France: lesser known bits

wessie

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This is a nice article, with pictures, making suggestions for some lesser travelled parts of France. It includes a recommendation for Picardy, part of the boring north that most people skip through.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/...r-known-holiday-destinations-in-france#img-14

I have visited all of the areas and they are well worth a visit. Of the 5 areas my favourite is Drome-Isere as it has some of the best mountain roads in Europe. The Basque part of France is also a delight with good coastal towns and the foothills of the Pyrenees.

This is a chateau in Picardy, which rivals much of what you can see in the Loire. Napoleon's favourite apparently

chateau-pierrefonds-et-pedalos-1-credit-etienne-tartron.jpeg
 
I just finished reading the article over breakfast and have now seen this thread; yeah, some nice suggestions in there ands it's making me want to feck off back out there soon :thumb2

Andres
 
One very good point to remember about France is that they have a similar population to the UK, but with twice the area. Any big cities are going to be crowded, but get into the country and the density of the traffic drops off significantly. So even where the geopgraphy might not seem great, the riding can still be fantastic. The "boring" bits in the North are only boring by comparison to the mountains and are generally much more fun that the comparitively crowded roads in the UK. There are lots of places in the UK where you can ride without seeing much traffic but it usually means resorting to minor (and slower) roads. Not so in France.

I'm lucky to live near the short Channel crossings and for a whole day's riding for its own sake, I'd pop across to Picardie rather than ride round the over-crowded roads of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Add in a decent value lunch and the cost of the crossing needn't be a problem either.

(Same applies to Spain. Except the day trip bit.)
 
If I get a moment, I’ll see if I can dig out some routes around the five areas.
 
Only area I know fairly well is the Vercors, easy to reach in 2 days from Calais, with day one being mainly motorways and the second day being nice back roads including dwon through the Morvan.

Got a few routes to get there and to loop around Vercors mountain range if you want them Wapping.

Hotel le Marronnier is at the North end at is amazing;

http://en.hotellemarronnier.com/accueil.htm

Easu enough for a weeks trip, 2 days each way and a few days to explore the area
 
Going for a fortnight to France this summer riding down from Rotterdam.Want to definitely visit the Dordogne region but cant decide where to base myself for a few days.So many places to choose from.Will do the trip down in two days and giving myself two days to ride back up to Rotterdam.
 
Going for a fortnight to France this summer riding down from Rotterdam.Want to definitely visit the Dordogne region but cant decide where to base myself for a few days.So many places to choose from.Will do the trip down in two days and giving myself two days to ride back up to Rotterdam.

There are so many places it's impossible to narrow it down, but in my experience the Lot valley is better than the Dordogne valley - it's just as scenic, without the crush of tourists that can choke some of the more popular towns. Anywhere to the East of Villeneuve-su-Lot is good. And keep going East into Cantal too.
 
Only area I know fairly well is the Vercors, easy to reach in 2 days from Calais, with day one being mainly motorways and the second day being nice back roads including dwon through the Morvan.

Got a few routes to get there and to loop around Vercors mountain range if you want them Wapping.

Hotel le Marronnier is at the North end at is amazing;

http://en.hotellemarronnier.com/accueil.htm

Easu enough for a weeks trip, 2 days each way and a few days to explore the area

Not sure I’d describe Le Marronnier as amazing !
It’s very pleasant though. Great location with lovely terrace and bar . Rooms pretty basic as is the food , which is geared to egg and chips style bikers, so perfect for most on here :)
 
There are so many places it's impossible to narrow it down, but in my experience the Lot valley is better than the Dordogne valley - it's just as scenic, without the crush of tourists that can choke some of the more popular towns. Anywhere to the East of Villeneuve-su-Lot is good. And keep going East into Cantal too.

