Best of Southern France (RNN2302)
Welcome Welcome to our tour of southern France and the beautiful town of Saint Paul de Vence where we stay in a wonderfull hotel. On the next 9 riding days Uwe from Germany, Beat and Regula from Switzerland and Horacia from Argentina will tour with us on some of the best roads the southern part of France has to offer. An to top things off, we will also do a little stretch in Italy and go over some of the highest and best mountain passes there. Our hotel in Saint Paul de Vence. Nice looking car, but i think we will still stick with our motorcycles. Ready for our briefing. Happy group with our motorcyles.
What a great first day What makes this tour in southern france so special is the amazing combination of great motorcycles roads with little traffic, the stunning scenery and some nice little medieval towns for coffee stops. On our first day of riding we already had alot of this incredible tour ingrediants and everyone enjoyed their first day on our motorcycles, riding through the beautiful scenery.
Getting even better Hard to imagine but our second riding day was even better than the first. Not only did we have amazing roads, but also the scenery was just stunning for pretty much the whole day. And to top it all off, we got to ride the famous Mont Ventoux, fans of the Tour the France will know what we talk about here.
Into the Cevennes Another great day of riding lies behind us. Today we went from Villeneuve les Avignon to La Muse were we will stay for two nights. To get there we rode through the Cevennen, a mountain range in the middle of France that is not so well known yet, but already impressed Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author of The Treasure Island, who wandered through them with a donkey and later wrote a book about his journey.
Going underground Today we had our restday on this trip, which means we stay for two nights in our cozy hotel in La Muse. To relax a little bit from our last few riding days, we took it easy today and only went for a shorter ride and did some more sightseeing today instead.
Canyon Rollercoaster So far we have only been going west on our tour. Today was the first day where we changed direction and started to slowly make our way back to our starting point in Vence. And it was another great day of riding. First we rode through the more than 50 kilometer long Gorges du Tarn, and the ride there is really spectacular. After lunch we rode along the Ardeche, and visited the famous stone arch there.
Argentina Style Today we were going to Chambery, which is the most northern point of our tour and brings us back to the alps and some higher mountains. The day already started cloudy and the weather forcast said, it should rain from nine to eleven and then clear up for the rest of the day. Of course things went differntly and we had no rain untill eleven, but then for the rest of the day. As soon as we arived at the hotel, the sun came back out :-).
Mountains deluxe Today we went back to the alps, and when i say Alps i mean high mountains, amazing landscape and some of the best roads you can find. We did many passes today, including the famous Col du Galibier and the Col d`Agnel. All of them were differnt and its hard to say which one was the best.
Big, bigger, Bonette :-) Another great day of riding lies behind us. Yesterday we already rode over some pretty high mountain passes, but today we went even higher to the Cime de la Bonette, with 2808 meters one of the highest paved roads in the alps.
Every good thing has come to an end No matter how long a tour is, it always feels to short when you beginn your last day of riding. Our last route took us today from the little town Barcelonnette back to Saint Paul du Vence where we started. Soon after leaving our hotel in the morning we rode up the small and not very well known Col de la Cayolle that would be the last of the really high mountain passes on our trip. Although not the high alpine roads were the main highlight today, but the beautiful Gorge du Cians, which looks very unique with its red walls of stone. Many thanks to all the participants for this great tour, hopefully we see you on another one some day. Cheers Paul & Daniel