Correction to 45-City European Tour

Randy Olson also created a 45-city tour through Europe. Again, the route is of quality similar to what one can obtain with a pencil and paper drawing, but it is not shortest possible. The correction is shown in the following pair of images from Google Maps.

Wrong path: 4586 km Click for larger version		Correct path: 4404 km Click for larger version

The mistake in the Eurpoean tour is pretty cool. The optimal tour (computed in 0.1 seconds on my Mac Mini) has the unusual leg of going from Paris directly to Edinburgh. I at first thought that I must have obtained the wrong data from Google, but the result is correct. To cross back into Europe, you need to go by London anyway, so pick up the stop on the way back. Olson's non-optimal tour uses what looks like a more natural route of Paris to Brussels to London, but at the cost of a couple of hours of driving.