Provins Medieval Ridge Loop + Paris · Fontainebleau Forest and Loing Sweep

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Fuel stop in Milly-la-Forêt

   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.

   Read the complete Milly-la-Forêt return write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Provins Medieval Ridge Loop is where the day begins. Next is High point near Toury.

2. 2. High point near Toury

   Planning note

   You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch near Oulins.

3. 3. Scenic stretch near Oulins

   Planning note

   This is where the road stops climbing. Next is Photo stop near La Feuillie.

4. 4. Photo stop near La Feuillie

   Planning note

   The high point of this section. Next is Paris / Île-de-France escapes return.

5. 5. Near Fismes, on the way back

   Planning note

   Paris / Île-de-France escapes return sits at 298 km, about halfway. Next is Food stop near Fère-en-Tardenois.

6. 6. Food stop near Fère-en-Tardenois

   Planning note

   Food stop near Fère-en-Tardenois is where this day stops to eat. Next is Provins Medieval Ridge Loop checkpoint 8.

7. 7. Chaville

   Planning note

   Provins Medieval Ridge Loop checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Provins.

8. 8. Back to Provins

   Milly-la-Forêt lies south of Paris on the edge of the Gâtinais, a region of gentle hills, sandy soil and woods that has long been associated with herbs and healing plants. For centuries, the villages here grew medicinal herbs, called simples, such as chamomile, mint and verbena, and the tradition is still celebrated in the town's herb market and in a small conservatory of herbs. The village is quiet and handsome, with a medieval covered market hall of heavy timber that dates from the fifteenth century and still stands in the centre.

   Read the complete Provins write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Back to Provins. That is the ride. Next is Barbizon village pause.

9. 9. Barbizon village pause

   Barbizon is a single long street on the western edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, and it is a village that owes everything to a handful of painters. In the 1830s and 1840s, artists began to arrive from Paris, tired of academic studios, and set up easels among the oaks and boulders to paint nature directly. They included Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, who painted peasants at work in the fields, including his famous Gleaners, and their approach, known as the Barbizon School, paved the way for Impressionism. The village's Auberge Ganne, where many of them lodged and covered the walls with paintings, is now a small museum.

   Read the complete Barbizon village pause write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Barbizon village pause sits at 595 km, about halfway. Next is Fontainebleau forest road.

10. 10. Fontainebleau forest road

    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.

    Read the complete Fontainebleau forest road write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    Fontainebleau forest road comes up about 811 km into the recorded legs. Next is Moret-sur-Loing water stop.

11. 11. Moret-sur-Loing water stop

    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.

    Read the complete Moret-sur-Loing write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    about 826 km into the recorded legs you reach Moret-sur-Loing water stop. Next is Nemours food window.

12. 12. Nemours food window

    Balzac set a novel here, and if you ride into Nemours at midday you can see why he found it a good stage. Ursule Mirouët, one of the quieter books in his huge Human Comedy, takes place among the notables, notaries and doctors of a small provincial town on the Loing, and Nemours, with its grey stone, its canal and its slow, watchful streets, still has something of that atmosphere. It is a town where people know each other's business and where lunch, at midday, is a fixed point.

    Read the complete Nemours food window write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    Somewhere to get off the bike, about 849 km into the recorded legs. Next is Back to Barbizon.

13. 13. Back to Barbizon

    Barbizon comes back at the end of a day with a different face, once the day-trippers have gone. The shops close, the terraces empty and the village slows to the pace of the forest behind it. The sandstone ridges around Barbizon, the Gorges d'Apremont and the Franchard area, are a short ride away, and they catch the evening sun in layers of grey and orange, with heather and silver birch growing between the boulders and the sandy tracks. It is wild country, in the middle of a densely populated region, and it is a strangely quiet place when the light is low.

    Read the complete Barbizon write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

    May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

    Planning note

    Back to Barbizon closes the day.