Spent Wednesday touring through the valleys of the rivers Dordogne, Lot, and Tarn and the ranges of forested hills between them. Lunch in Cahors. 200 miles of mainly empty, twisting, curving roads through gorgeous landscapes. Reached Carcassonne rather later than I had intended, so checked into a cheap hotel and collapsed into bed. Intending to spend the rest of today (Thursday) exploring the old city of Carcassonne. Then tomorrow I may head to Beziers and the Mediterranean coast - or maybe not, depending if I feel like it.
If you fancy the med, Portbou is nice and quiet and has some lovely restaurants on the quay. It's right on the border of France/Spain. Easy access to the N260 from there as well and nice coast road to get to it.
They let you wade up the river through the gorge in Summer but we were there at Whitsun and they reckoned the water was still running too fast and deep for it to be safe. Lovely spot.
Carcassone is lovely but pretty fake. It was restored to a fantasy of how it might have been as opposed to how it actually was.
Yes but just about anywhere is fake, like to walls around York, people think that they are all Roman. The later walls around Carcassone still have extensive areas of Roman walls that can be seen in places. The famous Lascaux caves just down the road from here are now in their 4th incarnation of fake, The originals are still there, but are too fragile to let people into them, so they keep building yet another facsimile.
Carcassonne fortress was extensively restored/rebuilt in the 19th century, and today the interior consists largely of restaurants, cafes, brasseries, and souvenir shops. Still the fact remains it is the best preserved complete mediaeval cite in existence, and from a distance it looks impressive and convincing. I wanted to see it, and now I have. The rest of Carcassonne, north of the river Aude, is a fine old town in the south of France and worth a look in its own right. Also not crowded or expensive.
That is what I told Pete when left here on Wednesday. Collioure is probably one of the nicest villages in France, and I also told him about the station hotel in the next village along, Port Vendres.
Today I headed from Carcassonne to Narbonne beach and took a look at the Mediterranean Sea. Yes, it's still there, it's still blue and it's still wet. Then I took the (non-paying) autoroute north from Beziers nearly to Millau at a steady 83 mph all the way - all the traffic was heading south at this time of year. The famous bridge is just as spectacular as everyone says. The surrounding area is full of fabulous roads, gorgeous scenery (literally: lots of gorges), beautiful villages. I spent several hours exploring them. A bit tired now, so resting in a hotel in Mende. Tomorrow I am thinking of heading for the Ardeche region. The Multistrada DVT has been faultless so far. Topped up the oil today - half a litre in 6,000 Kilometres is not bad. Fuel consumption is a steady 50 mpg. I added a little air to the tyres, as the TPMS was showing slightly less psi than I wanted. And I remembered to buy a can of chain lube spray (thanks again to @Bob T for the use of his).
If you go to the Ardeche, then there are a few little hotels in Aubenas which are great. Head from there down to the river (Vallon) and head east along the riverside, fantastic road.
I did head into the Ardeche, and passed through Aubenas,then over the Cols to Privas. Crossing the Rhone near Loriol I took the amazing, extraordinary Gorges de la Bourne road to Villard and thence down to Grenoble where I am staying now (Saturday evening). Another inspiring, fun but exhausting day's riding.
These two shots were taken at the same place, facing in opposite directions. I couldn't even get shots of the roads cut into the sides of cliffs, with rocks overhanging.
On Sunday I headed up the Val d'Isere, which is easy to start with but gets very rocky further up, and deep into the French Alpes. Visited Morzine, which is a famous ski resort in winter, and stopped for a coffee and an ice cream in Morzine High Street. Then to Thonon on Lake Geneva - here is a shot looking over the lake towards Lausanne - and through Geneva itself. Rode over the Haut Jura, and got as far as Morez. These places are dead, dead, dead on a Sunday night! Monday has been wet, the first rainy day of the whole trip. Rode to Sochaux and visited the Peugeot Museum. Peugeot have been making motor vehicles since 1890, so there's a lot of history. Now in Mulhouse where there are a couple of things I want to see tomorrow. Here's a clue: Schlumpf.
At some point when you get back are you going to put up a map of Europe with the high level route in it?
Today I visited the absolutely huge museum of the automobile in Mulhouse, the French National collection. It covers limousines, sports cars, racing cars and of course saloons, from the earliest days until recently. Amazing number of Bugattis of every conceivable model and type, including three (!) Royales. Too many to list really, but I'll post a few photos of items which caught my eye starting with this 1890 Panhard. ... and this 1896 Leon Bollee tri-car:
