European Moto Trip - Lisbon, Portugal to Milan, Italy: Day 6 - Bagneres du Luchon, France to St. Remy de Provence

Every day after we have breakfast we try to put in some local sightseeing and short walk. Bagneres du Luchon is full of reminders of the Tour as it probably survives as a town because of it.

When we left we did not know where we would stop for the evening. Certain days we book hotels well in advance but in others we "let the wind carry us". We knew we would be sleeping somewhere in Provence so we chose the city of Montpellier, France and put it in GPS and chose the "Avoid Main Roads" option. The GPS would choose the route ... And what a great job it did.

Today we did the best roads for motorcycle riding yet. The D3 between Ciadoux, France and Rieumes, France has so many curves my right hand was hurting at Rieumes from so much braking and acceleration.

We stopped at Rieumes for lunch. After some bargaining as lunch time had past already we were able to be served and learned that the town was having the yearly festivities. On the way out we came across a bicycle race and it felt great to just follow them and see how the racing tactics of the various cyclists close by.

After Rieumes as we were taking too much time on the back roads we took the highway, put as destination Montpellier, France dialed speed limit (130 Km/h or 80+ miles/h) and enjoyed the straight and very well kept road. The highway system we use most of the time in France is the Autoroute system which consists largely of toll roads, except around large cities and in parts of the north. It is a network of 12,000 km (7,500 mi) worth of motorways. Tolls are either based on a flat-rate for access to the road or on the distance driven. The latter case is the most common for long distances; users take a ticket from an automatic machine when they enter the autoroute, and pay according to the distance when exiting; toll booths accept debit cards, credit cards, as well as cash. We used credit card and system works very well.

We were on the A61, went past Carcassone, France and went towards Narbonne, France where we would join the A9 through Beziers, France and towards Montpellier, France. And as we were nearing Narbonne the wind picked up a lot and we would ride most of the rest of the day with strong side winds that came from the mountain (our left) towards the sea (on our right). I was very happy with being loaded up as bike was solid as a rock. We, however, had to tuck behind windshield and be very close together ;-) to minimize movement on top of bike.

As we were arriving in Montpellier we got a traffic jam just before the toll booths :-(. After the toll booths the traffic jam continued and I was happy we were in France as we could just bypass the cars. This is not a practice Paula approves of but between being stuck in traffic jams is not my idea of fun so after some in helmet discussion we bypassed it.

After Montpellier we got off the main highway and took a smaller road towards the National Park of Camargue. With an area of over 930 km2 (360 sq mi), the Camargue is western Europe's largest river delta. It is a vast plain comprising large brine lagoons or étangs, cut off from the sea by sandbars and encircled by reed-covered marshes. These are in turn surrounded by a large cultivated area.

Approximately a third of the Camargue is either lakes or marshland. The central area around the shoreline of the Étang de Vaccarès has been protected as a regional park since 1927, in recognition of its great importance as a haven for wild birds. In 2008 it was incorporated into the larger Parc naturel régional de Camargue. It is home to more than 400 species of birds; its brine ponds provide one of the few European habitats for the greater flamingo. The marshes are also a prime habitat for many species of insects, notably (and notoriously) some of the most ferocious mosquitos to be found anywhere in France. It is also famous for the Camargue Bull and the Camargue Horse.

Although we had read that Arles, France is very nice and it was a possibility we would stay here for the night, we did not like this town and after a quick tour by motorbike through it we went north towards St. Remy de Provence. We also noticed that Arles was a town with not many artists as the Bistrot des Artistes was empty ;-).

The route to St. Remy is very beautiful as for about 10Kms the road has beautiful planted trees on both sides of the road. It was very nice to ride it as the sun was coming down.

When we arrived in St. Remy we did our usual quick tour to "check" the place out and we liked the feeling. It is difficult to explain but usually we look for how busy is city centre, do restaurants have outside seating and how busy are they, are there people walking in the streets, age groups, noise and confusion level. It of course helps if there are mountains or some type of water near by.

St. Remy is a small town with a city centre that had restaurants quite full. There were people walking around, light on the road was good. Age group was similar to ours (or at least enough of ours). Quiet enough town with not a lot of confusion.

We also checked the hotel we liked. We are mainly staying in 3-star hotels (100-150E) but now and then we go to 4-stars if they have the right offers. In this case we chose a 3-star and we took the last room. They had parking for bike which is always a plus and after taking luggage to room we went for dinner.

We chose a typical French creperie as we did not want to eat a lot as we had had a good lunch. Salad and crepes for the evening were great and then we finished the day by walking the streets of St. Remy in the evening and see where Nostradamus lived and also Van Gogh.