France 2026
Date: July 2026
Duration: 7 Days
Distance: 2,039 km
The plan is to ride to Poland, then on to Slovakia before returning home via Czechia. However while having breakfast, I check the weather forecast for the days ahead.
In southern Poland, my intended destination, the weather will be 35° or more with occasional thunderstorms. As I eat a Pain au Chocolat, I check to see what’s the projection in more coastal and northern regions.
Half an hour before my planned departure, my plan has changed and I will ride towards Normandy, where I expect a far more reasonable 25° heat and mostly dry conditions.
26 km after leaving home, I cross the border into Alsace and spend just a few minutes on the French motorway before turning off on to the regular highway to Nancy. My SatNav is configured to avoid toll roads, this means that it will route me on motorways around cities, which are almost always toll-free, but in-between cities I will be directed to use the regular single-carriageway national and local roads.
On the approach to Nancy, the SatNav takes me on to a motorway to bypass the city. Exactly at this point, a thunderstorm suddenly starts. Stopping or turning back is illegal, so I have no choice but to continue through the heavy rain.
After less than 5 km I turn off, and there’s a pause in the rain. As I stand waiting at a set of traffic lights, the rain resumes with the same intensity as before. I see a restaurant just 50 metres away and there’s room on the pavement to park the bike. My first meal in France on this trip is in a Tunisian restaurant on the outskirts of Nancy, where I am warmly greeted despite my wetness.
Checking the rain radar from my phone, shows a band of rain moving over the city for the next couple of hours. But Nancy is on the edge of this narrow band, and just a few kilometres further north it appears to be dry.
I wait for a lull between the heaviest of downpours, get back on the bike and leave the city towards Verdun. As expected, I quickly leave the bad weather behind and another 30 minutes later I am mostly dry.
About 30 minutes before I reach Verdun, I pull over on the side of the road, reach for my phone and launch the Booking app. I quickly find a small hotel about 15 minutes walk from the city centre, and with what appears to be the possibility of using their garage to park the bike. Most hosts are very accommodating, and will allow motorbikes to be parked in their own private garages or courtyards.
This booking technique, of making a reservation within one hour of my expected arrival, is what allowed me to quickly switch my holiday plan from Poland to France. There was no accommodation or other bookings to cancel, and my bike already has a Crit’Air sticker which is required for riding in numerous french urban areas.
In Verdun I visit the tunnels under the citadel, where you sit in an automated 5 person carriage while wearing a headset with speakers and a screen for augmented virtual reality. The tour follows the experience of 4 young french men during World War 1.
The battles that occurred here in 1916 are the main historical focus of the town. There are numerous cemeteries in the hills to the north-east, with thousands of graves – there were approximately 750,000 casualties just in these fields. I head out to Douaumont Ossuary to visit one of these sites myself.
As I am about to depart, I get chatting to a couple of guys on British registered Harleys. They’re former british army servicemen from Northern Ireland. I recant my travels in the Balkans, areas in which they both served.
It’s not until the afternoon when I hit the road again, back towards Normandy. I won’t go too far today, as I don’t want to be riding into the evening. I decide to aim for Reims.
As usual, I pull-over about 30 minutes before I reach Reims, to search my phone for somewhere to stay. Tonight his slim pickings, but I find a small place near the centre, and despite poor reviews it does have private parking. The “private parking” is actually a supermarket car park, with a maximum stay of 2 hours. The ground floor of the establishment is a casino. The whole thing doesn’t feel comfortable.
I had to pay in advance on the Booking app. The manager isn’t there, but I speak to her on the phone and request a full refund, which perhaps surprisingly she agrees to. Back into the supermarket car park, I open the Booking App and reserve a room at a Logis Hotel, a bit further from the city, but far more comfortable.
Reims is big, and pretty. The centre is full of old interesting buildings, and of course many churches. I also received a few tips from a former resident.
While in Verdun, I spent a good bit of time chatting with the guy running the small hotel in which I was staying. At one point, he asked about my plans for the trip, to which I stated that I did not have any concrete arrangements, but a mere rough direction towards Normandy and will likely visit places like La Havre and Le Mont St Michel.
He suggested, rather than visit La Havre, I should stay in Honfleur, and that is today’s destination.
The SatNav accidentally directs me on to tolled motorway, which is tolled by electronic means which I must remember to pay later. At the first opportunity I find somewhere to stop, and reprogram the SatNav to keep me off the main highways.
It is only when I am within an hour of the Honfleur that the bike and I find ourselves on far more interesting roads, riding down lanes a little wider than one car, through small old villages.
Honfleur is a popular tourist destination, particularly with the British. I wander through the small town, finding my bearings, taking a few photos and jump on a passenger cruise ship which is just about to depart on a 1½ hour voyage along the Seine and then out into the estuary with the English Channel.
Among the oddities of Honfleur is the Church. Not made of stone, but instead of timber.
I head further west the following day, through Bayeux (famous for one tapestry), past the beaches of the 1944 Normandy landings, and almost as far as Britany, for today’s destination is Mont-Saint-Michel.
I find a room in Hôtel Rose, a quaint hotel with a very informative hostess near Alligator Bay (no time to visit this time, so I must return) and just a 2km walk to the bus terminal to Mont-Saint-Michel. The buses ferry people the 2km out onto the temporary island, but walking is still an option for the less infirm.
The buses themselves have a unique design. There is no turning space at the end of the road, which is the foot of the mont, so they have a driver’s cab at the front and rear of the bus. The driver gets out, adjusts a switch and gets in at the opposite end for the return journey.
Unsurprisingly the Mont is full of tourists, but the crowds thin out the higher one climbs up the steps.
This tour is only a short one, just 7 days, which means it’s time to return towards Baden-Württemberg, if I want a gentle ride back and not just spend several hours on the motorway.
The plan is to loop back home south of Paris. I head first for Orléans and then onto Nancy for my final night.
My hotel in Orléans is well located, but the hotel itself likely needed a refurb about 10 or more years ago. Very appropriately as I walk into the stone paved town, I hear jazz coming from an open window. Is this the old or the new Orléans?
Onward to Nancy, cross-country through the Empty Diagonal of France. Now far away from the coast in Normandy, it’s got noticeably warmer, almost unbearably hot like the weather in South-West Germany where temperatures are up to almost 40°C.
Nancy is a pre-roman city, although it was rebuilt in the 13th century in stone. I have arrived on a particularly cultural Saturday afternoon, where there are pianists playing on Grand Pianos in the park, and a samba band parading around the pedestrianised streets.
I have a recommendation for some local cuisine, and find it on offer from a small restaurant, where I have to sit inside in the heat. The Bouchée à la reine comes served with a side of Spätzle.
To finish the final evening of the tour, I relocate myself to the main square and order a glass of the local wine. I sit and read my book, but soon a moderately sized group of Moroccans descend on the square to celebrate a win in the Mens Football World Cup. They’re in good spirits.
