FRANCE --Route Napoleon

bob the grizz

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Any suggestions, or reccomendations,:D looking to ride Route Napoleon in May. Travelling Plymouth to Santander and working back up towards Roscoff via Route Napoleon any good places to visit or stay would be helpful.
:beerjug:
 
Castellane, at the end of the Gorge Du Verdon, is a great place to stay.
 
Hi Bob,
You may want to check if some of the high passes are open nearer the time,they have had a good snow fall this winter i understand.
I did the route in early June 2010 and the Col-de-la Bonnette was still closed.
A superb route though,enjoy it:thumb2.
If you get chance,at the lower end of the Napoleon route.
Take the short detour into Italy ,there is a superb cafe on the mountain road.
Its on a set of bends and it makes good viewing of the local knee down hero,s.
 
Bob, doing the R.N. at the end of June myself. Staying in Castellane, because adding the Gorge Verdon in on the trip.
Hotel du Commerce for me, but also Hotel Levant has secure bike parking.
 
Any suggestions, or reccomendations,:D looking to ride Route Napoleon in May. Travelling Plymouth to Santander and working back up towards Roscoff via Route Napoleon any good places to visit or stay would be helpful.
:beerjug:

Just on the Route Napoleon?

or

Anywhere along the route Santander -> RN -> Roscoff?

If the latter how many days have you between getting off one ferry and getting back on another?
 
trip

Anywhere along the route Santander -> RN -> Roscoff?

The latter, looking for 7-8 days once off at Santandar, we have ridden from Roscoff to Carcassonne couple of years ago, via Milau bridge n visit to 'Oradour' which was well worth the visit. One of my mates wants to take in route Napoleonic this time.:D
 
MOUANES SARTOUX

Stayed in an IBIS here , nice we old town within walking distance for restaurants etc. :beerjug:
 
RN

Hi Bob & greetings from the County town. Doing some of the RN myself in early June so following your thread with interest. Planning the ride down from Caen & then back up again but having google mapped the route you are doing going over the Pyrennes this looks a great idea.
Blacktopmotorcycletours.com have some good recommendations for hotels etc on their RN Tour itiniery.
Regards
Gary
 
I would recommend this place at the southern end of RN http://www.leprejoly.com/eng_hotel.htm bikes are parked outside but didn't have any trouble the 3 nights we were there:thumb2

Castellane is OK but more expensive

Which ever RN is great:clap

We stayed at LePrejoly in 2010, nice place. We also left bike in alley outside, no problems. We had the last room avaliable, and still got a discount as the owner/manager? likes bikers. The resturant out the back is excellent. We didn't get as far up RN as Castellane, but turned off earlier and did the south side of Gorge Verdon. On then to Reiz, and stayed here http://www.gite-des-hesperides.com/ for a couple of days. They are Gites (self cattering) but will do breakfast if asked.
 
If you want to go slightly of the N85 then the Hotel Le Marronnier in Rencurel is a fab biker friendly place - as far as I am concerned it deserves at least 6 stars for it's friendly wlecome.
 
Anywhere along the route Santander -> RN -> Roscoff?

Across the bottom of France, broadly on the horizontal. Then, up France and then across France on the diagonal. That's a fair old distance to be looking for suggestions over. But, hey-ho let's go.

Suggestions:

(1) If you haven't got one already, get a decent map or two (see sticky). The maps suggested are excellent for plotting just the route you have in mind.

(2) To give everyone an idea of what you are looking at, here is your route hacked out in the dreaded Google maps. First of all using motorways and toll roads (boo, dull, mate)....

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr...DFFSFvQ-e_afg&oq=roscoff&gl=uk&mra=ls&t=m&z=6

(3) That rather crude hack out looks like about 1,500 miles. Let's use your seven days between the two ferries, so that's about 200 miles a day every day with no days off. Does that suit you? Let's then say two days off, which gives you five days, or 300 miles a day on the days you move. Any good?

(4) Let's then get Google maps to give us it avoiding tolls and motorways (great roads, mate)....

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr...coff&gl=uk&dirflg=ht&doflg=ptm&mra=ls&t=m&z=6

That's getting a bit more like I imagined.

The mileage is about the same at 1,500 so the days on and off the bike / daily mileages are about the same, the roads (as your maps will show you) are better though. It's roughly what I would do, if I were doing what you are doing.

(5) Now comes the tricky / fun bit and it's your turn. Nobody has the slightest idea where you want to go each day along the line, so guessing where you should stop is very difficult. The easiest way is for you to say to yourself: We want to do no more than 250 miles a day. Then simply run your thumb along the line on the map stopping at 250 miles. Then seeing which town or village you would end up in. It's a safe bet that if you want to stay in an Ibis hotel, you'll need to be finding yourself in a largish town. If you want a Logis hotel, a large or smaller town might well do. If you want no town or just a tiny village then get busy on the web.

(6) The horizontal line you could maybe pull up a bit, perhaps? It would bring in some good roads and go deeper into Provence, to then go back down on the diagonal to say, Grasse. But a lot of that will depend on your thoughts on point 5. What you might though think about is seeing the Camargue, as you are not far away. Flatter than a witch's.... but unusual. Nice beach at Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer, if you fancy a paddle.

(7) You are going with chums, no? I suggest an evening in the pub, maps to hand. Each of you do a separate leg, maybe? It's your holiday after all. :beerjug:
 
Castellane, at the end of the Gorge Du Verdon, is a great place to stay.

+ 1. Also Grasse is alittle further down the road and has everthing you need. I have stayed there. Very good for her indoors as the perfume making is intresting. We also did the cave tour underground which we all thought was brilliant. I can not remember the name of the cave will do research and let you know.
 
trip

Great response guys, gives me plenty to work out trip to pub to sort route:beer:

Many thanks, as always the site supplies us with most of what we need:D
 
If you want to go slightly of the N85 then the Hotel Le Marronnier in Rencurel is a fab biker friendly place - as far as I am concerned it deserves at least 6 stars for it's friendly wlecome.

We stayed here in 2010 and liked the place only thing against it was our room was a bit small. But otherwise good food and very friendly:thumb2

Dave
 


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