Good point, Caminando.

A lot of petrol stations are closed Sundays. You may need to rely on the kindness of locals and pay them cash so you can fill up on their card.

Yes, I've been caught out by that in Boulogne after arriving with an empty tank to take advantage of that cheap French fuel (those were the days - all of 2 yrs ago!). The automated filling station would not take my UK visa card and for the life of me I could not remember the pin for my Carte Bleu. No problem, I'll phone my wife and she'll tell me the Carte Bleu number. No answer!
Eventually I did get a local to buy me 5L for cash, but I speak reasonable French so it might have been a bit more difficult as a first timer.
A case of familiarity breeding contempt is the moral of the story I suppose.

once again thank you for your wonderful advice.its nice to know there are folks who have 'done it before '.
Now all i want to do is persuade a guy i know who has a full fairing to fit a honda superdream to part with it.otherwise into the breeze i go lol

Great advice, can't add much at all. LEARN SOME French .... wish I had!
Following town names is EXCELLENT advice.

Peage speeds are FAST!! but more polite drivers than UK going round round abouts and they NEVER pull out on you.

I loved it, if I could afford it, I"d be there NOW. May is a GREAT time to go!
If not May, then mid September.

I loved the south and the Pyrennes. Dip into Spain maybe? Easy and worth it. Never seen the north.

Did you all know the French buy Five Times as many bikes as the UK?
Great dealers all over the country. Need gear? Try Andorra or head into Spain. Half the price of the UK. (ref. 2003)



Carrcosonne


France Tiger

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Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!

There's been a comment in the website feedback forum about no page for France in the countries database.

There's loads of good information here in this thread, so I will - asap - put a page together from it. YOU can help by:

If you have some info, please put it in a post with a clear title/heading that will make it easy for me to create a page with all the details. The better it's edited/written to start with the quicker I can post it.

All info appreciated!

thanks, Grant

__________________
Grant Johnson
Seek, and ye shall find.
------------------------
Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

This was true on my old cards, but since last year my new chip and pin cards have worked every where I have tried ( admittedly only 3 times) this is Verdun and both my local supermarkets 24hr pumps. It may well be patchy tho.. I did mnot expectthe card to work in verdun, I was on my way back from teh diesel bike rally in germany and wanted to continue. I saw a load of bikers in the closed hypermarket car park, and thought .,, " If I go through the motions of usingthe card, one of them will buy petrol for me and i can give them the money" French bikers are very helpful to one another. But it worked, and away i went.
two kinds of Visa card, one just visa, the other a visa debit card.

it's the (EU?) law that you must have your headlight on always (day and night). €45 fine a couple of years ago, probably more now. Cops will pull you for it in France.

ACCESS TO FRANCE FROM UK. - I find that the best is by Speedferries, the high speed catamaran. They are also usually the cheapest in this very expensive ripoff channel crossing. The aluminium ramps can be slippy when wet, so be careful. Take a straight line when on the ramp. The ferry has a roomy disabled toilet for changing in/out of your bike gear.

FRENCH ROADS ARE GREAT

Cars will move for you- thank them with a wave of your right foot or they will think you are a rude Rosbeef football lout.

THE PEAGE OR TOLL SYSTEM

A bike costs about 50% less than a car. There are one or two escape holes but I cant tell you where or you'll all be at it. Initially, finding the holes was like Steve McQueen in "the Great Escape".... difficult with alloy boxes.

EATING

My choices are - to stop at a s/mkt (Auchan, Carrefour) and buy loads of great French food and drink to have down the road a bit, under a tree, beside a river, whatever. Or some s/mkts have restos attached, like Casino or Flunch. You can eat well and cheaply there. I park my bike against the window for security.

Oh yes. s/mkts like to take your helmet from you as folks use them for theft. Leave them at the security desk.

FRENCH COPS

are usually ok, tho' I have enough French to assure them that I dont deserve a ticket (PV). However, if youre in the Le Mans area for the 24 hour races, then expect to be stopped and breathalysed at any time, including early in the morning. On a lighter (?) note, a recent leaflet urged bikers to leave at home all " hammers, clubs, knives, axes and chainsaws" - it's not Ripley, is it? Respect the speed limits in villages as they deserve to cross the road safely. Also cops can lurk in bushes with radar guns, and also on the autoroute south from Calais, hiding in service exits.

