Le Tour de France à moto

Arrivée à Tours. Installation à l'hôtel et briefing groupe.
Diner de bienvenue dans le vieux Tours.

The Mancelles Alps valley, Lisieux basilica, Le Mans motorsport museum and circuit, Normandy cheeses valley, Honfleur 18th century harbor.

Sea resort of Deauville, Pegasus bridge, Omaha beach and Colleville cemetery, Utah beach and Ste Mère Eglise, Museum of Omaha beach, Arromanches artificial harbor.

Mont St Michel, Coutances cathedral, St Malo fortified city.

Medieval city of Dinan, Castle of Vitré, Saumur castle, Loire valley banks road, Old town Chinon.

On this free day you will have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with your bike and the French trafic. There will be some ride around Tours to see some castles but you will also take some time to recover from your trip before we hit the road for your Tour de France. Add on tour participants will enjoy a rest or riding day in the Loire valley.

To start our trip we will follow the Vienne river and stop in l’Angles Sur l’Anglin, a medieval village with lots of charms. Then we will enter the Limousin region and stop at Oradour sur Glane, a place of memory. Here in 1944 a SS division «Das Reich» did massacre the entire village. The place has been left untouched for rememberance.

Short mileage today but this is to give you more time to enjoy 2 of the most beautiful villages of France : Collonges la Rouge (the red city) and Turenne. Then following the river Dordogne you will arrive in Sarlat and enjoy its lively market and medieval old town. This is definitely the place to savour foie gras and the local gastronomy.

As we go south the landscape will become drier : this the Quercy region. This part of France is one of the most preserved in terms of traditions and villages. We will visit Figeac, hometown of Champollion who discover the Rosetta stone and then in Conques a major stop of the Santiago trail. The millau viaduct, the highest suspended bridge in the world will welcome us as we arrive in town.

Today is a rest day to give you some time to enjoy the pool or just ride around in the beautiful gorges of the Tarn rive or the Templars village of the Couvertoirade. There is so much to see and do around than one day won’t be enough. Be prepare to make some choice… This region is one of the most remote and inhabited in France.

More gorges and corniche roads to leave the Cevennes region. We leave Languedoc and enter in Provence with one of the most visited bridge and one of the oldest : the Pont du Gard. If time permits we might stop in Avignon and see the impressive palace of popes when Avignon was a papal city. Then we will stay in L’Isle sur la Sorgue a city famous for its antics but also known as the Venice of Provence.

We will start the day by the mythic ascension of the Mount Ventoux from where the view is breathtaking. Then we’ll enjoy the savors of High Provence and Luberon. We will stop at Gordes a supended village and at the french Colorado of Rustel once a mine of ocher. Then we will reach the famous gorges of Verdon where we will spend the night. Be prepared for a awesome sunset...

To start the day we will ride in the Grand Canyon of the Verdon river, this will be one of the highlight of your trip ! Then we will reach the Vercors mountain, once a high place of French resistance in 1944 but before that we will ride some of the most beautiful roads and gorges of the french southern Alps. One of the best memorable ride of the trip probably !

After a ride through the tunnels of the Grande Combe we will leave the Vercors mountain for the Rhône valley and its wineyard and climb again the Massif Central on our way to Auvergne. The RN 102 that will take us there is a wonderfull twisty road with impressive scenery. Then you will wander the medievial streets of Le Puy where the pelgrims,on their way to Santiago, starts their journey. If you are courageous enough you may climb the stairs to the virgin.

Auvergne is considered as a heaven for motorcyclists in France. Very few trafic and some awesome roads with wild landscapes. And on top of that a rich gastronomy. This day of ride will take us through its highest summits and the day will end in an old spa resort facing the Puy Sancy summit where time has stopped : Le Mont Dore. Enjoy the quietness.

For our last day we will leave the volcanoes of Auvergne for the Millevaches plateau, a remote land of marsh and forests. Everything has been left untouched for generation in this region. And then finally we will arrive in the Loire Valley to admire some its most iconic castles : Chenonceau and Amboise. We will end this magical tour with a farewell dinner and celebrate the french gastronomy.