Bolder Travel - France on a motorbike

..in the autumn

Place du Palais, Avignon

Driving across France is sometimes a lot more complicated than driving to or from Paris. The same can be said of travelling by train or indeed by motorbike as we just did from the Dordogne to Avignon. The meandering nature of French secondary roads seem to be made for motorbikes in the same way that the wonderfully empty motorways (normally) are not made for motorbikes either. So it was that we set off on a Sunday in October for Avignon with a first stop in Figeac - some 2 hours from home and a beautiful town just on the edge of the Massif Central where surely everyone is employed by Collins Aerospace - a company I had never heard of but who occupy an enormous facility on the edge of town. Next stop Conques - an incredible village nestled in a valley; a stopping off point for those on the Chemin St Jacques as I and a group of friends did 6 years ago almost to the day. The cathedral windows are something else - designed by Pierre Soulages, until recently France’s oldest living artist at 101. If you are passing through Rodez be sure to stop off at his museum and you will be amazed by the number of different shades of black that actually do exist.

And so on to Aubrac where suddenly you find yourself at quite an altitude and in the middle of an endless plain. It seems all so Dartmoor-esque for those familiar with this area of south west England. Bleak moorland and even a small ski ‘resort’ - well one T bar perhaps. We stayed at the Hotel Les Coudercous - again a major stopping off point for intrepid walkers so supper was both early and hearty although the vegetarian option was cheese, salad and bread so not a great place if you are not a meat eater. Aubrac meat is rightly quite famous - all those happy cows wandering around the elevated moorlands of Aubrac.

Aubrac