Carry your VO5 and insurance docs or the cops can impound your bike till you produce them.

Headlamps obligatory in daylight.

CAMPING

I find that France has the best wild/free camping I've ever found. I also use the "Aire de Repos", those great big laybys with trees and bushes. They have water, toilets, and woods to camp in if you follow the usual procedure of being discrete and invisible. Cover your bike. I also use a movement sensor alarm for the tent area, but there has never been a problem. Some Aires have restos but they also have the trees etc. If an Aire doesnt suit , then the next one is only 20 -30kms down the road. I have had memorable mornings there - deer grazing thru the misty forest etc. (The extra deer business is free for Contributing Members).
If you need a cheap hotel, try Formule Un or Hotel Etap. You pay about 30 Euros for a 3 bed room.

If in Chartres (and you cant miss that) I suggest the Youth Hostel (Auberge de Jeunesse) - a great building with a fantastic view of the fantastic cathedral. The hostel is owned by the town so just roll up - no card needed. Chartres is not to be missed, even by leathery old atheists like me. Not far up the road via Dreux and near Vernon, you have the pleasure of Monet's Water Garden - a wonderful place. Only 5 euros to get in.

PETROL

There may be a recent change which allows non French credit cards to be used in 24 hr Automatic petrol stations. But you can use them at any manned station now for sure. If you're stuck at a 24 hr, wait till someone comes, offer your money first and ask for a fill. Learn the phrase for this. Learn it well.

PEOPLE

The French are generally nice people. The Scots for hundreds of years have had good relations with France and the Continent (Le Vieux Alliance etc) so are sometimes a little more welcome. Likewise Canadians for obvious reasons. But the French are a welcoming race to all.

FINALLY - if you have a Horizons sticker on your bike, than clean your teeth to sparkling standard, wash once a week even if its not necessary, comb that horrible helmet hair, and be on your best behaviour.

Learn some French.

Yes Caminando, SpeedFerries, deserve our support, They started up a few years back in direct competition to The Channel Pirates. Johnathon Miller's www.channelpirates.com (now closed) provided a lot of indirect support to Kurt Whatshisname.

Early days were difficult. The Pirates used no end of blocking tactics to disrupt their service. Furthermore, the more realistic Speedferries fares forced the Pirates to trim theirs. Speedferries now have their own dedicated terminal at Western Dock and appear to be going from strength to strength.

There is, however, one possible problem for some. At the last time of crossing, they could not take more than four bikes at any one time.

Thanks....now they've increased that to about 8 or 10 I think....

Not specific to France, but there have been comments advising you to learn the language; you do not have to be fluent. I've made good friends with only the six basic social niceties (yes/no; please/thank you; hello/goodbye) plus "a piece of that please". For France you might also need "Would you buy me some fuel on your card? I have the cash here".

The only other thing I have ever needed is a willingness to laugh at my own mistakes when corrected. Starting here I've normally managed to pick up some of the local language in the course of each visit, to the extent that I am now incomprehensible in several languages (must visit Gibralter soon as I speak fluent gibberish)

The exception to this was the Netherlands, where I lived for a year. I really tried, but as soon as I said "morgan (sp?)" (= hello), they heard my English accent and immediately switched to better English than I speak!

Once again i do thank you for all your kind advice. Its amazing the knowledge we have locked up in out experience.
I do so want to go now.......sounds fun
may have to change to august.....but i hope still to go there and enjoy.

So true Mark!

In France, one thing many Americans are guilty of is, when meeting someone, to just charge in and start trying to tell them what you want/need/
directions/trains .... whatever.

In France, no matter what ..... start every conversation with Bon Jour or
good afternoon or good evening.

And Mark is correct , you need not learn a complete language. You can in fact get by nicely on about 5 verbs and 100 other words. Listen carefully when spoken to, try to pick out what it is there are saying. And alway apologize for your poor French up front! At that point many will switch to English.

Funny thing used to happen in the Pyrennes along French/Spain border. I had just assumed folk in these areas would be bi-lingual. Not so. At least not the French. They refused to speak a word of Spanish. In Andorra they are happy to speak Catalan (Basque language) and even Spanish .... and lots of English there too. But elsewhere on the French side not much luck with Spanish.

Have a great trip.

Patrick

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Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!