ) and I was concerned that a group of British and Dutch bikers would not be welcome. But any way, I decided to play it straight down the line, sending the emails in English and explaining that we were a group of bikers on a tour of France. To be honest I was wrong on both accounts. Most of the emails I got back were in English and I felt absolutely no hesitation from any of the hotels about having a group of bikers stay with them.

Tips.

If your sending more than one email out to hotels in the same town or more towns in a short period of time as I did, put the name of the hotel and town in the subject part of your email. It makes life a lot easier in locating which hotel your talking to.Most hotels used my email to reply so it wasn't always easy to see which hotel was giving which price.

While its easy to find hotels on the Internet by entering "Hotels in Dole" for example, take the time to find the email address of the Hotel it's self and not one of the booking agencies.

Use Google maps street view to see where your hotel is located.

I had just sent the emails out for Dole and Chambery when Kevin came with a bomb shell. The company he worked for had decided to change the shift pattern which not only had an effect on the hours he worked but also the hours he had free. Luckily I had not actually booked any hotels so from my side the problem was minor, however we needed a new date for our trip? fortunately we were able to move the date one week back and every one could still go. The only problem then was that the hotels get slightly more expensive as it was deeper into the holiday season. No Doubt Kevin will buy some extra beers to compensate us all for the hassle and extra costs!

Hope your taking note Kevin!

The hotel side was progressing I just needed to get the exact route sorted. I tried Google maps but I found that difficult (probably just me). So I decided to buy myself a Garmin and use map source in my computer to select the route. That also took a while to get used to, but once I had it under control it was even fun to do.

Tip.

When booking hotels for a group its not practical to send the options to every person for approval. I had received a simple guideline from the group, try and book hotels away from the town centres. 

It was fun to receive emails from every body, some with the Geordie sense of humour, some were even sensible. Naturally the partners Helen, Pauline, Claire and Karen were soon christened as Groupies, with the usual Groupie jokes. Totally unfair on them but still funny. I was surprised how receiving such emails worked to motivate me and to build the enthusiasm for every one else