France

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After an almost 7 month separation, team orson was able to reunite for a three week tour of France. The trip began with a one day layover in Amsterdam, where I took the time to browse the shops and visit the Van Gogh museum. This would come to have later repercussions on my trip.

The next day, I flew into Bologna and hopped on a train to team orson world headquarters at Moto Guareschi in Parma. One day later I was packed and on the road. Not wanting to delay, I made the tough decision to slab it to France under clear blue skies. Not such a hard decision though as the Autostrada passes through the Maritime Alps to get to France.

Along the Autostrada, they have electronic message boards used to flash warnings to motorists about road conditions. The message it was flashing in Italian was saying something about a “National Holiday in France. Avoid at all costs”. Oh boy.

With its excellent roads and hilly terrain, southeastern France is motorcycling playground. Dominated by the Massif Central, the region is littered with excellent riding opportunities and the amount of motorcyclists on the roads attests to this. I usually don’t take my trips this early in the year and right away, I saw the effects of this decision as several mountain passes across the Maritime Alps were still closed, sending me further north than I had planned on. Chalk that up to poor planning.

Finally, I managed to find my way heading south towards the Mediterranean. Sure enough, I began to encounter the effects of this “national holiday” as many gas stations and even some hotels were closed. I began to sweat it out, wondering if I would run out of gas before finding an open station. Fortunately, I always seemed to find one when I least expected, although, once, I was running on fumes. The stress of worrying about being stranded made me decide to try to fill up when I had about half a tank left. Visions of the “end of oil” danced through my head, although there was no shortage. That’s just the way the french sell their gas. I tried asking a few people what the name of the holiday was, but it had a long name I couldn’t make out. Some sort of religious holiday. Dang festive festival people with their 90 holidays per year!

Filling up at half a tank seemed to allay my fears a bit and I managed to find a hotel in Nimes. Nimes is the site of the Pont du Gard, the Roman viaduct used to provide water for Nimes. This is an impressive structure to say the least. That a provincial backwater such as Nimes had such a mammoth structure built for it really drives home the power and the strength of the Roman Empire.

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Photos

Autostrada
Even the Italian Autostrada provides spectacular views of the Alps.