Off for a bimble around France

Here ya go

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Agreed about Pont en Royans.
Stopped their for an ice cream in 2020

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Will definitely go back in September when we’re in the Vercors again.

Nice write up, btw.
 
Day 9, I less frenetic day, as I was on cooking duty for 9, was to be something with lots of peppers, but no peppers to be found anywhere, weird, who'd have thought, so chicken with Provencal sauce and lots of veg and a local tart :)

I found that one of the cols close to our chalet was unpaved, Col du Joly, so thought I'd take a run up there, just under 2000 metres, the road there was single track and one way, so a there and back trip, the other side of the pass is only open to bicycles and walkers. So, the only unpaved bit I managed was a few hundred meters at the top, I don'y expect anyone would have cared, it was deserted there and back. Also stopped to take photos of the alpine meadows for my wife, full of wild flowers, really beautiful.

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After the col I planned to drop into the supermarket in Beaufort to, oops, another casualty of being between seasons, closed until July, so a quick look at the sat nav and Mrs Garmin tells me there's a supermarket in Ugine. So began one of the best rides of the trip up, over and down a fabulous little pass called Col de la Forclaz on the D67, absolutely wonderful, tight bends, brilliant views and a combination of meadow and forests, really gnarly road surface which the Himalayan took in it's stride. Oddly there's another Col de la Forclaz a few KM's away towards Lake Anncey, very confusing.

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The drop down to Ugine

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Shopping packed into panniers

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The end result, tasted better than it looked

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Day 10, thought I'd cover some of the northern section of Route des Grandes Alps with a couple of gorges thrown in.

Todays route

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A bit mixed weatherise, started warm and sunny and turned into wet and windy, I suppose the bonus of the wet was the ability to see the spilt diesel on the roads, that with the overbidding of the winter ice cracks made riding interesting.

I started from Flumet, which has a classic looking bridge over a deep gorge, the bridge is single track after the end of a series of sharp hairpins. The road between Ugine and Flumet is great, along the Gorges de Arly, the road swops sides with the river several times.

The bridge and hairpins down

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I stopped by a river to take a photo of the bike, one of those broad gravelly rivers you find in the Alps, but with just part of the riverbed in use during the summer. Looking into the river I realised there was the remains of a number of vehicles, part submerged, makes you realise the power of the river in spate. I think the vehicle in shot may have been a Citroen 2CV

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The landscape here is alpine, but somehow a bit gentler, I suppose as the alps build south and east of here, still high and lots of hairpins, over the Col de Aravis and the Col de Colombier.

Cows on the Col de Colombier

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View from the Col de Colombier

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Around the top of the loop and the start back south starts with the road through the Gorges Du Borne, which climbs up toward La Clusaz

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On a detour due to a road closure I was flagged down by a bloke in uniform who turned out to be part of the Italian Mountain Rescue Service on a joint event with French counterparts to escort a convoy of HGVs up a mostly single track mountain road over 4 miles. Weird at first as I was quite a distance from the Italian border

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On the way back I took a detour along the mountain road above Ugine to the Col de L'Arpettaz, more single track hairpins, woods, forest, farmland, rock fields above the tree line and then I caught a face looking at me though the corner of my eye, a carving in a huge rock in the rock field, no idea what it was about, couldn't find an information board anywhere and there was a lovely refuge/auberge at the top.

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Day11, was a do very little day after all the rushing around on the Himalayan - you can only bible so much, so a coffee and cake day :D

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Day 12, the trip back home started, but again a bimble across France, with no particular destination in mind, though I did want to get to the Morvan area as I'd heard so much about it. So I aimed North West and set off.

Although not in a rush the morning got off to a bad start, with a closed road due to a diesel spill and a deviation route set up, this being the Alps, there's no quick alternative, but an entertaining road about the Gorge D'Arly, initially held up with traffic, but managed to squeeze past the traffic using the awesome 24.5 bhp, and the huge Italian HGV trying to negotiate the hairpins whilst he'd stopped for a chat with another HGV driver coming the other direction, I assume to ask about whether the road got narrower :eek: (I don't think I mentioned the extra 0.5 bhp before, I'm sure it makes all the difference. In fact the bike has lessened up nicely now with almost 6,000 miles on the clock, so much better than when new). Once I'd escaped the traffic, and gone in the wrong direction twice, the Alps are so disorientating, I reached Ugine and headed towards Anncey, in my frustration I opened up the throttle and think I got flashed at least twice on the main road - by those sneaky cameras they use in France which are at knee height, painted grey and hidden on the side of the road :(

Anncey was dreadful and lovely at the same time, the lake is an amazing azure blue, but as with all cities, traffic everywhere. Eventually found my way out of Anncey and on the D1508 towards Frangy and Valserhone. I've not been here before, the road climbed and climbed, huge limestone cliffs and forest as scenery, impressive, as was the French motorway engineering, not as high as Millau, but not the less impressive.

