So here we are back on board a ship, this time the MV Armorique….which I have to say is not my favourite.

She was built in Finland at a cost of £81 million, specifically for the Plymouth – Roscoff route, and entered service in 2009. Comparing her to the MV Pont Aven is like comparing a paint by number set to a Rembrandt. True she is ultra modern, but…the toilets permanently smell, the decor is tacky, the food options limited, the outside decks are constantly swathed in the exhaust fumes and worst of all has a very strange corkscrew sea motion! By the way, I don’t really like her much!

Still, we got on board pretty quick and have grabbed a bite to eat, which I took back to my cabin to eat in peace…the ship is quite busy with a number of school parties. So now I’m going to get some shut eye before we get back to Plymouth.

Leaving Roscoff we passed the Pont Aven coming into port, altogether a much nicer ship, I grabbed this shot as we passed.

….and so looking back we say au revoir to La France, we will return!

Dookes

One of the things I love about my road trips is meeting people from other countries and cultures, this time has been no exception and I think I hinted at a couple of stories a couple of days ago. So let me tell you about a few funnies, but first of all I want to stress that everyone that I met were absolutely great! Yes sure there are baddies out there, but on balance you realise that there are really more good people in the world than bad and that is reassuring.

Take for example the two Gendarmes who’s patrol car drew alongside me on the St Etienne bypass, as we were doing about 50mph. Now as all bikers know, cops either tailing you or running alongside is normally bad news or at least a hassle. So I was a little uneasy about their presence. Then, just before we ran into one of the tunnels to the south of the city, sure enough the police car sounded it’s horn. I glanced over to it and saw the Cop nearest to me, the passenger, grinning like crazy and winding his window down. What followed was bonkers; the driver then revved the car’s engine, literally as we were entering the tunnel, the passenger Cop gestured with his right hand for me to rev Harley, so without thinking that it may have been a trap to do me for loud pipes, I duly obliged. Passenger Cop grinned from ear to ear with lots of thumbs up gesture, whilst Driver Cop revved the nuts off the patrol car in reply!!! I revved in reply and so it went on, through two tunnels, each about 400m long! As we exited the second tunnel they gave a wave and flew off! Clearly two extreme petrol heads getting paid for having fun, good on you boys! Quite what the drivers behind us made of it all I do not know.

Then there was the crazy Dutchman on Col De Larche, he had on of those little hybrid cars, the sort with a small petrol engine and an even smaller electric motor, I think it was a Mazda, but I doesn’t really matter. Anyway, I got to the top of the Col, parked up and started taking some photo’s when this little car came flying up the last part of the hill and screeched to a halt in the car park. Out jumped a chap of about forty and started to look at Harley, he saw the GB number plate and started to chat to me, in very good English. He told me that he had just driven up the hill, from the French side, for the third time that morning…it was only 9 o’clock! I was puzzled, did he say three times? “Yes, because we do not have any hills like this in Holland,” was his reply! Fair point mate, but three times? He left me to my photographs and disappeared back into France, 15 minutes later, as I neared the bottom of the hill, he passed me heading for the Col yet again…make that four times! He could still be there for all I know!

Later that same morning on the climb to Col De Vars I was passed by a German plated BMW GS, a smart bike for that kind of work, it stood out because it only had one pannier. At the summit I noticed the chap who was riding it chatting to a woman next to a German plated Audi estate. He cropped up again on Col D’Izoard, then Col Du Lautauret, also Col Du Galibier. Then, as I was about to set off from Col De La Télégraphe, he turned up again, this time parking next to me. We looked at each other and both simultaneously burst out laughing! Soon the Audi arrived as well, by which time Karl and I were on first name terms…it turned out that this was his wife, Andrea. Theirs was a good plan for holidays, he rode his bike whilst she drove the car with all the luggage and food! They told me that their son was at university in Montpellier and that they drove down at least once a year from their home near Hannover, with the same bike/car arrangement, neat. Anyone else capable of negotiating that deal with your better half, boys?….Thought not!

Oh and only one pannier?

Karl claimed that a French car had knocked it off in Gap.

Andrea said Karl had hit a French car in Gap……..make your own mind up!!!!

Dookes

Cracking run through Brittany today.

I took my time over a leisurely breakfast so didn’t leave the hotel until just before eleven and looped through the town centre in Auray.

It’s a busy little place in the south of Brittany at the west end of La Golfe du Morbihan. For it’s size it has a most impressive town hall, Hotel du Ville in French.

