Provence & Tuscany Motorcycle Tour
Aromatic Provence & Bella Toscana
Spain | Andorra | France | Monaco | Italy
May. 09 — May. 25, 2025 10 Spots left
Sep. 08 — Sep. 24, 2025 14 Spots left
This unique motorcycle tour starts in Barcelona the cosmopolitan capital of Catalunya. Your first riding day will take you into the mighty Pyrenees Mountains towards Andorra and France. The walled medieval city of Carcassonne is just over the Pyrenees’s peaks and is the perfect introduction to Southern France! The motorcycling in Southern France is outstanding and the Tarn Gorge won’t disappoint anyone! Provence is famous in Southern France for its lavender fields and sunflowers and the scenery around Avignon promises to take your breath away! Two days in Avignon will give you time to explore beautiful Provence or take a ride to the close quaint town of Arles where Van Gogh spent his last days painting. From here mountains, canyons and the Verdon Gorge will lead us to Castellane located in the pre-Alps.
Time to ride from mountain to Mediterranean Sea as we head to Nice and the French Riviera. Two days in Nice will give you enough time to explore, Monaco, Cannes and St. Tropez. Italy here we come! Portovenere and Cinque Terre’s charming villages await you on the Italian Riviera. Time for Tuscany! You will enjoy three riding days out of our base in San Gimignano located in the heart of Tuscany. This will give you enough time to explore Florence, Siena, Pisa and enjoy delicious cuisine and fine Chianti wines before returning to Barcelona on an overnight cruise ship. On this one-way jaunt through Spain, Andorra, France and Italy you will have the best of Southern Europe in one fantastic motorcycle tour!
IMTBIKE ROUTE rating
It is essential to know the different skill levels needed to participate in the IMTBIKE TOURS that are offered to you. IMTBIKE makes sure that it offers different tours for all riding styles and levels. The IMTBIKE team always works diligently in designing our routes. This is a laborious process which entails reviewing all road choices before selecting the best option for an IMTBIKE tour.
The most experienced motorcyclists looks for roads that require technical skill; narrow twisty roads with little traffic and endless curves. But these same roads would be too difficult for a less experienced rider.
The local driving habits, the amount of traffic, the asphalt quality and the radius of the curves vary considerably from country to country and even in different regions of the same country. They will also vary depending on the season of the year. All of these factors have been studied by IMTBIKE and have been taken into consideration when rating our tours.
IMTBIKE thinks it is also important to know about the different types of roads you will be enjoying on your tour. To understand the road types easier, IMTBIKE has divided them into two categories, and we have calculated an approximate percentage of each on all of our tours.
- TOURING ROADS: These are wider roads comprised mainly of larger radius sweepers. They are still curvy roads but not tight mountainous twisty curves. Please remember that you will ride very few straight roads on IMTBIKE tours!
- CHALLENGING ROADS: These are roads that are tight twisty turns which require more technical skill. Many times they will be narrower roads without a shoulder and sometimes with steep inclines or descents. Normally they will be mountainous roads accompanied by spectacular sceneries.
If you have never ridden a motorcycle outside of your country, or if you have little experience riding on mountain roads with many curves, we recommend that you choose a tour rated moderate or intermediate. If you have any questions or doubts please do not hesitate to call or email us. We are always happy to answer your questions to make sure that you choose the best tour for your riding level.
Moderate
This route offers wider sweeping turns that are easy to maneuver. This route may have some tighter turns in a few places but this will be the exception. Regardless, even on moderate tours you must be able to ride a large cylinder motorcycle in any condition. Never plan to learn how to ride a motorcycle on an IMTBIKE tour. We recommend having a minimum of 8.000 km (5.000 miles) of experience riding a large cylinder motorcycle to participate on a MODERATE rated IMTBIKE Tour and you should ride a motorcycle on a regular basis at home.
Intermediate
This route rating can have sections of very twisty curves on narrow roads with no center line to divide the road. There will also wider radius curves on these routes. Traffic conditions can be intense at times in some urban environments and the local driving habits may seem aggressive and unpredictable to you. It is imperative that you are an experienced motorcyclist. We recommend that you have a minimum of 12.000 km (7500 miles) of large cylinder motorcycle experience to participate on a INTERMEDIATE rated IMTBIKE Tour and you should ride a motorcycle on a regular basis at home.