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I came off the main road and headed cross country towards Bourg-en-Bresse, crossing the L'Ain river, lots of gorges here, very picturesque and great roads, not as many hairpins as the Alps, but fun curves all the same. I managed my usual lunchtime trick here by not being able to find anywhere I liked the look of to stop for lunch until well into the afternoon, should have stopped much earlier. Anyway stopped just after Cluny n the D980 in some shade. Something horsey was happening in Cluny, horses and horsey types everywhere, I got the impression that it's wasn't just a thing for the weekend, but something the town is involved with long term.

A small French col

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and a roadside lunch

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I ended up in Saulieu in the Morvan, so a long ride today and even managed to unintentionally find some gravel roads which were part of another deviation when I was lost again, well not lost really as I didn't know where I was going so never lost :D
Landed on my feet at the campsite, my French camping neighbours were a lovely couple who I subsequently bumped into in the town when having a wander and had a beer or two with. They'd booked a meal at a small auberge in town and invited me along. One of the joys of travelling alone is the opportunities it presents to interact with others. The auberge turned out to have a fantastic menu, really great food at reasonable prices. They took me through the whole menu so I was able to opt for interesting courses I'd not considered before, pressed ham with herbs as started pan fried duck with cherries and Creme Brûlée (which was huge), also tried snails, just chewy garlic butter really, OK but not my thing. Not sure what the wine was, they had a long discussion about it, it was local and very nice. I can recommend Saulieu, a lovely medieval town, though not the campsite which was very noisy at night with constant HGV traffic on the main road and some partying people.

Herewith photos of Saulieu and dinner...

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Great thread and thank for posting. Are you happy with the bike and did you enjoy the snails?
 
Ha ha, the bike is great. I'd previously had an R1100GS and F800GT, and knew this would be a complete change which was what I wanted, really good fun to ride, and the snails, they're OK, but don't think I'd have them again!
 
Day 13, last full day in France...

Ughhh, what a start to the day, blasted partying Frenchies, very loud and well lubricted and the trucks, anyway rant over. I packed early, munched on my two pain au chocolat and the last of my emergency cappuccinos in a bag and set off to explore some more of the Morvan in the early morning, not much else moving, which was nice and much cooler for travel especially through the forests. Made my way along some delightful rural roads to Quarre les Tombes, where I found a cafe just opening and a patisserie, a proper coffee and some biscuity things to set me up for the morning.

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I decided to skirt south of Paris, despite Mrs Garmin wanting me to go north, I'm sure it's quicker, but I wanted interesting and scenic and the nearer I got to Paris the bigger and busier the roads seemed to have become. I stopped at Fountainbleu just to have a nosy at the military school, just through from the road, didn't fancy going in as it was hot. Where I'd pulled over the road had the biggest and most uneven cobbles I've ever come across, even the Himalayan's 21" front wheel was dropping into them and needing some power to climb back out, managed to sort of 'pogo' the bike along the road. Was even funnier watching two Ducati's repeat the same a few minutes later, that with their bag of spanners sound from their dry clutches was funny. From here I took a road west through a beautiful forested area, via Milly la Foret, pretty town and onwards towards Chartres. I did get quite lost again, more gravel roads due to 'Route barre', whoever Barre is he's got a lot to answer for.

Whilst 'lost' came across this near Maintenon, which I think must have been a remnant of an aqueduct, on passing through and looking back there was a series of them running some distance, impressive stuff those Romans knew how to make things that lasted.

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Time got to 4:30 and I'd passed no campsites and no signs for campsites despite the area seeming to be set up for tourism, a check of stop4night showed a handful of campsites towards Rouen, I picked one at Post de L'Arche and set off. Great little site on the banks of the Eure which runs parallel to the Seine here, thought I'd best take a photo and the one and only selfie of the trip :) Travel beard courtesy of my shaver turning itself on during travel on the first day - doh!

