Late sun in the south of France, Avignon, Marseille, Toulon, St Tropez, Cannes, Nice

Wapping

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Stinking hot and crowded in the height of summer, the Mediterranean coast and Provence makes a good spring or autumn destination. Take a little care about the real depths of winter as it can get bloody cold and it after snows, especially back away from the coast.

Tourenfahrer magazine 2022/3 has quite a nice recommendation for a jaunt:

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Download it from the magazine’s website as usual.
 
By chance, Motorrad magazine 06-2022 had an article about a five day bike test conducted in the same area.

It wouldn’t take much imagination to join things up.

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Just to the South of St Tropez is the beach (Plage Ranc) where they filmed part of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Our lap of France this summer takes in 4nts in Ramatuelle so we can take a look and have a picnic there…
 

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Down that far Gorge Du Verdon is a must

:thumb

Indeed.

And there are some pretty impressive gorges just to the east in the Luberon, between Mont Ventoux and roughly Apt, all formed by the river Nesque.

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https://www.ventouxprovence.fr/en/m...tion-to-explore/the-gorges-of-the-nesque.html

It is quite funny when you get to the Nesque itself, as it might not quite be as you imagine….

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As to distance down, at least from Calais? My parents used to live near Apt

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If you bite the bullet you can do London / Calais to Marseille in a day, straight down the motorway. Better though to maybe take two or three to cover the 800 odd miles, just jumping onto the motorway to skip past Lyon.

It’s a great part of France, highly recommended. Like most of the French regions, they work hard on their local tourist offices. The website for Ventoux Provence is worth a look to get some ideas:

https://www.ventouxprovence.fr/en/home.html

along with others.


It’s possibly interesting that the French regions regularly used to include motorcycling in their ‘activities’. This has been dropping away over the past five or so years, replaced by the greener hiking and bicycling. Changing times, I guess.

PS If anyone is thinking of going in the peak of summer, it gets very hot (baking, in fact) through much of August. Little moves on the road between about eleven and say four in the afternoon. Cut your cloth accordingly and drink lots of water. Into early September the weather often breaks in huge and mighty impressive thunderstorms, with localised flooding, lightning, almighty bangs, hail (it is quite painful) and high winds. These might last just an hour or two but you’ll get VERY wet. Take a bit of shelter, preferably not under the largest tree.
 


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