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- Alkmaar Netherlands
A couple of weekends ago I went with a mate to the Vosges region in Alsace France. We left on the Thursday morning at 0700 at a petrol station here in Alkmaar, my home town (he had to ride 30 minutes to get here). The weather forecast had been pretty dodgy for the weekend and we were pleased it wasn’t raining (yet) but according to the weather radar there was a large band of rain sweeping down from the north. So in short the journey down to the motohotel in Bussang was simply keeping ahead of the rain clouds on the highways whilst checking the weather radar when we took a break. We took the route through Maastricht, liege, through the Ardennes, just under Luxembourg city and then on to Metz and Nancy and finally on to our destination near Bussang. We had a coffee at a gas station and stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe in Belgium, where the rain nearly caught us up again. Anyway as you have probably already figured we didn’t take any nice back roads it was simply pushing it on the highway the whole time.
About 60km’s from Bussang the skies finally cleared and we had a short but enjoyable ride in the sun, having stayed dry the whole way, it was great to see the hills rising around us as we rode through the valley. We arrived at our destination at motohotel de col du Bussang in beautiful weather at about 1700, we parked our bikes in the motorbike “sheds” and as we walked into the bar/restaurant we were greeted by our host (the Dutch owner) Mark, he asked if we would like to sit outside and he would bring us a complimentary beer, as the weather was so good how could we decline such an offer.
We had a couple more beers whilst soaking up the sun and enjoying the scenary, after which we took our stuff to the room and at 1900 we had our meal. (The prices include a 3 course evening meal and breakfast). Of course we had to wash this down with some local wine, well you know what they say, when in Rome… well France.
Here's a pic of the wicker work harley in the bar:
As the weather forecast was for rain the whole weekend many of the people who had originally booked didn’t turn up so the Hotel was quite quiet except for a Group of about 15 Germans who were celebrating a couple of birthdays from their local motorbike club (in Aachen).
The next morning we took a look out of the window just to see a constant drizzle of rain, oh well it might improve. Had a continental style Breakfast and then got all our rain gear on ready for the day ahead. It rained all day in varying degrees from drizzle to full out cloud burst.
There were some amazing roads it was just a big shame that it was so wet, even the main road just down from the hotel had some great bends, but obviously we took them at a reasonable pace, as in places there were rivers running across the road,
We First rode up the Le Grande Ballon
and after this we went on to Cernay where we visited the war memorial remembering about 30.000 French troups who died on that hill during the First World War, almost the same number of German troups also died in this area. There were many graves also many mass graves. You could visit the bunkers on the hill, but because of the rain we decided not to go dredging through the mud.
After this we rode back along the Route des Crêtes which is the high road running above the Rhine valley on the French side.
We rode on through the winding passes we took a detour to Riquewihr, which was an old mediaval city. Busloads of tourists came here, all carrying umbrellas, which seemed a bit surreal at the time. Here we stopped for a quick pizza, which took longer than originally planned. But because of the weather, it was a welcome break.
After this we went up to the Haut Koenigsbourg castle. Unfortunately because of the bad weather it was literally in the clouds, so we couldn’t even see the main tower.
After this we headed back down into the valley in the direction of Colmar. Here we decided to take the quickest route back to the hotel. At this point the rain started to come down very heavily and we could hardly see anything on the motorway because of the spray. Unfortunately we also ended up in a traffic jam as it was around rush hour and although we filtered a little bit it was very slow moving. We arrived back at the hotel about six o’clock in the evening. So we hung all our clothing in the large drying room (this it the advantage of being at a motor bike hotel). And we got ready for dinner. We had an other great three course meal and of course a few Beers to wash it down.
About 60km’s from Bussang the skies finally cleared and we had a short but enjoyable ride in the sun, having stayed dry the whole way, it was great to see the hills rising around us as we rode through the valley. We arrived at our destination at motohotel de col du Bussang in beautiful weather at about 1700, we parked our bikes in the motorbike “sheds” and as we walked into the bar/restaurant we were greeted by our host (the Dutch owner) Mark, he asked if we would like to sit outside and he would bring us a complimentary beer, as the weather was so good how could we decline such an offer.
We had a couple more beers whilst soaking up the sun and enjoying the scenary, after which we took our stuff to the room and at 1900 we had our meal. (The prices include a 3 course evening meal and breakfast). Of course we had to wash this down with some local wine, well you know what they say, when in Rome… well France.
Here's a pic of the wicker work harley in the bar:
As the weather forecast was for rain the whole weekend many of the people who had originally booked didn’t turn up so the Hotel was quite quiet except for a Group of about 15 Germans who were celebrating a couple of birthdays from their local motorbike club (in Aachen).
The next morning we took a look out of the window just to see a constant drizzle of rain, oh well it might improve. Had a continental style Breakfast and then got all our rain gear on ready for the day ahead. It rained all day in varying degrees from drizzle to full out cloud burst.
There were some amazing roads it was just a big shame that it was so wet, even the main road just down from the hotel had some great bends, but obviously we took them at a reasonable pace, as in places there were rivers running across the road,
We First rode up the Le Grande Ballon
and after this we went on to Cernay where we visited the war memorial remembering about 30.000 French troups who died on that hill during the First World War, almost the same number of German troups also died in this area. There were many graves also many mass graves. You could visit the bunkers on the hill, but because of the rain we decided not to go dredging through the mud.
After this we rode back along the Route des Crêtes which is the high road running above the Rhine valley on the French side.
We rode on through the winding passes we took a detour to Riquewihr, which was an old mediaval city. Busloads of tourists came here, all carrying umbrellas, which seemed a bit surreal at the time. Here we stopped for a quick pizza, which took longer than originally planned. But because of the weather, it was a welcome break.
After this we went up to the Haut Koenigsbourg castle. Unfortunately because of the bad weather it was literally in the clouds, so we couldn’t even see the main tower.
After this we headed back down into the valley in the direction of Colmar. Here we decided to take the quickest route back to the hotel. At this point the rain started to come down very heavily and we could hardly see anything on the motorway because of the spray. Unfortunately we also ended up in a traffic jam as it was around rush hour and although we filtered a little bit it was very slow moving. We arrived back at the hotel about six o’clock in the evening. So we hung all our clothing in the large drying room (this it the advantage of being at a motor bike hotel). And we got ready for dinner. We had an other great three course meal and of course a few Beers to wash it down.
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