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The campsite is just steps away from the town centre, brilliant little town which I'll visit again, camping was €7.20, bargain. Dinner tonight was courtesy of the Moroccan/Algerian restaurant close to the site, meatballs and couscous, too much to eat and very nice, waded down with a couple of Hoegardens and a local beer :)

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Campsite and town from the bridge which spans the Eure and Seine

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Whilst at the site met a bloke on a nicely sorted R1200GSA twin cam (ha ha predictive text just suggested twitcam) who's an occasional visitor to this parish, but wouldn't confess his name! Off for a few weeks around France
 
Day 14, a slow start as I was just an hour and a half to Dieppe and the ferry. I went to the patisserie for pain au chocolat, a tart au natural (can't beat a natural tart) and a huge pizza thing which would be dinner on the ferry (being a skinflint), also wandered further up through town and found another cafe/bar full of locals so sat and had a coffee, finally realising what I needed to order, un cafe grade creme, sorted, sat and watched life around me for a while and a Sunday morning market just starting to set up.

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Next door was a barbers shop with loads of old bike memorabilia, includeding a lovely Mobylette, had one of these as my first bike when living in the Netherlands, shame it wasn't open

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Went back to the market a little later, brilliant, so many colours and smells, proper market, nice to see

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I then bimbled my way towards Dieppe, asking Mrs Garmin to find me an adventurous route, she did quite well, judging by the number of other local bikers I saw on the back road route I took. I stopped part way to have lunch, in the market I'd also bought a breaded chicken fillet and potatoes cooked in garlic, there were two big stalls selling rotisserie chicken and potatoes, must be something the French do, very tasty, though the garlic goo had leaked and seeped over by other foodie bits, including the fresh cherries I'd bought, an interesting combination! Made a note of where I'd stopped near Arques la Bataile, Camping des deux rivieres, looks to be a handy stop to/from Dieppe.

Stoopidly rode straight to the ferry terminal despite being two hours early to sit and fiddle about, and eat a tarte :) Should have gone into Dieppe to find a proper lunch. All, didn't know that Dieppe had white cliffs, cannot have been too long ago when we were all connected before the channel flooded.

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So, that's it, well almost, I stopped with my daughter who handily lives in Newhaven, then the tedious trip back to Dorset from Sussex, endless roundabouts, the M27, without roadworks at last and home. Though I did pass some poor soul standing by the side of the road as their van was going up in flames, as I passed the whole van was ablaze, scary, but people looked to be out and safe. Stopped at Greggs/Subway on the way, just such a change from France, a nasty cake and dreadful coffee and chav's in the carpark clearly travelling in a convoy of 5 cars from that there London with music blaring, girls with barely a skip on and the lads trying to look cool and hard at the same time. Think I'd like to move to France...
 
Nice trip report.

Thanks for inviting us along for the ride.

Your last post sums us all up really after any good trip, the trip high, and the return to home low.
 
sums up france , not in a rush and enjoyed for what it is . we used to blast down to the south on big bikes , but this takes me back to the 1980s just in an old van and living simple.
 
Just finished reading this really enjoyed it . I think I need to go back to France. Thanks for posting
 
Thank you.

I have been down many of the roads you took and, I think, have stopped at a couple of the same cafes / spots.

I have pinged you a PM, asking you a few questions about the Himalayan, as I plan to do something similar (but longer distance) myself in Germany.

PS What would be good is, if you kept the GPS tracks, you could share them here, in case anyone wants to do something similar.
 
About 16 years ago I finished my stint as a single parent, and having seen my two kids off to Uni I sold up and what didn’t fit on the back of a Blackbird got sold or given away. Hey-ho and off to live in France!

I adored it… but for personal reasons had to return to the UK after only a few months, then met my wife to be. Fourteen years later I’m very happily married but would go live in France in a heartbeat!

Completely agree re coffee, I only drink the stuff under sufferance over here, but French and Italian coffee is the real deal isn’t it? Sounds like you had a really good time, I’m only slightly envious! :)
 
You can’t believe that coffee is so good and cheap in a number of European countries and it’s so bad here in the U.K. Only coffee in the US is worse.

great trip, thanks for sharing
 
Trip reports don't date, do they? I enjoyed re-reading that.

As a keen watcher of the Tour de France, it was interesting how many places you referenced are also iconic cycling limbs (Colombier, Croix de Fer, Forclaz etc).

There's a real go slower, see more message here.
 


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