Edukator
Etre limogé is the French equivalent of being sent to Coventry. It’s an area I often travel through to get somewhere else. It’s bland, Francois Holland comes from Tulle. There’s no sea, no big hills; it’s la France profonde. If you like getting away from it all and like pretty villages you’ll be away form it all in pretty villages. Would you take a holiday in Leicestershire?
The area is great for road cycling with plenty of big hills. I’ve never taken the mountain bike but have passed plenty of waymarked trails and would have liked to explore them. It the least populated part of France and also the wettest, that said rainfall is less than the driest parts of England. It’s very quiet outside the French holiday season and if you’re camping you can often be the only person on the site.
If you’re in the area one place you should make the time to visit is Oradour-Sur-Glane, in fact it’s worth making a special trip for this alone.
My MTB experiences in France have been a bit hit and miss. If you can find a local guide then you’ll get the best out of any area, by myself I seem to miss what everyone says is a great area. I’m not into the Alpine uplift and long technical downhills, much of it is outside my skill set and definitely outside my wifes. I’m probably going to give the Ardennes a go this summer, if that doesn’t work for me I’ll stick to taking the road bikes to Provence.