‘After a day in the saddle, French food is even better’

One hundred and fifteen years have passed since a young journalist on a struggling sports journal, L’Auto, suggested a longdistance cycle race around France as a stunt to put one over the opposition, Le Vélo.

The race succeeded beyond expectation, catching the mood of the new century three years after the Michelin brothers had published their first guide, a catalogue of garages and hotels inviting the French to discover their country. Sport’s ultimate endurance test is also a three-week tourist promotional bonanza – a showcase for France’s mountain ranges and river valleys, its vineyards and orchards, castles and cathedral cities. Le Tour’s director Christian Prudhomme writes about this year’s race (July 7-29) “honouring the shores” of Lake Annecy before “heading in to the surrounding mountains that give the lake its special charm”, as if he were speaking into a microphone at the front of a tourist bus.

My own discovery of France started on a gap year of sorts in Paris where I made weekend trips to places such as Versailles and Fontainebleau, clutching my green Michelin guide, Environs de Paris (1968 edition). I divided Gaul into three parts: intéressant, mérite un detour and vaut le voyage, and absorbed history in colourful snippets from the “un peu d’histoire” sections of the book. Royal mistresses made morganatic marriages

Ancient appeal: the village of Rocamadour

and chefs fell on their sword when the fish arrived late for a banquet.

When news came through that my mother would drive out to meet me for a 10-day road trip via Berne, I bought more green guides and researched our trip in the Musée des Monuments Français, near the Eiffel Tower. It introduced me to a world of churches decorated with carvings of exotic beasts and frescoes as lively and colourful as the pages of Asterix.

We met at Compiègne, my mother having crawled down the N1 behind a slow-moving truck. When not called upon to direct overtaking manoeuvres, I made friends with the red Michelin and learned the rich language of its hieroglyphics. I may have been too young to drive abroad, but the importance of eating and drinking well on our French road trip was not lost on me.

At first I relied solely on the guide and combed the book for stopovers with a red R, for good food at a reasonable price; and a canary – the symbol others interpret as a rocking chair – indicating a quiet location. Restaurants with stars were beyond our budget, but we splashed out at the Hôtel de la Gare in Montbard, dining on Saupiquet (ham in a shallot-based white sauce) and chablis.

After a rich diet of tympanums and historiated capitals in Burgundy we headed for the Alps, took a vaut le voyage cable-car ride and found a hotel at the foot of a glacier.

That holiday set the pattern for many more road trips and guide book writing based on the template of a motoring holiday with a little light sightseeing between meals. The Eighties were prime time for the gastro-nomadic holiday, with Arthur Eperon and Richard Binns ploughing a furrow behind the Michelin tractor.

In a more health-conscious millennium, the eating and driving formula has lost its lustre. When a friend suggested cycling home from Switzerland, I sensed an opportunity to rediscover the fun of French gastro-touring and followed the example of many others in swapping L’Auto for Le Vélo.

France has worked hard to surf the cycling wave, making and mapping pistes cyclables on towpaths and disused railway lines. It’s a worthy cause, but my two-man peloton prefers the old-fashioned way, rolling over the hills and along the river bank on back roads coloured yellow or white on the Michelin map, with a green stripe for pretty scenery; navigating with a paper map.

Our routes do not add up to a Tour de France. They are crossings, what our ancestors used to call chevauchées, without the rape and pillage. Why? For the simple pleasure of rolling slowly through a beautiful country, feeling its contours and enjoying its changes of colour, stone, cheese and wine. A good stopover hotel remains at the heart of the experience. After a day in the saddle, French food tastes even better. Cyclotourism is our carte blanche for greed without guilt.

Michelin weighs heavily in the pannier, but remains the inescapable reference. Its star ratings and the “Bib Gourmand”, which has replaced the red R, have lost none of their authority. Above all, it’s reliable.

Last year I made the pilgrimage to the Aventure Michelin museum at Bibendum HQ in Auvergne.

Eschewing false modesty, it awards itself two stars, and I agree: it’s well worth a detour, in homage to a marriage of visionary engineering and

My two-man peleton prefers the old-fashioned way, rolling along river banks and using a paper map

marketing genius that has shaped the way we understand and enjoy France.

Perched on the shoulders of the pneumatic giant for so long, I have forgotten to explore France on a river cruise, a walking holiday or a guided trip of any kind. A combination of arrogance and meanness is the main reason for that, along with the pleasure I get from guiding myself.

We can argue about the need for a tour operator on a self-guided holiday in France. But value added is a given on the guided tour, whether the guide is a Master of Wine, an ornithologist, an art history professor or a cycling mechanic.

My ideal guided tour would have them all and I would be a much more expert francophile by the end of it.

Diligent in my devotions, I have watched a truffle dog at work in the Périgord, cycled the Canal du Midi and ridden the Western Front from Vimy Ridge to Vieil Armand. I have broken bread at the Colombe d’Or and paid my respects to the great wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and