​It’s been a long road from there to here. My parents were in their 50’s when I left the UK. You think of them as bullet proof, but my father didn’t last long and my mother now has Alzheimers so Akiko and I are now living in the UK. Cornwall, in fact. Whilst we’d rather be back in Oz, being here does give us the ability to experience Europe. What better way than to attend EuroLambretta? Especially as it was in France and most of Akiko’s experience of Europe so far has been Italy, for some weird reason.
 
My steed of choice being my 1968 Mk1 Jet 200. These are the Golden ones and are partly Innocenti and partly Eibar. It had been found and restored for me about 8 years ago by Buzzsolomoto and I had had it shipped to Milan and immediately did a Milano-Taranto on it and then a year later, the last Euro in Spain. She’s not standard, having a Mugello 225, an Ancilotti Sports exhaust and a Varitronic.
 
We were going to be two-up with a great deal of baggage, and I wanted to extend the range as much as possible. I added a big rear rack, Wistonia panniers, an ironing board back rest, a touring front rack developed by Tino Sacchi after his long travels and a mounting bar for my GPS. I also installed a Long Range petrol tank with a small toolbox from Saigon Scooter Centre. I also carried an extra 5L of fuel in a mini Jerry Can on that front rack. Our water proofs were in one pannier. Spare parts and 2-stroke in the other, and tools were strapped between the back rack and the back rest.
 
We live near the Lizard, the most southerly point of the UK mainland and almost as far west as you can get too. In UK terms, it is pretty remote. Leaving Saturday at about noon, we went to Plymouth and caught up with one of my nephews and his family, and then caught the overnight ferry to Roscoff, which was as smooth as silk. We were the only scooter and there were a few bikes. Obviously, we got a few comments, but mostly either incredulous or admiring. Certainly nothing disparaging.
 
On arrival in Roscoff, I started to look for a petrol station and I couldn’t find one. It would turn out well that I had that extra 5L as France is basically closed on a Sunday! We used it a couple of times. There were even situations where the GPS would tell me a town had multiple petrol stations and they were either closed or non-existant. Still, we managed, and finally got to Mont St Michel with me riding on the wrong side of the road only once.
 
For those that don’t know, Mont St Michel is a fortified island in a tidal bay and it has an Abbey on the top. During the French revolution, the monks were kicked out and it was turned into a prison. I grew up looking at St Michaels Mount out of my bedroom window. St Michael’s Mount is in Cornwall and is an island in a tidal bay that used to have an Abbey on the top, but which has been a castle since about the 12th century. It was my 3rd attempt to see the Abbey. The 1st time I was too late. The 2nd was with Akiko in late 2022 when it was closed because of a security scare, but this time we made it in!
 
After Mont St Michel, we rode to Fougerre, a medieval walled town that, as it turned out, was instrumental in the end of the 100 years war, which lasted for 114 years, between the English King (who was basically French) and the French King. However, it was largely French nobles picking sides to fight for whom they thought would win. In this case, the Duke of Brittany (who were originally British) had stayed out of the war, but an English aligned French noble attacked and sacked Fougerre and so the incensed Duke joined with the French and within 2 years, the war was over.
 
We stayed the night in the first of our AirBnB’s. The lady that ran it had hardly and English and, my French is rusty as hell, but we managed to communicate. As I said, France in basically closed on a Sunday. It was hard to find a restaurant that was open…. But we finally did find one.
 
The next day, we toured the remains of the castle and town walls and then rode to Le Mans. Much more success with petrol, especially as I noticed my GPS had a an option to show a bar on the side of the screen showing you how far to the next petrol station. Le Mans wasn’t too far away, either. I must admit, riding into the city I was not that impressed, but when we got to our AirBnB I was very happy. It was an apartment on the 1st floor of a medieval house on a square that had a great restaurant, a lovely bar, and a flower shop. We were on the edge of the medieval city and, as it turned out, near a map of the city that gave us a route to see the sites. I did have to leave the bike in the square, but I chained it to a bicycle stand and off we went for a walk. Almost the first thing we saw was the Gothic Cathedral with its immense French Organ and a Menhir. I had to explain to Akiko about what a Menhir was by referencing Obelisk from Asterix the Gaul! Dinner that night was superb in the restaurant called “The Kings Fool”.
 
The next day was a ride to Tours. As we left Le Mans, there was a Jaguar F-Type coming down the Mulsanne Straight, which became a little bit of a theme as we saw another one not long after. The next weekend was the Le Mans weekend.
 
