With this post, I can finally draw the curtains on Tour La France...Thanks to our new travel mate Serena, all our destinations were found without much difficulties. In case you don't know her, Serena works for Garmin, and pronounces French street names with an American accent. On hind sight, I think we should have opted for Kate instead, who can't be bothered with reading street names. Reason being, street signs in France are inconsistent in names and numbers, they are either placed inconspicuously, or does not even exist in sight. Most of the time, I struggle to find the name of the street AFTER we made the turn. So a precise GPS to show the distance to turn is very important, the roads in France can be very close to each other too.
Before we embarked on the road-trip, the Cols were the roads that scared us the most. The thought of those small winding roads, with the cliff on the right, and a truck on the left, just sent us hallucinating with "Final Destination" scenes. Lucky or not, our planned route through the Cols were closed, and in view of bad weather, we ended up with a half scenic route from Nice to Digne. 150km of hair-pin curves was scenic enough. Cols are in fact mountain passes, the highest being Col de la Bonette. Those at higher altitudes are closed in the winter-spring season, except for a few such as Col de Vars which might be open in Spring. These routes are bikers' heaven! Plenty of youtube videos of the Cols if you are interested. Useful information pertaining to the Cols:
http://www.infotrafic.com/route.php?region=FRANC&link=cols.php?Ouverts&761765025
After the trip, we realised that we had probably taken the most dangerous routes while we were in Dordogne, right from the start of our trip. There were endless small hairpins, which was even more difficult to manoeuvre than larger ones seen at the Cols. Worse still, these small hairpins were accompanied by 13% slopes, some unpaved (mixture of rocks and grass). I would have thought that these routes are meant for ATVs only. Didn't take any videos as I was too busy looking out for on-coming cars for the driver, these hairpins turn 300 degrees, without any mirrors at the curve. Just when we thought the 1 car-width roads are too small for a 2 way traffic, the roads can still get smaller. 1 bad judgement at the edge can send us down the cliff!
Our favourite leg: Nice to Annecy through Digne and Grenoble
The roads here are acceptable enough for me to take videos. Never knew how a snow shower is like (at 5:30 in the video), but now we do. This route has surprises at every turn, from towering mountains, gorges, lakes to a troglodyte village, Entrevaux. This video is not for one with motion sickness.
After the trip, we realised that we had probably taken the most dangerous routes while we were in Dordogne, right from the start of our trip. There were endless small hairpins, which was even more difficult to manoeuvre than larger ones seen at the Cols. Worse still, these small hairpins were accompanied by 13% slopes, some unpaved (mixture of rocks and grass). I would have thought that these routes are meant for ATVs only. Didn't take any videos as I was too busy looking out for on-coming cars for the driver, these hairpins turn 300 degrees, without any mirrors at the curve. Just when we thought the 1 car-width roads are too small for a 2 way traffic, the roads can still get smaller. 1 bad judgement at the edge can send us down the cliff!
Our favourite leg: Nice to Annecy through Digne and Grenoble
The roads here are acceptable enough for me to take videos. Never knew how a snow shower is like (at 5:30 in the video), but now we do. This route has surprises at every turn, from towering mountains, gorges, lakes to a troglodyte village, Entrevaux. This video is not for one with motion sickness.
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