Viva La France

Our time in France during this first part of the trip has been great. From the great roads and B&B we experienced to driving through rural France on Sunday May 1, a national holiday, we have had a very good experience. Spring is really early summer here with the warm weather they have experienced. All leaves are out and there is a real summer feel to things.

From Buffard to Bourg en Bres and Lyon we stopped for an apple at the side of the road then pushed on to Le Puy de Velays where high up in the hills we saw a huge statue of Mary with Christ and a small church perched on a cliff top.


Given our goal of Mende we continued on as it got later. The roads in France are fantastic with very few exceptions. And they all are great to ride. We saw lots of bikes out which suggested we were riding the right roads.


In Mende the B&B I had identified was closed so next thing we know we are at La De Tour Hotels. They are a chain hotel similar to Formula 1 and for 46 Euro you can get a decent room for the night/wo breakfast. 

French Men enjoying the sun

From Mende the next day we headed for Narbonne across country. France through the central south region actually has quite a bit of elevation to it and at times we were around 1000 metres. In a small village, Millau we stopped for our first shopping, some bread, cheese and meat for lunch and a bottle of red wine for après riding. Millau is also the place where an autobahn has had a huge bridge built which is very impressive.  ½ hr later we stopped at a picnic area close to Belmont and visited with a young couple who immediately had picked up on our BC licence plate and knew where Vancouver island was. After a good little visit we expect that we will hear from them again as they are adventure travellers. From Belmont we descended finally through some very windy technical terrain until we got to Salselles d’Aude, where Sandra had picked our B&B Les Volets Bleu  on a canal just off the Midi canal. 


The old house was huge with incredible character and our room had 12’ ceilings, and was massive in size overlooking the canal. (PIC) The hallways in the house were easily 10-12’ wide, and each suite equipped with the very French ‘bidet’. One characteristic we have found very useful are the shutters which not only block out all light but aid in reducing all noise. And they parked our ‘moto’ in the basement garage. Most people we talk to are surprised by 3 things, 
1. We are travelling by ‘moto’, 
2. We have our bike here from Canada 
3. That we are travelling for 5 months


We didn’t realize it but in a couple of hours we will be out of France until September.