Hi all, can anyone suggest a route through France and into Italy. Me and 3 or 4 mates going on 7th August. Thats as far as our plans have got. two haven't took the test yet or got a bike! One is looking for a GS 1150, one has a transalp, just bought for the trip. Must be mad with so little planning! But I'm going even if alone!
use a Michelin map and look for the scenic routes
Let Michelin be your friend, as usual.
I was going to say, that's probably the laziest appeal for help ever
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107701 but I am feeling charitable.
As usual, not a lot to go on.
Where in France are you crossing over? I guess at Calais? Time away? Down the motorways to maximise your time in Italy? Down every D road you can find? Where indeed in Italy are you going? Alps? Dolomites? Lakes? Rome? Brindisi?
Hotels? What do you fancy? Fomula One (the cheapest), Ibis or similar (chain), Logis (private), Gites (B&B) or the Georges Cinq?
Re. Booking hotels. It's entirely up to you and how confident you feel about the distances you will do day-on-day. If you can work that out, book 'em. Why not? If you don't know where you will be, then trundle about untril you find one that has rooms or suites you.
Now some help, made easy through cut and paste:
Cart yourself into any half decent bookshop or onto Amazon and buy two maps:
(1) The Michelin blue 'Holiday' routes map 726.
This maps the whole of France on one sheet and is very clear for reading, being much less cluttered. The green 'Bis' 'holiday' routes, all on the map, are very good. They are always a mixture of N (National) and D (minor) routes and get you off the superslab motorways. They are well signposted (a specific yellow sign) and often run you parallel to motoways. So, if you lose time, you can always nip onto the super slab to slap in half an hour.
A quick at any map (coupled to a basic knowledge of geography) will show you that, south of Dijon, you will probably be running parallel to the Rhone river, then hanging a left hook somewhere, to get to Italy. This could be anywhere from near enough Lyon to Nice. You decide.
and
(2 A copy of the Michelin whole of France in the yellow ringbound book 1:200 000 scale. This is a very good scale and matches all but Michelin's (or GSN's) very local 'high detail' maps, which you probably will not need. It takes you right down to minor roads. My parents live just outside a tiny French village of a few houses in rural Provence; if that's in there it's good enough for most things, I guess. The great thing about having this book is that it saves you carrying multiple paper maps and works just as well if you want to go elsehwere in France next year or in 2009.
The book will not fit in a tankbag but will definitely slot rather well into a pannier or into a plasic bag strapped behind you (or you can rip the pages out and do a bit of folding).
Simply use the blue map to get a broad idea of you route, then write the specifics (from the map book) onto a route chart on A4 and stick it on your tankbag. I am still using the 2003 version (the road numbers have changed and a couple of motrways may have appeared) but a fresh Blue map fills in the gaps. I used this method to criss-cross France many times on D roads (Frog equivalent of our B or minor roads) N,S, E and West, well before GPS and it was 100% satisfactory for daily runs up to 400 miles even.
Amazon have an offer on both maps.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/France-Route...7354765&sr=1-4 It's certainly the right Blue map and the right scale yellow map book but it may be the hard back copy. The ringbound version is better IMHO, but that's just me.
In under an hour you will have everything planned and mapped.
Repeat the process for Italy. I posted up a month or so ago suggestions for a good northern Italy map. It may suite you? Do a search. Look in a bookshop or library.
