Day 2 |
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Frankfurt - Orléans (July 5th)
After saying goodbye to Ute, we took a short ride through Frankfurt to see
what the center was like. However, it was a regular working day so there were
a lot of cars around, and once the sun started to get hot we were itching to get going.
We had a wedding to make in Bilbao, 2 days later.
On the way to France we stopped for lunch in Kaiserslautern and visited a couple of old
friends. Then it was finally France! Our trip really started when we crossed the border.
The tolls on the highways gave us a good excuse to take every single small road
we could find on our Michelin maps. The 2-lane country roads, called
"Routes Nationale" are good to travel on in France.
With a motorcycle you never have traffic problems, even with tame steeds like ours,
and so maintaining a good pace is fairly easy.
NB
I was pretty shocked, actually, because French drivers - like most European
drivers (excluding Danish ones of course) - move over to the right half of
their lane as soon as they see a motorcycle come up behind them. How
refreshing!
CV
The roads are all very scenic, with trees that border the roads,
and pass through countless quiet little
villages - pretty typical french if you ask me. We took our time, stopping here and there, but having spent a
little longer in Kaiserslautern than planned, we were a bit pressed for
time. Vincent, another old friend who had once lived in Denmark, was
expecting us in Orleans.
Roads: We crossed the border at Metz/Saarbrücken, and then continued along straight
on the D903 until Verdun. From there we took the N35 (la Voie Sacrée - the sacred road,
there is some history related to this road) towards Bar-le-Duc and St-Dizier (see map) - a nice,
peaceful road. From then on we took the N60 until Orléans, It's a bigger
road offering much less to see but it's much faster.
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