A Week En Provence......

Blackal · Post by **Blackal** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 4:50 am

A few piccies from our recent hols in Provence (that's in Franceshire) - Me and Dorsetboy (Mike)

Overnight on the way south in a small village called Le Bessat (Near St Etienne) - good hotel, with a great restaurant.

Made it to our destination - Castellane.

On Col de la Cayolle

Mont Ventoux.
Great weather during the ascent, but the mist came down, then the downpour. On the return journey, we could barely see with the water inside our visors, and then discovered that the road back to Castellane had been washed away by a flash-flood.

Roubion
The weather turned again, when we visited the hilltop village of Roubion -

Lac de Castellane

A small station on the Nice-Digne line

On one of the Cols

Col de la Bonnette

Saturday ride-out of The BMW Club (junior section)

A "snackette" on the route back to Le Havre....

All in all - a cracking hol, with the gite costing just £350 between us for the week - so, cracking value too!

Al

Boxermed69 · Post by **Boxermed69** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 3:42 pm

Thanks Al. Great pics. We did the Col de la Cayolle and La Bonnette in June last year. Especially remember the former as it was ace - just as good (and varied) as the RiDE guide said it was. We also aimed to do the Ventoux but managed to miss it

. Rode around it and got caught up in a cycle sportif. Really ought to do a write-up.

Mike

Gromit · Post by **Gromit** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 5:08 pm

Nice pics, Al - looks like a fabulous trip.

eyore · Post by **eyore** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 8:09 pm

Lovely, thanks for sharing.

dorsetboy · Post by **dorsetboy** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 11:13 pm

Yes great pic's.

Al and I Had some great laughs, rode brilliant empty roads, ate fantastic meals, quaffed cold ales........

I only fell off once and that was when I forgot I had the pan-ears on and misjudging my width I clipped the rear end of a motor at the petrol station near Portsmouth ferry terminal.
I ended up lying against the garage shop front in the flowers and bags of charcoal!
No damage to my bike or myself other than embarrassment however the car had a good scratch in its lower wing.
I passed on my details to the driver and offered to pay for a paint job but... never heard a word from him or his insurance? Hmmm.

The meal at the family ran Hotel de France was excellent, they had a large garage for the bikes and the rooms were good. The cost was more than the chain motorway hotels but worth the little extra.

The Tiger performed well and now has 13K on the clock and most of that on French roads.
Though I will say I miss my old R1200ST.

Mitch1100 · Post by **Mitch1100** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:34 am

Awesome countryside!

Blackal · Post by **Blackal** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:43 am

As an aside - since we were travelling from the south coast of England, and bookings were pretty full for the date we wanted -

We booked the afternoon sailing from Portsmouth to Caen, arriving in Caen at 21:30.

We had booked a hotel on the outskirts of the town, and the overall cost was cheaper than doing an overnight ferry crossing.

It has the added advantage of allowing you to set off from Caen as early as you like - which makes a big difference to progress south.

Al

boxerscott · Post by **boxerscott** » Mon Jul 13, 2015 9:27 pm

Good pics Al. Some handy touring tips too.