For a long time, the viaMichelin.com website has been one of the better route planning and map websites on the internet. No surprise there, since the site is owned by Michelin (who make tyres and maps).
viaMichelin  are beta testing their latest version (public, so anyone can use it), and it's a winner. Nice graphics, easy to use, multiple languages, and lots of good technology.
The first time you access the site, you'll be asked for your language choice, which will direct you to one of their many local country sites. It doesn't matter which country site you're on, since the information is the same for all.
The site is a mixture of the Michelin maps, Green Books (Michelin's tourism guides ) and Red Books (Michelin's restaurant guides). On top of that, they've thrown in Microsoft Virtual Earth, giving you satellite photos.
Not only can you pull up maps on almost anywhere, but they have a sophisticated route planning function. Enter starting point and ending point, plus preferences such as autoroutes, fast routes, tourist routes, etc etc.
You can also tell the viaMichelin site to insert restaurants, hotels or tourist points in your calculated itinerary.
These points are shown in your road book as colored points with links (the colored points are also seen on the map). Clicking on the link brings up the details of that specific place.
It's an interesting way of deciding which restaurant you want to stop at...or where to sleep over.
Apart from the normal maps, you can tell the site to overlay the maps with satellite data, and with traffic and weather information. This function shows you on the route, where the current traffic jams are, and what the weather is, all in real time.
The road book shows the normal data like kilometers, signs, time riding etc. When you print the itinerary, you can also include small maps for each point.
If you have a viaMichelin GPS, you can download the routes directly to your GPS.
I know that Google Maps does these kind of things, but, this version is easier to use, and the routing functions are top notch. You can use the same site to find B&B's, things to do, camping and anything to do with travel.
So one of the best route planning sites and become the best route planning site....
Click here to access the site
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