France Route National 7

Orinoco

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Has anyone ridden this? Also known as the Route des vacances running from Paris to border with Italy.

I thought it might make an interesting, historic route south, almost a sort of French Route 66. I can check it out with Google, but thought I'd ask the collective wisdom of UKGSER :D

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I have, one way or another ridden / driven the route lots of times but never to the very start / end in Paris. Is it good? You’ll see a lot of France and the roads are good.

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Arm yourself with Michelin’s excellent 726 map. It has everything, bar the major roads and the so called, ‘Bis’ or ‘holiday’ roads, stripped out of it.

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Or you can just zoom straight down the A6 / A7 Autoroute de Soliel, which replaced it.
 
You could probably do better with a bit of planning and wiggling about a little.

I don't know much of that route because I tend to use a mix of the Ardennes, Morvan, Luxembourg, Black Forest, Vosges, Vallon Pont d'Arc, Doubs, Alps when heading towards Italy - probably makes Calais to Italy a 3-4 day run instead of 2 days.

Also once I have cleared the clutter and flatter / less interesting bits of Northern France on main roads (normally 2-3 hours of Motorway to get where I consider worth turning off) I find the D Roads tend to be better than the N Roads - and certainly carry a lot less traffic.

A couple of years ago we went another route - down the other side through the Volcans and across the Tarn Gorge, over Mont Ventoux and around the Gorge du Verdon and on towards the south end of RDGA (Near Italian Border) which was a great 4 day run.
 
The route / roads are ‘good’ in the sense of being a decent surface (they are N - National - roads after all) and iconic, in that the N7 from Paris via Lyon to the coast was THE ‘classic’ way to get down south before the motorway was built. It’s as much an ‘idea’ or ‘spiritual trip’ (as the OP alluded to in his reference to Route 66 in the opening post) as anything else. In a crude way, it’s a bit like the A1 being the ‘classic’ way to get to the north from London, the A2 to the Kent coast or the A5 to north Wales but with a bit more glamour, if you get my drift.

The jaunt (use the 726 map for ideas) is a good one, not in the sense that the N roads make “Great roads, mate” but in that it crosses a big area of France, roughly one third. Each hour will see the scenery and architecture change as you ride through the areas of France and, suddenly, very often even the weather as you pass Lyon.

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The Route National are always full of trucks that like to avoid the motorway tolls.
 
The Route National are always full of trucks that like to avoid the motorway tolls.

Years ago when the company gave us Francs for the Tolls, I would regularly use the N7 in order to top up my wages :D
 
just sitting here plotting this on Mapsource . But it goes too far south , for the way i usually go , for Italy. we'll see if i follow it all the way.
 
The N7 is a nostalgic route for the French because it was the road to their “vacances” in the days before the motorways got built, but apart from that it’s just a series of main roads, a bit like the A5 in the UK

Some bits will be lovely and others won’t

You’d be better deciding where you want to go and plan a route accordingly
 
Thanks for the feedback all. As Wapping has said, it was a sort of 'cultural' idea which started with wondering if there was a Route 66 equivalent in Europe, and because I'm going from Cherbourg to the French Alps (Crest Voland) whether there was an interesting route.

All part of the fun and anticipation of a trip, I don't want to plan it entirely, but have a set of ideas/roads which connect to get me to Crest Volland over 4/5 days, there's no rush... mostly as I'll be riding an Enfield Himalayan, so don't fancy autoroutes, but would like to stop frequently - coffee, lunch, photos, interesting town squares etc en route.

Just need to brush up my rusty school boy CSE French now :)
 
Good stuff and a nice way to dream up new ways to go from A to B.

I do think you’ll find the 726 map useful. I use it quite a lot when dreaming up routes in France. In fact I used it to pretty much create the ‘Let’s miss out the A7 motorway’ idea that you are thinking about. The French are are very good at their ‘Bis’ (little) holiday roads, which avoid motorways but link up a big country. Are they always perfect and great for a motorbike or a sports car? No, of course not. No route of potentially 1000 miles is always perfect. But, they will get you from A to B and you can always fine tune them to suit, building the ultimate ‘Great roads, mate’ 1000 mile trip.

Are there similar iconic routes in Europe? Yes, for sure. Germany has some. Spain, as well. Italy, too. Some are created, for instance the German ‘Tree lined route’ which I did a piece on. The Stelvio pass would be an iconic road (or route) too, as would Germany’s ‘Romantic road’ or the ‘Wine route’ in the Vosges. In a sense, a route over the Millau bridge becomes iconic. I think that the Wild Atlantic Way and the NC500 would meet the criteria. The B500 in the Black Forest, too. Great roads? Maybe. Everyone can make their own minds up on that one. What differentiates the N7 is that it’s one road, all the way from Paris (the capital city in a proud and very large country) all the way to the Mediterranean; that alone makes it unusual and littered with ghosts from a pre-motorway world.
 
The N7 is a nostalgic route for the French because it was the road to their “vacances” in the days before the motorways got built, but apart from that it’s just a series of main roads, a bit like the A5 in the UK

Some bits will be lovely and others won’t

yeah , and ? .... i travel on my own ...the route can always be changed.
 
I think several well intentioned participants might have maybe missed the point of the opening post. Orinoco is not so much bothered about the quality of the road from hooning or bend winding perspective. He’s more interested in the spirit of what the N7 meant when it was first built. Of course significant sections are now dual carriageway (just as the A1 ‘The Great North Road’ is) but there are still single carriageway sections, too. If the fellow’s aim is to just trundle along it, maybe branching off to see something or have lunch in a nice town he passes through, it might be quite fun. If nothing else, it would be ‘different’ than just repeating what everyone else does.

The thread is good as it maybe gives ideas on something different to do. If you read an article in the newspaper or see it on the TV or on the internet, take a quick note or screenshot and try to find out something more. Then try to see if you can build a holiday - or just part of a holiday - around it. What’s the worse that can happen? That you think, “This was a mistake” and turn off to join a motorway or a D road. At least you’ve tried. If though you find one good town, sit in the sun and enjoy a coffee, it will all be worthwhile, if only for half an hour. Or you can just log onto Great Biking Roads…. And download what someone else thinks is a great day out.
 
Looking at the 726 map, it’s interesting what roads it ‘recommends’ when it comes to driving from Paris, south to the coast. By ‘recommend” I mean the ‘Bis’ roads it throws up.
 
Good little vid with nice bikes.

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