Hey guys....
I will be landing in Paris with my wife on may 30th. Will spend 2 days there possibly and the I may hit part of Spain on my way to Normandy. I must be in Normandy for the 6th for the D Day Anniversary as I am a part of the paratrooper drop into Juno Beach. I will leave on the 8th and either head to Italy, or back to Spain. I am looking for the must see and must do list, for Southern France and then for Spain and Italy. I will be in a car... yup a car... /sigh but with all my jump gear and tent gear its only way to do it. I may try to find a bike rental place for a day ride or something. So, any places a must see or do? Wife like scenery routes, museums and stuff like that and I like more adventure stuff from skydiving to motorcycles. kayaking etc.

If you know of any reasonable rate motels, hostels or campsites please let me know. Our travel card is pretty open except for the few days to be in Normandy.

Thanks.
Gary
Canada

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Gary
CANADA
www.myspace.com/intrepid_cdn

Hi Gary:

I live in Canada, but spend a couple of months riding in Europe every year.

It's kind of hard to answer your questions with precision because I don't know your age, your daily budget, what kind of car you are driving, etc. But I will try to share my experience, maybe that will help you.

First off, I'm perplexed by your statement "I'm landing in Paris on May 30, must be in Normandy [a week later] on June 6, but I might hit Spain on my way to Normandy." I think you might have unfolded your map improperly - Normandy is to the west-northwest of Paris, and Spain is way the hell down to the south. If you try to visit Spain on the way from Paris to Normandy, all you are going to get will be a sore butt and a huge collection of toll road receipts (about CAD $200 in tolls for the autoroutes from Paris to Spain and back).

If you have not ridden in Europe before, the very best advice I can give you is "don't bite off more than you want to chew". If you spend all your time on the 4 lane toll highways - and that is the only way you will be able to get from Paris to Spain to Normandy in 6 days - the ride won't be any different than driving on the 401 from Windsor to Quebec City, or on the Trans-Canada highway from Winnipeg to Calgary.

Instead, may I suggest that you perhaps start by driving from Paris up to the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge. The very best roads (the most enjoyable roads) in France are the 'Departmental' roads - doesn't matter if you are in a car or riding a motorcycle, that's where you will get a real feel for the country and the culture. Departmental roads are the third tier roads, the country roads. Get the heck out of Paris as fast as you can, and poke along the country roads to Vimy. Once at Vimy, you are very close to Belgium (about an hour's drive) - you can stick your nose in there if you want, it's a delightful country. Or, you can then head southwest towards Normandy, investigating all the history along the various D-Day beaches.

Remember that it is going to take your body a few days to adapt to the time zone change. You want to be well rested when you arrive in Normandy for your parachute thing, you don't want to be showing up after an 800 km drive from Spain, dead tired and burned out.

I don't know how long you plan to spend in Europe after your Normandy activities June 6th to 8th. I do know that it is a long way from Normandy to Spain or Italy. Why not head north up to Belgium? Or, ride into the middle of France and poke around there?

Europe, in general, is a lot more 'dense' than Canada. You can enjoy a very busy day, lots of driving around, see lots of things, and not move more than about 100 km (as the crow flies) from where you started out.

I don't camp, for that reason I cannot offer any advice about camping.

You can easily find small hotels, typically on top of good restaurants, for about $100 to $140 Canadian $ a night. The Canadian dollar is pretty weak right now. One CAD is worth .65 Euro cents, but the prices you will see quoted in Euros for just about everything in France will be identical to the prices you see quoted in Canadian dollars for just about everything in Canada. In other words, the price you will pay in Canada (in CAD) for a hotel room, for a meal, for a newspaper, for a coffee, for a litre of fuel will be the same price you will pay in France (in Euros) for the same thing. But, Euros are worth 150% of what Canadian dollars are worth.

So, it's not going to be a cheap holiday. You can save a ton of money by 'slowing down' and staying on the tertiary roads, in the small towns. Food, hotels, everything will be less expensive, and if you are not pounding out 600 km days, you will have lots and lots of time to spot the good deals on food and accommodation.