In Tours we stayed in an appt just off a 15th century street and near the Gothic Cathedral with an immense French organ! This became a theme for most of the ride. One unfortunate aspect of the French Revolution is that they destroyed many of the stain glass windows in their Cathedrals, which is a shame. It was particularly true of Mont St Michel, but some survived in Le Mans and Tours. Once more, food was excellent and, because it was a Monday, France was open! The bike was left in a secure underground car park.
 
Whilst we were eating, there was an advert for a Chateau Chenonceau only about 18kms away and on our way to our next stop, so off we went the next morning.
 
It’s a 10 bedroom house built on a river in the 15th century. That, though, is doing it a little injustice. There used to be a fort and a fortified mill actually on the river. The French royal family knocked down both, keeping only 1 turret from the fort and the foundations of the mill. They then built a chat eau on the mill foundations, which now housed the kitchens. After they built the Chateau, they decided that they wanted to go hunting in the forest on the other side of the river and so built a bridge, which they didn’t quite complete. Then they wanted somewhere to entertain, so built on top of the bridge, giving an enormous party space! There’s some great history about the place, as you can probably imagine. My favourites were that it was a hospital during ww1 and during ww2 the river was the boundary between Vichy France and German Occupied France. Consequently, they used to see when the Germans were not looking, and people would run through the Chateau to get to comparative safety.
 
On to Sancerre! This wasn’t far from Magny-Cours and Sancerre is my favourite French White Wine….. so we had to stop there. After about 60km’s of quite shitty road we came out on top of an escarpment, and in the distance was Sancerre. A Medieval hill top town and it was just grapes between us and the town. What a joyous ride that was, as the road improved too. Our AirBnb this time was a room in a house in the middle of the village. So we were actually staying in someone’s house. The lady who ran it spoke really good English, so I gave the French a night off ma Francais terrible!
First thing we did was to go for a wine tasting at La Maison de Sancerre, which was right in the centre of the town. Where I discovered a great deal about Sancerre wine, like it was known for Pinot Noir until 1922 when they started growing Sauvignon Blanc. We got to try different wines from different soil types. Really quite fascinating!
 
We went for a walk around the town and Dinner was at La Taverne do Connetable and was again superb. Unusually, the portions were huge! Akiko regretted not saving herself for dessert as the profiteroles were enormous!
 
I’m going to go back to Sancerre, and stay at the same BnB, Lit et Dreams. This was the only time we got provided breakfast. They can be booked directly, so next time I’ll do that.
 
Then it was just a 50km ride to Magny-Cours. I almost missed the signs to Euro on the roundabout, but in we rode. 1st of the Australian contingent, and 37th overall. We immediately booked the wine and cheese tour for the next day, Friday, but basically hung out for the day. Almost immediately we were catching up with people we know, such as Tony Tessier. We got ourselves some drink tickets and sat at the bar.
 
We were AirBnB again as I don’t camp. I’m kind of glad too, as whilst the glamping looked quite good, they were quite a distance from the toilet’s and the showers. The only way to describe the toilets is Kitty Litter! We found a restaurant in the town, and then went to our Caravan which was only a few km’s away and nice and peaceful in a field.
 
So far, the weather had been lovely, but on Friday the weather changed, which was unfortunate as we were doing the cheese and wine tour. This, unfortunately, did not work well. No-one had actually ridden it. Due to French regulations, this was a self guided tour and we set out at 10:50, to get to the cheese at 11:55, which meant that we got 5 minutes in the shop to buy, what turned out to be, excellent goats cheese. Just as we got there, it started to seriously rain, and we had to shelter in a doorway as the shop closed.
 
It stopped, and then we started to ride again and then once more, another shower. We sheltered under a tree and then it stopped again and we got on the bike…. For it to breakdown just up the road. Nothing major, the NGK plug cap had work loose and a new plug and it was right as…. Well… rain! Fortunately, it had the grace to breakdown whilst it wasn’t Raining. Then we were on to Puilly Sur Le Loire for the wine tasting. To arrive at 1pm, just as they were closing until 2:30. Never mind, as there was a restaurant that was open.
 
The wine tasting was extremely good. There were 3 video presentations, two of which were in English with the 3rd having a sheet of translation. It told you all about the wine, its history, etc. Then it was down into a cellar was they had an aromatic experience to help you to identify the smells you would get within wine, and then there were 2 which you were supposed to identify. Back up to the tasting room/gift shop and then on to the tasting. All very nice. The only downside was we weren’t able to buy wine as we were limited to what we could carry.
 
On the ride back to Magny-Cours, the weather improved and we saw riders heading in our direction however, we heard later, that one of them had hit diesel going around a roundabout and the result was not good. Indeed, this seemed to happen a bit over the weekend.
 
