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Bike Trips in France
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| FOOD Or, as we call it in English, cuisine |
Burgundy (both North and South) places a strong accent on what most of us think of as traditional French gastronomy. An inordinate amount of time is spent at the dinner table, but when you get up (if you can), you do so with an understanding of why France’s cuisine is so well-reputed. |
| SCENERY | Scenery buffs will vote for the Cévennes, for the drama of her extraordinary landscapes. Spring wild flowers and autumn colors are equally beautiful in these mountains. Though no other route is such a constant feast, sections of each rival for natural splendor. Northern routes tend toward the pastoral, southern toward the dramatic (read “hills”). Alsace has plenty of both. And Brittany offers daily ocean vistas from her craggy coast. |
| WINE COUNTRY CYCLING | Wine Country Cycling offers an ambiance all its own, whether in the vineyards or the villages. Featured in Champagne, Southern Burgundy, Alsace, and (to a lesser extent) in Bordeaux & the Dordogne, the Loire, and Northern Burgundy. We spend a couple of days in the vineyards in Provence, but a lot more time not in the vineyards, and you won’t feel it is a principle focus. The Cévennes, while home to modest wines of local interest, do not form one of France’s great viticultural regions. And Brittany imports all its wine from France. |
| “EUROCHARM” | Little villages and family farms are especially typical of Provence, of Bordeaux & the Dordogne, and, surprisingly, of Champagne, though all of France has its share. Architecturally, Alsace looks like what one imagines Germany must have looked like before WW II. |
| INTERESTING CITIES | Interesting cities include Blois and Tours (Loire Valley and, in the case of Blois, Ile-de-France), Burgundy’s Dijon, Alsace’s Strasbourg and Colmar, Brittany’s St.-Malo, and Champagne’s Reims. Avignon, Nimes, Arles, and Aix-en-Provence are all accessible to our Provence route, but if you spend all your time in them, you don’t do any biking! There are no cities at all in the Cévennes, but many interesting sheep. |
| THINGS YOU’VE HEARD OF... | Things you’ve heard of are most common in the Ile-de-France (Versailles, Chartres, Proust’s Combray, the château at Blois), the Loire (châteaux, Da Vinci’s villa, the river itself…), and in Provence (Roman arenas, Avignon’s Papal Palace, urban and rural scenes that inspired countless Cézannes and Van Goghs…). Burgundy (North and South) is chock-full of things the French think important, and that you would have learned about in school, had you been paying attention (basilicas, ancient hospitals, historic Roman battle sites, important cheese farms...). |
| HISTORY | “Pre-history” is a feature of Cro-Magnon Bordeaux & the Dordogne. The Romans banged around Provence, while Southern Burgundy’s Cluny was a center of medieval spirituality and religious architecture. Brittany’s history is often linked to that of the Anglo-Saxon world in interesting ways, and her seafaring traditions add to the sense of outside influence. “Modern” (post 15th century) history comes to life in the Ile-de-France and in the Loire Valley. Religious wars ravaged the Cévennes (and Bordeaux etc. to a lesser extent) even until the 18th century. World War I battle sites of the Marne and their moving memorials dot Champagne. Regarding war history in general, Alsace is of far too much interest for that to have been good news for the locals of the day. |
| “TRADITIONAL FRENCH CULTURE” | Traditional French culture, defined as “lack of McDonalds,” will stand out in the Cévennes (where you can drink milk out of a cow – or a sheep), or on the Northern Burgundy route. An atypical subset is on display in Alsace. |
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