It seems the most popular tires here are:

marathon xr - very tough, not too heavy
marathon supreme - even tougher, cool looking tread, again not too heavy
marathon plus - very heavy, toughest on the planet,
and the continental travel contact

Unfortunately, I have not found an LBS that carries both. My impression from manufactors' websites is that the travel contact might be lighter, have less rolling resistance, tough but not quite up to any of the above, and half the price (jenson has the "contact" at $22, and the "travel contact" for only $4 more).

I know there are plenty of proponents for each, but for those who have lived in both camps, does this sound accurate? Most comments on these boards are of the form "XX is great", but I'm specifically after head-to-head comparisons.

Secondly, the $26 tire at jenson really is the made-in-germany tire everyone loves?

If it matters, I'll be buying 700x37s.

Thanks,
pete

The Marathon XR generally lasts longer than the Supreme and the Marathon Plus, and has a more versatile tread, but has less puncture protection than them.

The Travel Contact rolls very well. I will be using these until I get to Turkey, then swapping over to the XRs.

So you are basically saying:

toughness: XR > supreme, plus > travel contact

and the converse for rolling resistance etc. Despite this, however, you still prefer the travel contact where you can expect roads to be decent. Thanks,

pete