CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Fontainebleau it runs 281 km to Fontainebleau; allow about 4 h 53 of riding. The stops in between: Provins, Caves de l’avenue de Champagne - Undergrou and back through Provins. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
This part of the ride is 55 km of Palace and Park of Fontainebleau → Provins.
Fontainebleau is the palace French kings actually lived in, as opposed to the one they built to impress, and for that reason it feels more human than Versailles. Almost every monarch from the Middle Ages to Napoleon III added a wing, a staircase or a garden, so the place is a jumble of styles, held together by its forest and its long ponds. Napoleon called it the true home of kings, and in April 1814 he said goodbye to his Old Guard in the courtyard that is still known as the Cour des Adieux, at the foot of the horseshoe staircase.
Read the complete Palace and Park of Fontainebleau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palace and Park of Fontainebleau is where the day begins. Next is Provins.
Provins rises out of the wheat fields of the Brie like something from a film set, and the odd thing is that it is almost entirely real. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries this was one of the four great fair towns of the counts of Champagne, where merchants from Flanders, Italy and beyond met to trade cloth, spices and money. When the fairs declined, Provins simply stopped growing, and so its ramparts, its gates and its medieval upper town survived the centuries more or less intact. UNESCO listed it in 2001 as a rare surviving example of a medieval fair town.
Read the complete Provins write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Provins comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Caves de l’avenue de Champagne - Undergrou.
The caves under Épernay are older than most visitors imagine. Long before anyone thought of sparkling wine, the chalk here had been quarried for building stone, and the old quarries, known as crayères, were later turned to storage. Merchants of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enlarged them into whole networks of galleries, and the cellars along the avenue still hold the wine at a steady, cool temperature of about ten degrees, whatever the weather above. In summer the contrast is dramatic, and visitors step out after a tour blinking in the heat, with their teeth chattering.
Read the complete Caves de l’avenue de Champagne - Undergrou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Caves de l’avenue de Champagne - Undergrou. Next is back through Provins.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Provins write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Provins, late in the day. Next is Palace and Park of Fontainebleau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palace and Park of Fontainebleau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Palace and Park of Fontainebleau. That is the ride.
Palace and Park of Fontainebleau → Provins is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Provins → Caves de l’avenue de Champagne - Undergrou is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Caves de l’avenue de Champagne - Undergrou → back through Provins is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Provins → Palace and Park of Fontainebleau is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.