Advanced
This route rating has long sections of technical narrow twisty roads and sometimes single lane roads. These twisty roads will often be in mountains where steep inclines and descents will be commonplace. Some riding days can be long and challenging. Traffic conditions can be intense at times in some urban environments and the local driving habits may seem aggressive and unpredictable to you. It is imperative that you are a very experienced motorcyclist on a large cylinder motorcycle. We recommend that you have a minimum of 16.000 km (10.000 miles) of large cylinder motorcycle experience on an ADVANCE rated IMTBIKE Tour and of course you should ride a motorcycle on a regular basis at home.
IMTBIKE Average Daily Riding Hours
5 to 7 hours
6 to 8 hours
7 to 9 hours
How many hours a day you ride on a tour is important information in helping you decide on the right IMTBIKE tour for you. Some tour members want to ride as many hours as possible everyday, while others prefer to stop more frequently and dedicate more time to enjoying the scenery, visiting cultural sights and arrive at the hotel earlier to relax before dinner. The daily riding hours are calculated including the coffee breaks and photo stops but they do not include the time taken for lunch.
Normally we’ll start our riding day at 9:30am and we will take about a one hour lunch break sometime between 1pm and 2pm. So if the daily riding hours for a given tour are 5-7, then you will arrive at the hotel between 3:30pm- 5:30pm depending on the average speed of the group.
Tour Facts
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Start / End BarcelonaTotal Distance 1,632 miles / 2,627 km
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Total Time 17 DaysRiding Days 15 Days
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Rest Days 4 Avignon, French Riviera, Cinque Terre, ToscanaBreakfast 16 Included Breakfasts
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Dinners 12 DinnersDaily Mileage 160-220 miles / 250-350 km
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Hotel Overnights 16 NightsRiding Season Spring, Autumn
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Highlights: Barcelona, Andorra, Carcassonne, Avignon, French Riviera, Piedmont, Cinque Terre, San Gimignano.Accommodations: Comfortable, very nice hotels, often the best in the area, mostly 4****
*All IMTBIKE lodgings are hand-picked for their quality of service, local charm and strategic locations.
Daily Itinerary
- Day 1: Arrival Barcelona
- Day 2: Barcelona – Seu d’Urgell
- Day 3: La Seu d’Urgell - Carcassonne
- Day 4: Carcassonne - Gorges tu Tarn
- Day 5: Gorges du Tarn - Avignon
- Day 6: Avignon - rest day
- Day 7: Avignon - Alpes-Maritims
- Day 8: Alpes-Martims - French Riviera
- Day 9: French Riviera - rest day
- Day 10: French Riviera – Piedmont
- Day 11: Piedmont – Cinque Terre
- Day 12: Cinque Terre - rest day
- Day 13: Cinque Terre - Toscana
- Day 14: Tuscany – Rest Day
- Day 15: Toscana - Civitavecchia (ferry)
- Day 16: Civitavecchia - Barcelona
- Day 17: Flight home
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Day 1: Arrival Barcelona
Transfer included from the Airport to the hotel. You will have some free time to relax or do some sightseeing before the safety briefing. After the briefing we will enjoy a welcome dinner in a traditional Spanish restaurant. The first and last days mentioned in the itinerary are the arrival and departure days for your tour. Depending on the country you are flying from, you may have to leave a day early. Please book your flights accordingly!
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Day 2: Barcelona – Seu d’Urgell
Today will be the perfect start to two weeks of motorcycle heaven in Southern Europe. Leaving Barcelona we will head north into the mighty Pyrenees Mountains for curve after curve of perfect asphalt and breathtaking scenery. We will spend our first night in the town of Seu d’Urgel located a stones from the tiny principality of Andorra.
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Day 3: La Seu d’Urgell - Carcassonne
Today you will cross the border into France and enjoy the beauty of the French Pyrenees. The Pyrenees will lead you to Cathar Country, known for its numerous fortresses built high on the mountain tops. We will spend tonight in one of the best preserve medieval walled towns in Europe, Carcassonne.
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Day 4: Carcassonne - Gorges tu Tarn
On this day we will leave the city following the navigable channel of the Aude River until we turn off towards the mountains. We will then pass by the town of Roquefort, famous for cheese making, and the Millau Viaduct, one of the most impressive works of engineering in Europe.
