Black Forest and Vosges Tour

Seven nights across France, Germany and Belgium, guided, fourteen hundred miles on the rider’s own motorcycle.

Three roads carry this one, and they are among the best in western Europe: the B500 along the Black Forest ridge, the Route des Cretes along the Vosges crest, and the climb to Le Grand Ballon, the highest of the Vosges peaks at 1,424 metres.

The Eurotunnel opens it, then Chalons-en-Champagne by way of the old Reims-Gueux circuit, where the pit buildings still stand beside a public road. The Vosges follow to Baden-Baden and two nights in the Black Forest, with a thermal spa day or a ride out to Lake Constance. The B500 then carries the route back into France and the southern Vosges for two nights, with the Route des Cretes and Le Grand Ballon. Verdun comes next, where the Douaumont ossuary holds the remains of a hundred and thirty thousand unidentified soldiers from the 1916 battle and is treated with the seriousness it demands. Belgium follows on the Semois, then the Chimay road circuit, still in use, and the Ardennes.

The return Eurotunnel crossing, six nights’ accommodation, daily breakfast, two evening meals, hotel leisure facilities, route maps and GPS files, all the hotel parking and a guide throughout are all included; fuel, tolls, attraction entry, other meals and the mandatory insurance and breakdown cover are not. The price shown is per person for a rider and pillion sharing a bike and a room. May to September is the window. Eight days makes this the shortest tour in the range.