Paris · Gâtinais and Fontainebleau South Sweep
A 207 km loop from Paris south
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Why this ride
Forest roads, sandstone villages and a calm southbound rhythm. A 207 km loop that starts and ends near L'Haÿ-les-Roses, about 4 h 13 of riding. On the way it passes Milly-la-Forêt, Nemours old-road turn, Moret-sur-Loing water stop and Fontainebleau forest road.
Roadbook
- Paris south gate
start · 55 m
There is a rose in L'Haÿ-les-Roses, and a very particular one. In the late nineteenth century a Parisian businessman named Jules Gravereaux planted a rose garden here, with thousands of varieties, and it became a world reference collection. The Roseraie du Val-de-Marne, as it is now called, still draws visitors in May and June, and the name of the town was changed to honour it. So the first thing a rider sees when leaving Paris by the southern gate may be a hedge of petals.
Otherwise the surroundings are humdrum. Near 30,000 people live here, among apartment blocks, ring roads and the buzz of nearby Orly airport, whose planes pass low overhead. The famous Rungis wholesale market, which feeds Paris and much of the region, lies just beyond, and from three or four in the morning the roads around it fill with lorries. Avoid the area at that hour if you can.
The two rides that start and end here point in opposite directions: one heads south-west toward the plains of Chartres, the Perche hills and a return along quiet lanes, the other drifts down into the Gâtinais, a region of sandy forest, pale fields and small villages south of Paris. Both take you out of the sprawl quickly. The N20 and the A6 are the obvious roads, but they are slow at rush hour, so take D-roads through the villages of the Bièvre valley and the Essonne countryside, where the traffic eases and the corners start to appear.
Fuel is no problem here, with stations all around, and the many bakeries open early. Park the bike securely, as theft is a real worry in dense suburbs, and plan to leave before the morning traffic gathers. If you pass by in early summer, a quick detour to the rose garden is worth it, even in a leather jacket, and its scent on a warm evening will linger longer than any petrol fumes.
- Milly-la-Forêt coffee
food · 75 m
Milly-la-Forêt is a small town of just under five thousand people tucked at the western edge of the Fontainebleau sandstone country, at about seventy-five metres above the sea. The town's name tells you what it is: a settlement in a clearing of old forest, with the Gâtinais regional park around it. Its centre is built around a large wooden market hall dating back to the fifteenth century, with a vast timbered roof held on massive oak posts, and in the shade of this structure traders still sell vegetables and cheese. It is one of the finest surviving halles in the Île-de-France, and few visitors know it.
Milly has a long association with herbs. For centuries the surrounding sandy soils have been used to grow medicinal and aromatic plants, the so-called simples, and a fragrant landscape of mint, lavender and chamomile fields is part of the area's identity. The little chapel of Saint-Blaise-des-Simples, a mile or so from the centre, was decorated inside by the poet and artist Jean Cocteau in the early 1960s, and he is buried in the grounds. If you step inside you find delicate line drawings of herbs and flowers and a quiet that feels out of step with the busy world.
On the bike, Milly is a good place to wake up the day. The roads out of the town head into pine and oak forest, with the soft smell of resin on warm days and the odd grey boulder poking out of the heather. Tarmac is mostly smooth, bends are long and gentle, and traffic is light on weekdays but picks up on weekends, when climbers and walkers head for the forest. Not far away in the woods stands the Cyclop, a giant mirrored sculpture by Jean Tinguely and friends, which will make you think you have lost your mind if you come across it by accident.
For coffee and a croissant, the cafés on the market square are the natural choice, and the bakeries around it open early. Fuel is available in the town, so it makes a good place to fill up before going on. Take a seat under the old roof timbers, order a coffee, and look up. It is the kind of ceiling that reminds you how much skill went into everyday buildings before anyone worried about speed.
- Nemours old-road turn
scenic · 65 m
Before the motorways, there was the Nationale 7. The road ran from Paris to the Riviera, through Fontainebleau, Nemours, Lyon and Avignon, and in the years after the war it became the route des vacances, the holiday road, jammed in August with families, caravans and overloaded Citroëns heading south. Charles Trenet immortalised it in a cheerful song in 1955, and for a generation of French people the very name conjures up long drives, picnics at the roadside and the smell of hot tarmac.
