The Epic Ride Part III: France

We didn’t really have a plan for France; one of the problems with being on a bike is lack of space, particularly for guide books. So our first port of call was to find a petrol station and a map. I’m sure Toby was nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road; I know I was. Getting off the boat was quite nerve-racking especially as we had no idea where we wanted to go, just that we didn’t want to go into the town centre of Dieppe. So off we went, nice and slowly, in the opposite direction. The first weird thing we passed was a big pile of car tyres that were being burned in the middle of a roundabout. No idea why; it was a bit strange and the smoke was pretty awful. We found a petrol station and bought a map and decided we would aim to head east along the coast and find somewhere for the night.

Of course that was much easier said than done; we had a few false starts and started getting hungry so stopped at a patisserie in hopes of a tasty French snack. All they had left was sweet tarts so we had fruit flans for lunch in a little park and then headed back the way we came, still trying to get east. We passed through some cute litle seaside villages without seeing anywhere; finally we pulled off the highway to follow a camping sign up a country road; through a little village and into a group of fields run by a woman who couldn’t speak any English. That’s okay, because the words ‘camping’ and ‘tent’ are the same in French so it was easy enough to let her know what we wanted to do. We were the only campers there and it felt quite isolated but we put that out of our minds since we had a challenge ahead of us – driving into a big town and finding an ATM. We drove to Fecamp, about 10 minutes away, and attempted to find a bank which was rather stressful. We found one eventually and then bought some sandwich things for dinner as well. Luckily we found the campsite again; it rained that night so we ate sandwiches in the tent but they were delicious sandwiches, with good French bread and cheese and fresh tomatoes and other nice things. Very tasty. Being the only campers, it was a quiet night so we didn’t have to worry about being kept awake by noisy kayakers or anyone else. The showers were hot but the toilets had no seats or toilet paper; something that was to prove more common than you might think. You need to be prepared for all eventualities.

We paid 16 euros for that first night; it sounds reasonable until I tell you that is actually the most we paid for camping in France. The next morning we ate our muesli and tea and then headed south. Riding on the wrong side of the road started feeling a bit easier the second day although still not natural. The scenery was unfortunately rather uninspiring; very flat farmland, and not much else. We didn’t see many campsites during the day so after looking at the map decided to head towards a green state park area, thinking we might have more chance of finding camping there. And we did. We arrived at a really lovely little village called Senonches, where we camped for 4 euros in a lovely spot by a lake, all tucked in between hedges so you had a bit of privacy. The lady told us where we could get a kebab for 5 euros, so we did that, even though we’d had them for lunch as well, and ate them under the eaves of the toilet block since it was raining (again).




In the morning I walked into town to buy some milk and other things; I started to realise why people dream of moving to rural France. The morning ritual of visiting the patisserie is really quite a lovely, satisfying one. We packed up the bike and continued heading south, since we’d decided to try and make it to Italy in a few days’ time to catch up with Toby’s boss from Australia. We were driving through the Loire region, so it started looking a bit more interesting but still not quite the amazing France we’d been hoping for. We made the effort to get off the highway at one point to go and check out a castle, since the map looked full of them. We didn't go in but at least we saw something.



The next night we stayed near the village of Nanacay, another cute little place although the campsite wasn’t nearly as nice. It was huge but very overgrown and full of bugs. Given the recent rain it was also very muddy and it took us a while to find a suitable place for a tent. Luckily it was cheap; we also chatted a bit to some English people who were caravanning around and gave us some ideas for where to go. More specifically, where Provence was since we had a pretty useless map. The answer, for future reference, is ‘anywhere between Avignon and Digne.’



Although it had rained every day since we left Margaret’s, it didn’t really get serious until the next day when we found ourselves navigating mountain roads in hail. (At the time we didn't realise that huge swathes of Europe were actually experiencing very heavy rainfall and floods - we did pass some amazing river scenes with the tops of trees just visible, but luckily we seemed to always be passing through a day or two after the worst had passed. I only got an idea of the seriousness of it when I got a worried message from Mum to make sure we were managing to avoid the floods.) After the excitement of hail, we decided we deserved a hotel room so when we stopped at a petrol station with a hotel over the road, it was easy to go and get a room for the night. It was a nice hotel and gave us a chance to dry out all our gear and get a decent feed at the pizza restaurant next door, even though they used emmental cheese which was a bit strange. I watched some of the French version of ‘Come Dine With Me’, a show I’d gotten addicted to in Edinburgh thanks to my friend Carole, and enjoyed it even in another language.