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Day 5: Gorges du Tarn - Avignon
You’ll start the day by heading into the Cevennes National Park for a beautiful morning ride filled with verdant forests before arriving at the Ardèche Canyon for some more superb motorcycle roads. From there you will cross the Rhone Valley to the most well-known city in Provence, Avignon! Avignon is famous for the Pope’s Palace and the Avignon Bridge.
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Day 6: Avignon - rest day
Today is a rest day and you can explore beautiful Provence and maybe visit the town of Arles where Van Gogh spent his final days painting or you can enjoy all the culture that Avignon has to offer. The choice is yours!
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Day 7: Avignon - Alpes-Maritims
Today we will continue east towards the Luberon National Park and more motorcycle friendly canyon riding. From here you will ride to the blue waters of the Sainte-Croix Lake before starting your ride along the edge of the deepest canyon in Europe, the spectacular Gorges du Verdon. At the end of this canyon the quaint town of Castellane awaits you!
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Day 8: Alpes-Martims - French Riviera
Leaving Castellane we will enjoy some impressive mountain riding with curves galore and numerous natural tunnels before heading south out of the mountains to the French Riviera and the bustling town of Nice.
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Day 9: French Riviera - rest day
Today is a rest day and you can explore Nice, Monaco, Cannes and St. Tropez. You can also head to the town of Grasse to see where the perfume industry all began.
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Day 10: French Riviera – Piedmont
Today we’ll discover one of Italy’s hidden gems, the Piedmont region. We’ll leave the blue waters of the Mediterranean and head inland. This charming region is full of quiet local roads and quaint villages perched on top of its vineyard covered hills. Nestled between the Alps and the Mediterranean, Piedmont is off the beaten track and still conserves the old world Italian charm.
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Day 11: Piedmont – Cinque Terre
Today we’ll find our way back to the coast on quiet backroads. We’ll discover more hidden corners but also some roads famous amongst Italian motorcyclists. We’ll snake through forests on perfect asphalt bringing us to the waters of Liguria, the Italian Rivera, where we’ll stop for two nights in the Cinque Terre.
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Day 12: Cinque Terre - rest day
Today is a rest day and you can spend it as you wish, but we highly recommend taking the boat tour to explore Cinque Terre. The vistas and charm of Cinque Terre are overwhelming. One of our favorite Italian restaurants is located in Monterosso, we’ll tell you about it during the briefing the night before!
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Day 13: Cinque Terre - Toscana
Today you will leave the coast and head into the heart of Tuscany. But first we have a little surprise as we motorcycle through the Alpi Apuane Mountains to San Gimignano. The mountains are great for motorcycling! San Gimignano is one of the most beautiful medieval towns in Tuscany!
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Day 14: Tuscany – Rest Day
Today you can either relax in the gardens by the pool or stroll through the medieval walled city of San Gimignano, famous for it’s many high towers that symbolized power and wealth. There is also an option to ride if you would like to explore the wine region and visit Siena and Voltera.
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Day 15: Toscana - Civitavecchia (ferry)
Today we will have an enjoyable ride through the rolling hills of Tuscany down to the port town of Civitavecchia where we will board our cruise ship back to Barcelona.
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Day 16: Civitavecchia - Barcelona
Today we will relax on our Mediterranean Cruise Ship and arrive in Barcelona in the evening of the following day. After dinner you will say your goodbyes to the guides and other tour members (now your new friends).
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Day 17: Flight home
It’s time to say goodbye to Spain and head to the airport to fly home. Until our next motorcycle adventure together! Hasta Pronto!
Included in Tour:
- Airport pickup on the first day of the tour.
- Overnight accommodations in carefully selected 4 & 5 star hotels and boutique hotels.
- A delicious gourmet evening meal featuring French and Italian specialties every night (except on rest days).
- Complete buffet breakfast every morning.
- New model BMW motorcycle fully equipped with 3 BMW cases.
- Tour handbook (normally about 70 pages-very comprehensive) and highlighted map.
- Expert multilingual guide on a motorcycle.
- Multilingual guide in support vehicle which will carry your luggage, any oversized purchases you make; or even a passenger or two.
- Tour Souvenirs.
Not included in Tour:
- Air ticket, lunches, gasoline, drinks, tolls, personal spending and tips