Thanks for that I will take a look. Probably looking at July / August for that trip.You mentioned Picardie was a nice place to visit so decided to have a week there in May so any advice on where to stay would be great.
Thanks Doc
 
Thanks for that I will take a look. Probably looking at July / August for that trip.You mentioned Picardie was a nice place to visit so decided to have a week there in May so any advice on where to stay would be great.
Thanks Doc

Picardie, is a big area, covering three separate departments (broadly similar to a UK, county) which are:

Oise, Beauvais

Somme, Amiens

Aisne, Laon

4da93b6ab26fed2833629094ff48b6a6.png



1920px-Picardie_in_France.svg.png



Depending on what you want you could go from the seaside to a large forest to the open chalky fields.


I have a two day route around the area which I’ll dig out for you.
 
Thanks for that I will take a look. Probably looking at July / August for that trip.You mentioned Picardie was a nice place to visit so decided to have a week there in May so any advice on where to stay would be great.
Thanks Doc

places to stay in Picardie:
St Quentin - Hotel Florence, close to centre, off street parking, fairly cheap
Laon - historic centre on top of a hill, not stayed in the centre but it looks lovely
Etraupont (north of Vervins on Wapping's map) - Logis hotel Clos du montvinage - quiet village, super restaurant, close to Ardennes & L'Avensois national parks

Some of the coastal towns are nice but I would avoid them in July & August as they get a bit crowded in the summer. The French still hang on to the tradition of abandoning urban areas for the coast and other tourist areas in August so bear this in mind and prebook hotels if you want to be specific about where you stay.
 
Not sure I’d describe Le Marronnier as amazing !
It’s very pleasant though. Great location with lovely terrace and bar . Rooms pretty basic as is the food , which is geared to egg and chips style bikers, so perfect for most on here :)

All I got was Foreign food, yes rooms a bit basic, but clean, nice beer, good terrace, pool, hot tub and staff were great, I was in a big group that had the Hotel pretty much to ourselves, in fact we might of been the only people there, so perhaps food options had been arranged by my Finnish buddy that sorted it all out?

Also found this place great, but not been there since 2011

https://www.hotelcastelfleurivercors.com/

Food was proper French poncy stuff, but kebab shop in village ;-)
 
Var is amazing. Been there multiple times.

Not exactly lesser known, but a few years ago we went (by car) through France and we really enjoyed staying in the middle of nowhere in the countryside south of Bordeaux.
Super relaxing with day trips around. The dune du Pilat was way more interesting than I expected.
 
Thanks for that I will take a look. Probably looking at July / August for that trip.You mentioned Picardie was a nice place to visit so decided to have a week there in May so any advice on where to stay would be great.
Thanks Doc

As promised here is a two day (so not a week's worth) route I use to run motorbikes in. It brings in a fairly interesting mix roads for the north east corner of France. The hotel is basic but OK, if you do not want anything flash or any buzzing nightlife. The restaurant is good. The route has no motorways, if that is really important to you.

If you do ride it and decide to stay at the same hotel, my suggestion is to fill up with fuel in the town before you get to the hotel, it's about a couple of miles before. Why? From memory, there is not a lot of fuel the next day for quite some distance. But hey, don't worry, I have ridden both days of the route on an HP2 Sport, which does not have a huge tank and is (supposedly) not suitable to go on jaunts on.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kn2k18p6nyzet2o/nutty bike run-in - picardie - two days.gpx?dl=0
 
One very good point to remember about France is that they have a similar population to the UK, but with twice the area. Any big cities are going to be crowded, but get into the country and the density of the traffic drops off significantly. So even where the geopgraphy might not seem great, the riding can still be fantastic. The "boring" bits in the North are only boring by comparison to the mountains and are generally much more fun that the comparitively crowded roads in the UK. There are lots of places in the UK where you can ride without seeing much traffic but it usually means resorting to minor (and slower) roads. Not so in France.

I'm lucky to live near the short Channel crossings and for a whole day's riding for its own sake, I'd pop across to Picardie rather than ride round the over-crowded roads of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Add in a decent value lunch and the cost of the crossing needn't be a problem either.

(Same applies to Spain. Except the day trip bit.)

Spent a fair few years doing that when I lived in Sussex.....France is a truly wonderful place on a bike, or in an open top car/Jeep with the right weather.
 


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