Trips the Bike should go on

Within Europe, the trips that we should take the bike on are outlined in green. The Artic, via the Baltics In July 2005, we plan to take the bike around the Baltic sea, covering 10 countries, being: Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and home via Germany and the Netherlands. The bike will go north of the Artic circle! A previous vague plan of this was to go across to the UK, take a ferry up to the Shetland Islands and thence across to Bergen (Norway), however this was deemed unllikely. Around the Green Isles. A trip through the four nations that form the United Kingdom, taking in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England itself. Journey there would be via ferry from IJmuiden to Newcastle and up to Scotland, south to Ireland, across to Wales and finally around England. A brief trip through the Channel Tunnel and a quick ride up through France and Belgium would follow. E1/E5/E15 These Euroroutes are North/South roads starting in the north of the UK, and ending vaguely near Gibraltar, going via France, Spain and Portugal on the way.

Vaguely related

In the Europe and London maps, a lower map number means the more northerly it is, and the higher the map number, the more southerly it is. So, overall, the keymap shows that the ascending map numbers go left to right (west to east), and top to bottom (north to south), just how you are used to reading.

Now look at the UK map. Unless you've picked up an odd one, the keymap shows the ascending numbers going left to right (west to east), then bottom to top (south to north). So, when you turn to a particular map page, the 'north' map is a higher number.

Best explanation that I've found so far is that the English will go to any lengths to avoid putting Scotland above England, even to the extent of having two different keymap systems depending on whether Scotland would be in the same frame.