I took the D768 north to through Baud to Pontivey. The ferry does not sail until 16.30 so we have bags of time, no need to rush. Pointivy is a really nice market town that lies on the junction of the River Blavet and the Brest – Nantes Canal. Unfortunately the canal is no longer navigable right through as a dam was built at Guerledan about ten miles north of Pontivy, in the 1920’s. The architecture of France has now changed, the buildings now have steeper roofs clad with the local slate to keep off the higher rainfall that Brittany experiences, it sticks out into the Atlantic ocean. Brittany is not known as Little Britain for nothing, they even have our weather!

From Pontivy we headed west before another brief stop in Carhaix. As some of you know I have a friend that I like to pop in on a say hello when ever I’m passing this part of central Brittany. She used to work on the metre gauge Réseau Breton railway system that once covered most of Brittany until it’s closure in 1967, though some of the old system still exists converted to standard gauge. She is a 0-6-6-0 Mallet type locomotive built by Piguet of Lyon in 1913 and has been on display in the town since about 1970. As you can see, she is suffering from the effects of standing outside for so long, I do hope she is not left to rust away because at the moment she is looking a very sorry sight.

From Carhaix we headed North West, passing over Col De Tredudon, which at 361m ain’t exactly up there with the other Cols we have been over this trip, but don’t knock it, it’s the highest road in Brittany!

From the Col we dropped down to Morlaix, filled up with gas, grabbed a bottle of bubbly from the Hypermarché and flew down the road to the ferry at Roscoff where we are now. Mileage today so far 136.

Dookes

Mon amis.

Bon jour de Auray en Bretagne.

Ce matin il fait plus beau, mais il y a quelques nuages avec le soleil et il n’est pas plus chaud, bon!

Aujourd’hui je vais rouler à Pontivy, Carhaix et Morlaix avant d’arriver à Roscoff pour le bac à Plymouth. Je pense un peu plus détendu et le ralentissement de les autre jours!

J’espère que vous avez apprécié mon voyage autant que moi, it été très bon! J’ai passe une bonne semaine à monte ma moto.

Merci La France, L’Italie et La Suisse, je serai de retour!

Jusqu’à la prochaine fois!

Dookes

Today was quite a mix!

Harley and I set off in the middle of the Limoges morning rush, she seemed quite happy having spent the night in the secure garage at the hotel.

It wasn’t long before we were out of the city and purring along the N141 bound for Poitiers. We took a right at Étagnac onto the D948 and Confolens, where a French madam did her level best to ‘T’ bone us in the centre of the town! Clearly it was my fault, she couldn’t possibly have been responsible as she was on the phone at the time and lighting a cigarette, so she couldn’t possibly have seen what was happening!!!! Fortunately, I could, right from before it started so my escape route was already swiftly planned!
I regret to report that I swore at her….in French, English and Welsh, I felt a lot better after that!!! Still, no harm done.

Someone asked me the other day about the French road numbers…well, how long have you got? Basically there are three types of road; A or E routes, which stand for Autoroutes or European Routes, basically motorways; N routes, National Roads, usually trunk routes but not necessarily dual carriageways; D Roads, Departmental roads, these can range from dual carriageways to small lanes. There is a big if with D roads, however! If the road crosses a Departmental boundary, like crossing a county boundary, the road number will not necessarily stay the same! Good eh? Confuses the hell out of everyone, so when navigating in France, do not worry about the road number, except as a last resort, follow the town name signs!

I stopped to grab some motion lotion on the Poitiers ring road, where the traffic was hell. Internet connection was awful as well, ho hum. Still, 86 miles in 90 minutes made me smile and celebrate with a bracing coffee. Which, as some of you know is something that I don’t have much of these days on account of it makes me climb walls and ride like the wind…hee, hee, I got to Parthenay pretty quick! Then it all started to go a bit off, the sky had been getting darker and the threatened rain started, but hell, the wind got up as well.

