Our first day in France and it’s time to go exploring. We set off for Paris for our Guided City Tour of this fantastic city. We began our walk in the heart of the city, at the Ile de la Cite and took in the ruins of Notre Dame, sadly almost destroyed by fire less than a year ago. Next, we walk around the island, past the Hotel de Ville, and the beautiful Conciergie palace and ended up at Place Dauphine for an excellent Cafe au lait. As we left he the cafe. The skies opened up and it starts to pour. We made our way through the rain to the Louvre, and then decided to retreat into one of the many bistros for an excellent early lunch. Our timing was perfect, and we finished our lunch just in time to enjoy the first rays of sun that warmed the Place de la Concorde. We wander through the Tuileries, walked along the banks of the Seine and ended up at the Eiffel Tower. From here we hopped into a taxi back to Versailles, where we arrived just in time for our Welcome Briefing and the official start of our tour.
Our first day of the ride took us south out of the busy Paris suburbs towards the Loire valley. Our first stop was the beautiful Chartre cathedral, one of the best examples of early French Gothic architecture. High vaulted ceilings and beautiful stained glass windows give this giant edifice a remarkably light and airy feel which leaves us almost speechless. From here we continued on our way south and ended up at Chateau de Chambord, one of over 1.000 castles and palaces dotted around the Loire river and a UNESCO world heritage site. We wander the grounds and enjoy the stunning Chateau, then continue our journey towards Tours, our stop for the night.
Our second day starts from Tours and we soon left the city and it’s traffic behind us.
As soon as we reached the rural areas north of the city, spectacular roads are waiting for us. Small villages, incredible scenery, churches everywhere, no traffic and incredibly chateau on spots we didn’t even expect!
After enjoying the hills between Tours and Anger we reached the Le Man’s racetrack and its museum.
The circuit was opened in 1923 and since then it hosts the 24 hours race. Probably the most legendary car race of the world and history. A long stretch of the circuit it’s actually on normal roads and we managed to ride on the famous Mulsanne Straight where cars could reach over 400 km/h / 250 mp/h before they slowed them down with 2 chicanes. MAGIC. The museum hosts around 140 cars and some of those are really unique.
We started getting hungry and so we moved to the centre of Le Mans. A beautiful town with a lot of history and (another =) ) gothic cathedral.
After lunch, we decided to head straight to Anger in order to have time to see the Apocalypse Tapestry. An incredible piece of art painted in the 14th century. It is over 100m long (400feet) and 6m wide (20feet).
An incredible morning light woke us up…what a beautiful place to start a day on a motorcycle!
We left Carantec and rode along the coast towards Lannion and after a quick coffee stop we head towards the house between the rocks…a private house literally built between two gigantic rocks just next to the ocean.
For lunch, we stopped in Paimpol and luckily we found a restaurant just by the harbor, but the best has still to come!
Soon we reached cap Frehel with its two lighthouses (the small one built in 1650 and the second one just 70 years ago). The road there is incredible, it’s like being off the coast of California!
The weather is perfect, 35* C*, and we head towards our hotel in the beautiful town of Saint-Malo.
If you have been to France and you never visited Saint-Malo
then you missed one of the highlights!