Route Napoléon Northbound
A 270 km loop
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Why this ride
A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. A 270 km loop that starts and ends near Nice, about 4 h 55 of riding. The stops in between: Grasse, Castellane and Digne-les-Bains. Col des Leques is the high point. It tops out at about 1,950 m.
Roadbook
- Nice
start
Nice rises from a wide bay of pebbles and blue water, with a ridge of hills behind it, and it has been a seaside resort since the English began wintering here in the eighteenth century. The Promenade des Anglais, the seafront boulevard they paid for, still runs for several kilometres along the shore, lined with palms, pale hotels and deckchairs, and the old town, Vieux Nice, behind the Cours Saleya flower market, is a tangle of ochre and pink houses with laundry hanging out of windows. Castle Hill, a wooded bluff at the eastern end of the bay, gives a view over the whole sweep of the coast. Italian influence is strong, as the city only became French in 1860, and the food shows it. Try socca, a chickpea pancake, a pan bagnat sandwich or a proper salade niçoise.
The Grande Corniche starts from here, the highest of three roads that climb the cliffs between Nice and Menton. It follows the line of the Roman Via Julia Augusta, and at La Turbie, around five hundred metres above the sea, the ruins of the Trophy of Augustus, built in the first century BC to mark Roman control of the Alps, stand on a ridge with a view down to Monaco. The road then passes Èze and other perched villages, where the bends are tight, the views are huge and the sun glints off the Mediterranean far below.
Riding here needs a bit of planning. Nice is large and busy, with heavy traffic, one-way streets and scooters weaving at every light, and the road along the coast is slow at any hour. Parking for bikes is easier than for cars, but be careful of theft and use a secure garage if you are staying. Fuel is plentiful in a city of three hundred and thirty thousand, though some stations in the old centre are limited, so use the ones on the outskirts. The Grande Corniche itself is best ridden early on a weekday, before the tourist coaches and the cyclists, and it can be windy on the open stretches.
Spring and autumn are lovely here. In midsummer the heat and crowds make the coast tiring, but the light is spectacular at dawn.
- Grasse
town
Grasse smells of something before you can see it. The old perfume capital of France climbs a steep limestone hillside about a dozen kilometres from the Mediterranean, high enough above Cannes to catch a cooler, more mountain air, and for generations the fields of jasmine, rose and tuberose on the terraces around the town fed its distilleries. Perfume came here from the leather trade: glovemakers in the seventeenth century began scenting their gloves, and the business outgrew the leather. Today the town still has big perfume houses and a handful of working fields, and in May the rose harvest and in late summer the jasmine are the times to be around.
For a rider, Grasse is where the sea-level traffic and the real hills meet. A town of nearly fifty thousand people, it has ample petrol, supermarkets, bakeries and cafés, and it makes a sensible stop before heading up toward the Gorges du Verdon or down to the coast. The old centre is a knot of steep one-way lanes, steps, and tall ochre houses with shutters that peel in the sun, and driving through it on a big bike is more of an adventure than anyone needs; leave the machine at the edge and walk up to the Place aux Aires and the cathedral.
The roads around are another matter. Heading north on the D-roads toward the plateau, you climb into the Préalpes de Grasse, where the corners tighten, the pines thicken, and the air smells of thyme and dry earth. The surface is generally decent but narrow, with plenty of blind bends, cyclists in the early morning, and walkers' cars parked on the verges at weekends.
It is worth knowing that summer here is hot and the dust-dry hills are a fire risk, so some forest roads close on bad days. In winter the high ground can be icy even when the coast is warm, and the cold is sharper than you expect from the postcard. In spring the light is soft and the hillside terraces go quiet green.
Pick a table in the sun on one of the squares, get the tank topped up before the hills, and try a socca or a pissaladière if the bakery has them; both are Provençal ways of making a good lunch from almost nothing.
- Castellane
food
Castellane sits at the bottom of a rock, and the rock is the point. The town, at a little over seven hundred metres in the valley of the Verdon, is overlooked by a limestone crag nearly two hundred metres high, with a small chapel on top, Notre-Dame du Roc, which has been a pilgrimage site for centuries. A steep path climbs to it in about half an hour, and the view over the town's red roofs, the river and the surrounding mountains is superb. The town itself is small, with about sixteen hundred people, but it feels bigger in summer, when visitors fill the cafés.
Napoleon passed through here on 2 March 1815, on his march from the coast at Golfe-Juan to Paris, and the town claims him as a guest. The road he took, now the N85, is called the Route Napoléon and is marked by little eagle signs. It is one of the great motorcycling roads of France, mostly smooth and well engineered, with long bends and fine views, and it is busy with riders in summer. Castellane, at its midpoint between the coast and Digne, is the natural place to stop.
The Gorges du Verdon begin a few kilometres to the west, a canyon of extraordinary beauty, with cliffs of up to seven hundred metres and a river of turquoise water. The roads that run along its rim are narrow and exciting, with tight bends and long drops, and they are best ridden in the early morning, before the crowds arrive. Lake Sainte-Croix, at the western end, has beaches and boats.
Fuel is available in Castellane, which has several stations, and it is wise to fill the tank here before heading into the mountains. Food is Provençal, with a good selection of restaurants and cafés around the main square, and a market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. The town is busy in July and August, and quieter in spring and autumn, when the light is soft and the roads are almost empty. Nights are cool at this altitude, even in summer.
- Digne-les-Bains
fuel
Digne-les-Bains is a town of nineteen thousand people at the heart of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, a place with an unusual mixture of attractions. It lies in a wide valley at the meeting of several rivers, surrounded by mountains, and its hot springs have drawn visitors since Roman times. The thermal baths are still open. The town is the capital of lavender country, and each August the Corso de la Lavande fills the streets with floats decorated with the flowers. The scent of lavender is everywhere in summer, from the fields that cover the plateaus around.
Digne's literary fame comes from Victor Hugo, who set the opening of Les Misérables here. The kindly bishop Myriel, who gives shelter and silver candlesticks to Jean Valjean, was modelled on a real bishop of Digne, and the town is proud of the association. The explorer and writer Alexandra David-Néel, the first European woman to reach Lhasa, spent her last decades here and died in 1969 at the age of one hundred, and her house is a museum of Tibetan art. The philosopher and astronomer Pierre Gassendi was born in a village nearby.
The geology is remarkable. The hills around Digne are full of fossils, and a slab of rock a few kilometres from town, covered with hundreds of giant ammonites, is one of the best sights of the region. The surrounding area, the Haute-Provence geological reserve, is one of the largest in Europe, and it has been recognised by UNESCO as a geopark. The Train des Pignes, the narrow-gauge railway to Nice, begins its journey here.
As the end of the Route Napoléon's ride, Digne is a good place to spend the night, with hotels, restaurants and shops in plenty, and all the fuel you might need. Napoleon stopped here on 4 March 1815, and the route continues north to Sisteron and Gap. The roads around the town are excellent for riding, with lovely scenery and little traffic outside the summer. Summer is hot and bright, and winter can bring snow to the heights. Spring and autumn are the best seasons.
- Col des Leques pass
- Entrevaux sight
- Nice finish