Which leads me onto an observation…
In my opinion, one of the worse weather conditions to ride a motorbike in, is strong winds, even my Harley gets tossed about and she weighs in at over a third of a tonne! Along with natural winds, as in weather, the other sort is the artificial, like truck slipstreams. As you overtake, or worse they overtake you two unnerving things happen; firstly they suck you in towards the side of the truck, secondly they spit you out as you pass the cab, chucking you across the carriageway if you don’t have your wits about you! On this trip I have been undertaking purely non-scientific research as to the worse and the best trucks for slipstream turbulence. Best to overtake, i.e. least buffeting, has been MAN’s, Renault’s with the funny looking box like cab, Volvo’s, some Scania’s and most DAF’s, but then most DAF’S don’t seem to go fast enough to create turbulence! Worse by a mile are Mercedes Benz, particularly the Actros cabs, which have been battering us all over the place! Trailers don’t seem to make much difference, unless it’s a car transporter…then watch out and hang on!

Anyway, the wind continued to build as we headed north west, bad storms have lashed the north east of France today, I guess the stuff we had was the tail of that system. I had planned to follow the left bank of the Loire and cross the Loire Viaduc to St Nazaire, but with the strength of the wind I aborted that idea and headed east around the Nantes Périphérique, which also avoided the very high bridge to the west of Nantes. So here’s a pic of what I missed, but I have done it before, some bridge!

There then followed a pretty lively blast West along the N165 to Auray and the billet for tonight, which is a very comfortable family run hotel with splendid restaurant! So ends the East to West run, right across France from the Eastern boarder with Switzerland to the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of Brittany in the West and that was fun to do as well!

Herewith food report, as requested:
Appetiser, Crab en croute.
Entree, Pâte du Lapin de la Maison.
Le Plat, Sein de Canardette avec légumes du jour.
Désert, Assiette du fromages.
Café.

Trust this suffices, does for me!

As I take my time over the cheese, it gives me time to reflect on the past week.

Today’s mileage was 312, which takes Harley and I to just over 2000 miles since leaving home last Thursday evening, still got about 140 more to do yet? That’s quite a satisfying achievement, on a bike like mine, even if I say so myself! By the standards of modern bikes, Harley is a little basic; no faring, no ABS, non-injection carburettor fuel system, air cooled, but with character and attitude by the bucketload! I know that HD is not everyone’s cup of tea, but, hey they float my boat! She wasn’t the only Harley that I saw in the Alps, but there weren’t many more and sure they are not really the machine to take where I took her, but they cope and sound fantastic whilst they do it to boot, you can’t ask much more than that.

Tomorrow, weather clerk permitting, we have a delightful ride through the heart of Brittany and then pick up the ferry back to Blighty, I intend to savour every minute of it! Hopefully I’ll get time to wing off another progress report along the way.

Another one from yesterday, the old quarter in Limoges.

Live to ride, ride to live!

Dookes

Stopped here for a breather yesterday and grabbed a couple of photos.

This is the Chateau.

The old railway station, now closed. Shame nobody can find anything else to do with such a lovely building.

Well actually, this little chap and his mates have made the old building their home, they were loads of them. He’s about four inches long!

18th June was the sad anniversary of the death of Clarence Clemons, The Big Man, saxophonist to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

The music of Clarence and Bruce defined a generation, it was certainly very important to me in my late teens and has stayed with me and many others as we have grown older. It has been a source of inspiration, comfort and plain feel good as well. The younger generations will also know Clarence from the work he did with Lady Gaga, honestly he did!!

So Big Man, we miss you, thanks for all the music with Bruce and the band and also your solo and other work, whilst we have that music you will never be forgotten.

Please take time out to listen to this classic track from Bruce the E Street Band and of course Clarence.
Click here

Sorry about the poor quality of the picture.

I spoke to soon! Yes it was grey, even when I went down to the underground carport to load up Harley, but when the automatic door went up, behold it was pouring like it only can in the mountains!
Oh well, on with the rain suit again! More for a bit of extra hi-vis on the auto route actually, because it was still around 26 degrees centigrade.
Off we set and straight onto the A41 heading towards Chambery and Lyon. Clouds were caressing the slopes, particularly where the pine trees held the moisture in the air. I know rain is a bit of a nuisance sometimes, but it is only weather, and those clouds did look wonderful!

Soon we headed into the Tunnel De La Épine and a more forsaken hole you could not wish to find. It’s about three miles long and poorly lit. The temperature soared almost immediately plus the road was both heavily rutted, patched and greasy! Lovely…not, I hate road tunnels! I’d just about got over the Épine when along came it’s little brother about ten miles further down the road, not much better, deep joy!