There is a hotel chain called 'Logis de France' that is a collection of small, independent, kind of simple hotels. I like them and find that for the most part, they offer good value for money. Get an application called "TripAdvisor" for your smartphone, and use it to find nearby places to stay... it will show the prices. Wi-Fi is free at McDonald's, and there are lots of McDonalds in France. Cell phone roaming charges can kill you (I often have $2,000 a month cell phone bills when I am out of Canada on business - thank goodness my company pays that bill). Buy a prepaid roaming bucket from your Canadian cell phone provider for voice and data. You'll need a bit of voice calling to make hotel reservations or call ahead. You might need a bit of data (in an emergency) to check hotel availability or check weather. Be sure to set the counters (timers) on your phone to make sure you don't go over the limits of what voice and data you have purchased, and of course, turn off the cellular data roaming.

The biggest mistake I see first-time visitors to Europe make is to try and travel too far in a short period of time. My suggestion is that you pick one area (for example, north-western France) and explore it in detail. Remember that it is no fun to set up a tent every night in a different place, or have to check into a new hotel every night. Once you find a really nice campground or really nice hotel, you want to be able to stay there for 2 or 3 nights, using it as a base to explore in different directions each day. If you do that at least 50% of the time, you will have an enjoyable holiday. If you keep moving every day and trying to cover too much ground every day, your wife will get pissed off and at the end of it all she will say "never again".

Hope this advice helps.

Michael

PS: If you have a Garmin GPS, investigate purchasing a pre-programmed data chip from Garmin with the French roads on it. It will probably cost you about $100, but that will be money well spent. You can (and should) get that chip before you leave Canada, you won't be able to buy it at a store in France.

If you don't have a GPS here in Canada, stick your head into a Media-Mart or other big box electronics store in France and buy a GPS on your first day. It will make a HUGE difference to your stress level and greatly enhance your driving pleasure.

Some rental cars come with a GPS, but the quality of the built-in GPS devices varies a lot. It will probably be cheaper for you to buy a map chip for your Canadian GPS - or even buy an inexpensive GPS at a store in France - than it will be to pay the premium for 2 or more weeks to have a rental car with a GPS in it.

Michelin road maps are by far the very best for route planning. They are expensive, but worth it. You might be able to buy them in Canada. Try and get a map that just shows 1/4 of France (the part you are going to) - if you get the map showing the entire country, it won't have sufficient detail for the 'Departmental' roads.

Michael

Sound advice as always from you, Michael. I know from experience that North American visitors think about doing 500 or 600 miles days, and whilst it's do-able, it's no fun, and they just don't get to see the country from motorways. Now I have sold my much loved Pan, I will be enjoying my riding on my restored Airhead at a more leisurely pace ;-)

Hi Gary

What they said... pretty much.

You can drive from Paris, touch Italy, south of France, northern Spain and get back to Normandy in 6 days - but you'll be travelling almost non-stop to do it, and passing right by lots of things worth seeing without the time to give a second glance. If that is your bag, go for it. Not sure I'd recommend it though - especially if you want to do some stuff on the way.

Camping in France is easy - really easy. They have about half of the EU's registered campsites, and most towns will have a signposted municipal one which are good value and (usually) well run. You should not have a problem with space at that time of the year.

If you do want to hit the mountains and have a sneak peek at Spain - have a look at this website: The Spanish Biker | The invaluable guide to motorcycling in Spain – By Simon Rice Simon is a mate and decent bloke - the info is pretty good too!

But, in short, best to keep your distances just that... short(er). I once drove from my home in Barcelona to my home in Wales, UK. Took 23 hours in total (inc ferry) door to door. Those sort of runs are possible - but I had to do that then - I usually ride my bike and take 3 days to do the same.

Have fun though - no matter how you put the trip together - the jump sounds great!

P

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Pat
www.patonabike.blogspot.com

Or download the Openstreetmap of France for free and load onto a SDcard and insert into Garmin device. IMHO OSM is better than/ as good as Garmin proprietory mapping software.

Free worldwide Garmin maps from OpenStreetMap

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

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Thanks for all the info guys.... Much appreciated, especially the info about the radar cams We will be in a car for this and long distance isnt much a concern for me. I used to drive 6.5 hours 1 way to work 3 times a week. But, I dont wanna be in the car and not see things. The wife wants to hit alot of countries and figure out which ones she wants to come back to later and send more time in those places. Personally Id like to just hit spain for the first week then back to normandy for D DAY and then over to italy, but sounds more like its gonna be a day or 2 here and a day or 2 there sorta trip. Gonna try to not use the highways as much as possible, time allowing... but I might have to opt for that for long legs of travel. Thanks for the links as well... I grabbed 2 sim cards and hope to DL some of those maps etc.

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Gary
CANADA
www.myspace.com/intrepid_cdn