The weather had cleared the next morning so we ate our muesli (minus the tea, since they don’t believe in tea & coffee facilities in Europe and I am too much of a nervous nellie to use a gas burner in a hotel room) and headed south towards St Etienne. It was around this time we decided to stop messing around on slow secondary roads and hit the motorway. It was expensive, but the amount of ground we covered was fantastic. We got to Avignon that day, a nice drive along the Rhein made more exciting by passing signs for Vienna and other exotic-sounding places. Since Avignon was meant to be nice we decided to stop and have a wee look around. This is not as easy as it might be in a car, since you are carrying a lot of stuff and wearing heavy, non-walking-friendly boots. You are also a bit worried about mean people unhooking your occy straps and making off with all your camping stuff, which would obviously be a disaster. We gave it a go anyway, walking through some lovely old walled streets and sat down for some gelato since it was getting pretty hot. We went up to a town square where a local radio station was having a dance-off although the only person game was a boy who looked about eight. He had some moves though.


After Avignon we started veering west towards Apt, following the English lady’s instructions to just go somewhere between Avignon and Digne. The countryside was getting more and more interesting, especially compared to the flat farmlands we’d seen at first. It started to rain just as we got into Apt – of course – but we found a campsite pretty quickly and it stopped raining just long enough for us to get the tent up. It wasn’t a particularly nice campsite – quite crowded and directly below a major road with scooters going past constantly. After we were settled and the rain stopped properly, we wandered into town and realised it was much prettier than it had looked from the ride in. It was full of lovely cobbled streets lined with shops selling pretty clothes, candles and yummy-looking food. It was all very Provence. We splurged a bit on items for dinner, buying proper sausages and quiche from a charcuterie and some nice olive tapenade and bread and other bits and pieces. The nice thing about the campsite was it had an indoor kitchen area so we could eat dinner at a proper table out of the rain. And then go to sleep, hoping our tent wasn’t going to be flooded as we slept.

The next day we packed up our slightly muddy tent and hit the road, aiming for Digne. It was an absolutely fantastic ride, warm and sunny and through tiny villages full of houses with bright blue shutters, and rolling farmlands and orchards. We finally felt as though we’d arrived in France, and cursed the days we’d spent moseying through the boring north. I perfectly understood the pull we all feel towards a villa in Provence; I think Jung called it the collective consciousness. I even felt like maybe I’d been there before just because it looked exactly as how you would imagine. We stopped for lunch in Digne, a nice little town nestled beside some mountains, and ate our picnic on some grass in the sunshine. Of course we admired the mountains without actually realising that was our next route. Yes, we’d arrived at the Alps without knowing it, because that happens when you are without guide book or decent map.
If we thought the morning provided a great bike ride, we were in for a treat in the afternoon. The Alps provided everything you want from a ride. Scary heights, lots of corners, gorgeous views. There were lots of bikers around and it was easy to see why. We passed lots of pubs in lovely places, doing excellent business, but Toby’s main focus was enjoying the road so we mostly rode through. It is very difficult to describe in words just how fantastic that ride was...we cannot recommend it highly enough. It certainly made us think we had made the right decision in bringing a motorbike over to Europe; nothing else would have been comparable. After the Alps, the highway twists its way downhill towards the Mediterranean. Another gorgeous ride as we went towards Grasse; you actually could smell the wildflowers on the side of the road. (Sometimes you are glad a bike helmet has a gap in the bottom for smells to come through; sometimes it’s a curse.) Rather than heading towards Grasse or Cannes like we had originally planned we decided to go towards Nice and try to find somewhere to stay the night. We only rode through Nice but it did look like a nice enough place to spend time; like a smaller, coasty Paris with glimpses of the perfect blue ocean visible between those lovely French buildings. After Nice we decided it was time to look out for a campsite so we continued along the coast towards Italy...and looked...and looked...and looked.

The traffic started getting heavy as we entered Monaco, which absolutely reeked of money. We stopped on the main road and took a few minutes to stretch and take some photos before joining the rat race again. The coast road from then on was not nearly as enjoyable; extremely crowded, poorly organised, and the views of the Mediterranean didn’t really make up for it. I started wondering why anyone would ever visit the Cote d’Azur for a holiday; it was looking a lot like hell on earth. Like the Gold Coast, if Schoolies and the grand prix were on at the same time, at New Year’s Eve. And full of sunburnt English people. And still no sign of any campsites; just lots and lots of big fancy hotels. Feeling more and more hot and frustrated, we continued on our way and all of a sudden we were in Italy.