Trip to South of France - Recommendations

[Phil D]

Morning chaps,

Off for 8 days to the South of France with a mate next saturday travelling from Calais down to the south coast for a few days and then back up camping every night.

I have a very loose plan in my head which is to travel Calais - Reims on day 1, Reims to hopefully Monaco day 2 (if we have bad weather etc then maybe stop off in Lyon), The next 4 days will be travelling west across the coast (maybe St Tropez,Marseille, Montpellier) then travelling back north to Calais with a night somewhere around Le Mans or Orleans.


All this has been figured out by literally just looking at a map. Like i said its a very loose plan so if anyone has any more specific location suggestions I'm all ears. Looking to keep costs down as much as we can.

As we are looking to camp I assume there aren't going to be suitable campsites in city centres - I have read that the French are pretty big on camping so i think we will just keep an eye out for campsites when we are in the general vicinity etc

[doggone]

The best area for spectacular roads is the Tarn Gorge and similar river gorges near there.
You could also do one or two of the very high Alpine passes but watch the weather as the current cool spell could cause early closures for a while.
I'd avoid Monaco itself unless you really are determined to go.

[Phil D]

[Alan 29]

[hachi8]

Wooooooooooooooohhhhhh.....

Reims to Monaco in one day? Thats about an 8 hour trip straight off the bat without a stop? (Excluding traffic)

Might be worth stopping off overnight half way...break it up a bit.
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K7 GSXR 1000 - The Beast!

[doggone]

[gorillaonabik...]

Depends what you want to do.

If I go down to the S of F, I like to blast down to Marseille and use it as a base to ride the coast roads (absolutely incredible twisties) or maybe pop over to Nice to party for a day or two. Depends a bit who I'm with, what I'm riding etc... but my principle is I like to get down South ASAP, get a base and ride around from there. Used to live in Marseille (played rugby down there) and love the place but it's dangerous in all respects. Find yourself in a bad area of Marseille and bad things will happen, guaranteed.

Sane people doing stuff in Marseille stay in Aix-en-Provence or Cassis which are short rides away (the twisties from Luminy to Aix is a great little road).

If I was a normal person I'd pick Nice or Frejus, take a couple of days to get there, go through the Gorges de Verdon etc... and take a couple of days coming back. I'd find some of the backroad twisties and take my time. I'd start anywhere east of Toulon (Toulon's a dump unless you love your rugby) and probably say Nice Eastwards is good.

Monte Carlo is a bit dull and ferociously expensive. It's nice for a day trip to ride down the twisting road into Monte Carlo itself and doing the grand prix circuit is kinda OK but there are a million better places down there such as Nice, Frejus, Antibes (maybe St Tropez?) depending on what you like. Full of stunning women ripping their clothes off to throw themselves into the water, beautiful sunshine, good food and wine and great scenery. Bad bit is Nice will be packed out with Americans at the moment.
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FZR400 (blown engine), ZXR750 (blown engine), ZX6R (accident), CBR600 which had engine issues after which I learned to change gear..., CBR900, CBR924 (stolen), CB600, CB1300 (everything blew up), BMW K1300GT (written off, hit from rear while stationary), Bandit 1250 for a couple of months, Triumph Sprint ST 1050 (nicked) and somewhere in there, I wrote off a Ducati 748 at Cadwell.

[Phil D]