Then a nice steady ride in the spray to the outskirts of Lyon, which to honest I was sort of dreading. I guess you know the scene, loads of traffic, all the locals know what they are doing and where to go and everyone else gets lost, because the signs are not clear or too late or the locals barge you out of the way? Well, it wasn’t like that at all! The signs were clear, well placed and sensibly simple, plus the locals, whilst a bit mad, they are after all French drivers, we’re sensible around folks with out of area number plates…it all worked like a dream! Then, on the Périphérique Nord, North Ring Road in Britannia’s tongue, came another tunnel, for which we were charged a Euro to use, it’s two for you car drivers! Yeah, great another blessed tunnel, but wait a minute, this one was different firstly it was incredibly well lit, then it was clean and did not smell like a sewer, but best of all the road surface was wonderful, not ruts patches or oil! Now I don’t know who owns what when in comes to French roads, but I suspect that the Autoroute is probably run by a power or telephone company or even a supermarket, I bet though that the tunnel under Lyon is run by the City Council who should go down the road fifty miles and show the Autoroute people how to do the job properly! Well done Lyon, if it is you!

You know the other day I said I was going to do the A72 Autoroute again? I didn’t! No, I came up with a much better idea. Leaving L’Arbresle I headed South West on the D389, then picked up the D81 to Feurs where it became the D1089. Now I often have a knack of spotting a nice French road from the Michelin Road Atlas and I’m pleased to say I did it again. What a nice road, everything I could have wished for. I have a theory that the best time to really enjoy yourself on a French road is between twelve and two, that’s when the whole country goes of to lunch and there is no-one at all on the roads, except British lorry drivers and French people with broken clocks! Yet again, today was no exception….I had a super time until about two o’clock when I found a nice picnic area near Chabreloche and had lunch myself. I then stayed on the same road all the way into Clermont Ferrand, which is a big sprawling mess that owes it’s existence to people who drive or ride vehicles with rubber tyres, yes it’s home to Michelin and a pretty good rugby team as well these days….who I think are sponsored by aforesaid tyre giant! Let’s hear it for rubber!

Clermont is also the capital of the Auvergne Region and if you never visit anywhere else in France go there! It’s got everything going for it, superb local food and drink, scenery to meet every taste, magic roads and really, really nice people…especially if you say you like the Auvergne! It’s also the fascinating site of one of the most populated areas of extinct volcanoes in Europe, they are everywhere and no, you don’t have to be a geology geek like me to spot one, honestly! One of the most famous is Le Puy de Dôme, just outside Clermont and it’s easy to tell what it is, just look at the photo, yes I know volcanoes don’t normally have TV mast on them, but you get the drift?

I dropped in to see how things were going with the new mountain cog railway that the French have been building, when I called last autumn, things were in full swing. I was amazed today, they have actually got trains running and most impressive they are to. There’s a photo below of one leaving the base station for the summit.

Another photo shows the track with it’s rack laid between the rails for the cog on the train to engage with and pull it up the steep gradients. On a technical note, I was surprised to see that both the running rails and rack are welded, very clever indeed, i’ve not seen that before. Mind you as the French taxpayer has spent over 80 million Euros on the new railway, it should be cutting edge! There might even be some European Government cash in it as well, so that will be some of mine and personally I’m quite happy to see it spent that way! Must go back and have a trip one day.

After Puy De Dôme we picked up another super road, the D941, which took us all the way to Limoges, via Aubusson. This is another part of France that I adore, I call it “Old France”, because everything takes on a mellow aged look. The buildings are generally fairly old, but the mixture of soft yellow limestone and granite for details and strength is very easy on the eye. Life seems to move at a slower, more sensible pace. The country is very agricultural here, it’s one of the main beef producing areas of the country, but it’s not at all intensive. There are lovely small towns just calling out for return visits, the sort of places you want to smell of Disc Bleus and Pastis. Bourganeuf is interesting, one of the first places in the world to go electric, whilst St Léonard de Noblat on the River Vienne, marks the start of the famous Limoges porcelain producing area.

So that’s it for today. Billet is in Limoges, a nice city as cities go….when have I said that before, not often!

Next we are off the Poitiers, Nantes and Brittany. You up for it?

Oh yes 321 miles today, pas mal!

Dookes

Le Puy De Dôme

Le Petit Train

The Rack and Running Rails

This is the 12th century St Martiel bridge on thé Vienne, just near the hotel.

Morning all!

It’s a bit grey here in Annecy, still hot though.

I forgot to mention that yesterday’s mileage was a mere 190, taking the trip total to 1363. Today is a long slog to Limoges, but passing through some lovely countryside, unfortunately also taking the Lyon ring road.