When we got back to Magny-Cours, I went hunting for a new plug cap and a spare. I had forgotten to pack my spark plug spanner, but Gary Searle from the UK gave me one of his. We got to spend the afternoon outside at the bar with some of our Italian Friends who I had ridden with before. Tino Sacchi, and Giovanni Passerini, both of whom I’ve done Euro’s and Lammy Jammy (USA National meet) before. We also caught up with Steve and Natasha Diffey. I also saw Pete Fay, from the UK, who I’ve known since I was 18. He’s now the VP of the Lambretta Club of Scotland, who are hosting in 2025.

Tony Tessier tracked us down and asked if we’d lead the ride for the wine & cheese tour on Saturday, as we were the only ones who had done the actual ride. We had to decline, though, as we wanted to do the official ride-out to Nevers and watch Jaime “Supereibar” and his documentary on a street race in Barcelona, his home town, in 1985. In the end, the wine and cheese tour was cancelled for the Saturday as the weather in the morning was terrible again. However, it brightened up enough for the ride to Nevers, which turned into a bit of a magical mystery tour with being taken the wrong way, and around in circles, due to road-works, but we got there in the end. I think there was about 300 Lambrettas in the ride, due to the weather and, I suspect, some sore heads from the night before.
 
As we got there, we over heard some English guys talking about decent coffee in Nevers and tagged along with them. Great restaurant again, and our first decent coffee of the trip. We rode back to Magny-Cours with them, and got there in time for Jaime’s presentation which was attended by Natasha and Steve Diffey and Nick Townsend. The video, which is available from Jaime on a DVD, is superb. The amount of effort Jaime has put into tracing down competitors and organisers is amazing, there were even some of the original organisers at the Euro to answer questions. Basically, this was a 24 hr race that was mostly Vespas, but there were some Lambretta teams in there as well. It’s well worth watching and paying for.
 
Akiko, not surprising, was probably the only Asian woman there and she kept having people coming up to her and asking if she was Akiko. She couldn’t believe how many new who she was, but found out it was because so many were connected to me on Facebook and so, by association, knew of her. I must admit, I was also surprised on how many people knew me.

Dinner that evening was excellent. I think one of the best dinner’s I’ve ever had cooked for 1200 people. It did not disappoint. I understand there were issues for some vegetarians, but that was not a problem for us. Akiko and I sat with the rest of the LCoA, but we managed to miss Nick. Unlike other Euro’s I’ve been to, each country did not have a specific place to sit. I actually think they led to a better atmosphere, with everyone mixing in.

Prizes were given out, there was a small mistake of awarding furthest travelled to Nick, rather than Steve and Natasha, who had also ridden from the UK, but that was easily rectified nicely by the hosting club, and Steve got a mention. As it happened, the trophy was “borrowed” so Nick and Steve will both get one sent to them.

Then it was off to our Caravan. We were to be up early in the morning.

Sunday was a big day, we got up at 6am and were gone by 6:45 to fill up as we had 489km to ride to Rennes (Another cathedral city). A Huge day 2 up with loads of luggage. It took us about 9 ½ hrs, and it rained for about 8 of them, which was not pleasant at all. My memory of the ride is mostly roundabouts. I think France must have had a sale on roundabouts. You’d get to a junction in the middle of nowhere…. And there was a roundabout! Again, it was Sunday, and so France was closed. I did breakdown again in one town, but it was only because I had forgotten to close the gap on the spark plug, which was quickly fixed.
 
We got to Rennes by about 5pm and were famished! We stayed in an appt, and parked the bike outside. The owner assured me that the area was quiet and safe. We walked into the old medieval part of the city and found a bar that was open and served some food, including a local sausage. So, with some wine, we were satisfied for the evening.
 
The next morning we go up early again, to get back to Roscoff. We had 200km to go. Unfortunately, when I looked ta the bike, the panniers had been ransacked and all my tools had been stolen. So I was a tad worried for the next 200km in France, and 100km or so in the UK as if the bike broke down, I had the parts, but no tools.

Fortunately, we got to Roscoff about 10:30am, and so went into the town, which was a delight. We sat in a harbour side café and had wonderful oysters and a decent coffee. Then on to the Ferry, where we saw some of the motorcyclists we’d seen on the way out and they wanted to hear about our adventures. The crossing was smooth, and after arriving in Plymouth we had just over 100km to home…. Or so I thought…. As the main road had a massive detour, and we nearly ran out of fuel. Fortunately, about 25km from home, I found a petrol station and we rocked up outside the house at exactly midnight!

So proud of Akiko who was an excellent Pillion, and that superb bike, built by Buzzsolomoto and serviced for me in Milan by Lambretta Milano.

Akiko loved the trip, so we will be at Scotland in 2025.
Siobhan