Nemours was one of the towns the old road passed through, and the turn at this point follows the old line, now partly bypassed by the A6 motorway, with the traffic of lorries and cars reduced to a murmur. You can still see traces of the past: old garages, faded signs on buildings and the odd roadside inn that once served weary travellers. The road is wide and straight in places, and winds gently in others, following the contours of the Loing valley.
The riding is a pleasure of a nostalgic kind. The surface is generally good, the corners are wide and easy, and the road has a certain quiet dignity. A motorcycle on the old route feels like the right tool, slow enough to take in the details, fast enough to cover ground. Speed limits are strictly enforced in the towns, and you should watch for cameras, since this is a busy road for local traffic.
The country on either side is a mixture of sandstone ridges, pine and oak woods and fields, with the forest of Fontainebleau to the north and the hills of the Gâtinais to the south. At about sixty metres above sea level, the valley is low and often misty in the early morning, and in summer it can be hot and humid.
Nemours has fuel in plenty, and the neighbouring town of Saint-Pierre-lès-Nemours has more, as well as a few bakeries and cafes. A coffee on the roadside, with the sound of passing traffic, is the best way to feel the history of the road.
- Moret-sur-Loing water stop
sight · 55 m
Moret-sur-Loing is what an impressionist painter would have ordered if asked for a small medieval town. It sits on a quiet bend of the river Loing, where an old stone bridge with a mill arches over the water, and the whole composition, with a church tower, reflections and drifting willow, is the one that Alfred Sisley painted again and again after settling here in the 1880s. He is buried in the local cemetery. The town was fortified in the Middle Ages, and two great gates, the Porte de Samois and the Porte de Bourgogne, still stand at the ends of the main street, which runs between them past old houses and tiny courtyards.
It also has a sweet claim to fame. Moret's sugar of the Sisters, a hard, golden barley sugar sold in little twisted sticks, was invented by nuns here in the seventeenth century, and you can still buy it in the town, in tins, with an old-fashioned label. A few hundred metres away at Saint-Mammès, the Loing meets the Seine, and barges laden with grain, sand and containers pass through the locks, so the water stop there is full of working boats rather than pleasure craft.
The surrounding countryside is particularly pleasing. Moret sits on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, a huge royal hunting forest of oak and beech with sandstone boulders scattered through it, and the roads in and out are shady, with gentle bends and not much traffic during the week. The surface is generally good, though forestry lorries and cyclists share the lanes, and weekends are busier. Early morning, with mist on the river, is the best time. In spring the woods are fresh and green, and in autumn they turn copper.
For practicalities, a town with a few thousand inhabitants has bakeries, a supermarket and a couple of cafes beside the river, and the neighbouring Veneux-les-Sablons has fuel and bigger shops. There is a public tap and benches near the bridge, which makes it a convenient water stop. It is also a useful half-day escape from Paris, easily combined with a loop through the forest and the castle at Fontainebleau.
- Fontainebleau forest road
forest · 90 m
Fontainebleau is a small town that holds a very big place in French history, and the forest around it is one of the finest woods in Europe. The château was a royal residence for eight centuries, from medieval kings to Napoleon III, and each ruler added something, so that the building is a glorious jumble of styles. It was here, in the courtyard known as the Cour des Adieux, that Napoleon said goodbye to his guard in April 1814 before leaving for exile on Elba. The town of nearly twenty thousand people sits at about ninety metres above the sea, and it has every service, including several fuel stations.
The forest covers some twenty-five thousand hectares, and its sandstone boulders, heathland and tall trees make it unlike any other woodland near Paris. The rocks are the remains of ancient dunes, and some of them are the size of houses. In the nineteenth century, painters of the Barbizon school came to work here, leaving the studios of Paris to paint the trees and light directly, and their work helped lead to Impressionism. Today climbers come from around the world to scale the boulders, in a sport that was practised here long before it had a name, and the climbing area is known simply as Bleau.
The forest roads are a joy to ride. They run through beech and oak, with long gentle bends and flickering light, and the tarmac is usually in good shape. However, the speed limit is low, and police and cameras are active, so stay within it. Wild boar and deer cross the road, especially at dawn and dusk, and cyclists and walkers are everywhere on sunny weekends. On wet days, the leaves and pine needles make corners treacherous, so take care.
Spend a little time in the town if you can. The streets around the château have cafés and restaurants, and pastry shops where a slice of something sweet makes a fair reward. A walk in the palace gardens, with their carp pond and formal parterres, is a gentle way to rest between rides.
- Back to Paris south gate
finish · 55 m
The route ends here after 207 km.