Stayed at AppartCity last night. This is a brilliant chain that offers serviced appartments in a number of different locations. I’ve used them before and I’m quite a fan, staying in another branch tonight as well. What is great is that you get your own kitchen, so you can do your own thing if you are minded.

The place was invaded by a Chinese Trade delegation last night and today at breakfast it is like being in Hong Kong Garden Takeaway, to quote Suzie and her Banshees!

Mind you they have an interesting take on mixing food, pain au chocolate with cheese? Hmm, I’ll pass on that!

Ok time to ride!

Dookes

Petit St Bernard

Good evening from a very hot and thundery Annecy. I certainly hope we get a storm soon to clear the air around here!

Another day that’s hard to describe, without revisiting old superlatives and sounding boring!

Let’s just say that the adventure continued and did not disappoint!

Pretty good overnight stop at Seez, if a little noisy, but totally biker friendly…I bet they would have washed the bike if I had asked!

First off was the climb to La Rosière 1850, have a look on the Google Map thingy, just dwell on those wiggly bits…lovely!

Here’s one of ’em!

The first part was though deep pine forest, with all the heady sweet smells that go with it, then the road opened onto high alpine pasture and passed through the ski station.

There’s some of it below!

Col Du Petit St Bernard came pretty soon. What a bleak place, quite unlike the other Cols I visited this week. Off the road were loads of lingering snow drifts, the summer season certainly has not got going here just yet. Like Larche, the boarder runs right through the middle of the Col so we slipped into Italy again. Incidentally,,. At this place and at various other of the Cols are remains of border defences, some, like on Bonnette are part of the old Maginot line defences that France invested so much in only to see it fail whilst others date back centuries. All fascinating in their own way, but most buried in snow so just how good they were as defences I can’t really say, unless of course you were attacking on a bobsleigh!

The road then begins it’s long decent into the Aosta Valley, now we were in Italian Job country! Just before La Thuile there is a series of 8 hairpins that the kind Italians have thoughtfully numbered. It’s a great little stretch of road and you can really get into the groove on these babies!

Soon after La Thuile we passed through the famous tunnel from the film, it’s a little longer now as it has had avalanche shelters added each end, which changes the look of it, but it’s still the place where Beckermann meets his end, or bulldozer depending on your take of it! Here it is!

On then down the valley, which is a classical glacier valley if ever I saw one. This place is amazing, loads of agriculture, industry, tourism and transport all rubbing along together, I didn’t know where to look next! The small towns all seemed very busy and prosperous, Aosta is the centre of the area and looks quite nice too, for a big town anyway, I loved the way that grape vines were growing inside the towns boundaries.
From Aosta the E27 kicked off north west towards Grand St Bernard, just before the famous tunnel viaduct we took the old road, the S27 and aimed towards Switzerland. The viaduct features in the opening shots of the film, so I had to grab a picture as well.

I sort of decided not to take anymore photos and just concentrate on enjoying the ride, I failed and made two stops, one to grab a phot of this wonderful zigzag of road. Yeah, I know there’s a camper van in it, darn things get everywhere, should have smelt his brakes though!

The other stop was here, cos I just could! Ok?

The famous pass did not disappoint, it’s very different to the other places due to it’s history as a monastery and hospital, which it still sort of is, but also a hotel (if you don’t want any luxuries). I couldn’t find any dogs with brandy barrels though!

So that was it, the Italian Job completed, wow what a ride!

Running down from the Pass into Switzerland the road goes through about six miles of avalanche tunnel/shelter, just imagine driving that far through a multi story car park at 50 mph! Gets to you after a bit, don’t EVER ask me to go through the Mont Blanc tunnel, I might be a bit rude!

At Martigny, Harley and I hung a left and began our last Col climb to Col De La Forclaz, which is still inside Switzerland. Now that country is something, it’s so …… nice, oh and Swiss, yeah I love it. Might have to go back with Harley some time! Well the country may be nice but the weather, which is international I think, put on a little show of petulance and rained just enough to make the road like glass. So no pictures except this one.

At that it was time to turn back towards France and start the long trip home. Hang in there folks, we ain’t there yet, got more road to ride and stories to tell yet….like the Gendarmes in St. Étienne and the mad Dutchman on Col De Larche, more next time folks!

An air cooled V twin is great on a mountain, switch it off and it goes quiet; why do all those other bikes have such noisy fans that run for ages???????

Dookes