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Okay cool, thanks for your help guys. Although I still don't know whether Orleans and Montpellier are goers?
Montpellier is a great city, definitely worth a look
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And girls. Voted the most beautiful girls by some random selection of comedians? Maybe one of those chinese whisper facts that I totally got wrong!
Calanques is the most beautiful place. Just to the east of marseille. -
And girls. Voted the most beautiful girls by some random selection of comedians? Maybe one of those chinese whisper facts that I totally got wrong!
Calanques is the most beautiful place. Just to the east of marseille.+1 for the beautiful girls, was just about to write that myself
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Unliess you particularly want to see it, I'd avoid Paris - the roads (and drivers on them) are a nightmare.
Your timescales look fine - I regularly do Calais to Dijon, though motorway most of the way, and that takes five hours.
Whatever roads you use beware of the Gendarmes - there are speed traps everywhere, they don't wear hi-vis so are hard to spot, particularly when they crouch in the bushes or behind road signs...
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+1 for the calanques, but I think the access roads / paths are officially closed in the summer months (july-august I think) as the fire risk is so high. Cassis is the town at the eastern edge of the calanques, and is gorgeous, but would be utterly RAMMED in summer. The bike ride Marseille-cassis is EPIC. Look it up on google maps, the elevation profile makes me ill just thinking about it.
As for the rest of france, the scenery down the middle is pretty nice (google verdun gorge, gorge du tarn), the Pyrenees are worth a look, too.
Paris...well, I live here, so I'm biased. There are cheap hostels, but parking is a nightmare. Camping outside and training it in may be possible, but i don't know anyone who's done it.
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George Sportif and I had to cycle the most of the Marseille-Cassis route on our fully laden tourers, the curly one going up the mountain/enormous hill. Turns out it really wasn't as bad as it looks. No way near as bad as the coastline on the French/Italian border
Also we were there in the summer months and all the routes were open and it wasn't particularly rammed either. You just have to do the long walk that most tourists wouldn't want to do in that kind of heat
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Municpal camping FTW!
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+100000
Sometimes as little as 3 euros! And you get a free french boy who comes and asks you lots of things about your bikes and tents and what you're cooking in French, even though he knows you don't understand a fucking word. -
That fat little chap certainly found us intriguing
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Slight special needs, although it was hard to tell without language.
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The Millau bridge is just north of Montpellier. The crossing is a toll route (A75 peage), but it's defo worth seeing. The A75 motorway is superb though - it's how all motorways should be. Well, except for the toll. If you can only stretch to doing it once then cross it when heading south - the views of it are better on the southbound approach. Gorge du Tarn heads NE from Millau but you prob won't have time for that.
Campsites are absolutely everywhere. If you have a sat-nav (who hasn't nowadays?) then download camping POIs from
http://www.archiescampings.eu/eng1/This will make finding them much easier. You'll be fine without sat-nav, but you'll prob need to keep an eye out for campsites an hour or so before you want to stop for the day. Aim for Municipal campsites, and don't assume higher star ratings mean better sites. We've stayed at some fantastic 2* sites and some dreadful 4 stars. 4* and above usually means kids club, which means lots of kids and kids entertainments. It's annoying. Unless you're a kid I guess. Don't book any camping beforehand. It's not necessary and it ties you to a particular route/itinerary.
Beer is expensive, wine is cheap. The French are lovely. Speed guns are more of a problem north of Paris. Once you're south of Paris the coppers tend to chill out a bit. Montpellier is lovely. Grab a table in one of the squares and tuck into a big bucket of moulles frites. If you like seafood, pop over to Sete (just W of Montpellier). It's as fresh as you'll find. The boats offload their catch, most of it usually still flapping around in polystyrene crates, right outside the restaurants every evening. It can be on your plate within the hour.
Enjoy!
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Sete is bit of a shit hole though
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About
Who knows France?
Posted by
@spiderpie
I'm from the sarf.
Things to do while in Marseille:
Buy soap here.
Walk to the basilica.
Enjoy a bouillabaisse.
Drink pastis on the Vieux-Port.
From Marseille you can go to Aix-en-Provence, a student town with a long history and some posh inhabitants , which has a lovely pedestrian center. Have a stroll and get ripped off at Les Deux garcons.
Eastbound from Marseille take the seaside road and visit a calanque in Cassis, as mentionned above.
That's all I can think of for now, but there's much more to do if you're willing to drive further.