i do europe frequently and yesterday one of the guys suggested i post some info here .

first a caveat---the dollar at 1.50 to a euro makes the trips super expensive.at this time .
think of $ 350 per day the lowest and the budget part.

$650 per day about average and does not include trip over nor bike rental.approx $1700 for 4 weeks ,bmw rt ,used ,not the new model.

hotels will run anywhere from $200 up.
in the dolomites you can do much much better as you can in the pyrennes ......you can get rooms for $65 and up and also some one star hotels.

gas is not that expensive for the europeans because the price is in dollars and when converted to euros the price per liter has not really gone up over the past 2 years or more. but very expensive for us.

autoroutes or such are expensive .think of $100 plus to go from barcelona to cannes .or $80 from bilbao to barcelona .
italy and spain are the highest. it is cheaper to take the ferry with the bikes from barcelona to roma than to rid e the bikes stright thru.
germany is free

switzerland requires that you buy a yearly sticker even if you are just passing thru..$65 at current rates. but you can avoid this if you enter thru secondary roads and stay on them . do not get caught on an expressway without the sticker.

food is prohibitive and this includes pizzas at $24 or macdonalds at $7.

so, you can still do it on the low side by avoiding big cities and staying in motorcycle friendly areas in the swiss,austrian,italian ,dolomites and german alps .and the pyrennes but here it is not so inexpensive.

my trips .and as an example my last years, trip.

i posted on our local bike site a year ahead that i was going for 4 weeks and would lead.
had 5 friends who said that they would come along
we agreed to meet in heidleberg where they would rent bikes and i had a loaner from a friend .

only one showed up. the others bailed out at the last minute due to bussiness and other.

we had bmr rt's

a note here -----------if you really want to ride and experience the alps , you can do it on a harley . but you will be going at a snail pace and at times ,on uphill hairpin curves where you have toslow down to a crawl because of the poor lean angle of the hd your harley will hit bottom and you will be going around with your foot on the asphalt.

on the other hand a sports touring bike or a sports bike will allow you to breeze your way up and down the hairpins ..............

in the bmw rt ,which i find to be top heavy and can be a serious handful on some of the uphill and downhill hairpins on the riviera and in the alps . specially so around the monaco area where you have to stop the bike to negotiate some of the uphill hairpin curves in the back streets and roads without drifting to the oncoming lane. not many of these ,but all you need is one of them to spoil your trip.


also, on my trips , each pays their own expenses and i donot make any money out of this........we all meet up and ride as friends and the rules are simple.

also, we limit our top speed to 100 to 110 mph.
many years ago while riding at a steady pace at 130 mph on the right lane we got caught by a strong crosswind and all of the sudden we ended up on the left,passing lane. luckily there were no cars there at the time .........so as of that day and from then on i passed this rule on all my trips.

another rule, because many ,on their first trip to europe , want to ride their bikes flat out.........i understand this.
been there done that...so i insist that they make a will before the leave and they must agree to stop and wait for all the others at a designated place or meet up at a restaurant or such as i will not do this. but hey are of course free to ride as they wish.

 

I will be in Berlin for 2 years, I plan to do it all on my Ultra.