Bonjour.
On Saturday my wife and I relocate from Sablet in Provence to Lyon where we drop a rental car off at 4 PM at the Perrache train station. On the way, it looks like a side trip to the Gorges de la Bourne is a worthwhile detour. Are there other scenic areas we should try to hit on the way to Lyon?
We plan to take the A7 toll road north then branch off to the D531 for the gorge drive. If it makes sense to do less toll road and more slow road for scenery, please let me know where to route.
Instead of Gorges de la Bourne, I suggest Combe Laval as a scenic drive in the Vercors. The views are broader - I must also mention that it is a scarier road. Nothing crazy though.
And starting from Sablet, if you don't mind curvy roads, you don't need to take the un-scenic A7 at all.
Go by way of Nyons-Bouvieres-Bourdeaux-Crest-Die, then up into the Vercors via Col de Rousset, and on to Combe Laval. I would count on 3.5-4 hours to Combe Laval with a break, through some beautiful scenery.
Once you're done, stop in Pont en Royans, and take the A49 and A48 highway to Lyon.
Mapped it out. It will be a long day of driving (wife isn’t on rental contract), but it does look amazing. If we get out of the hotel at a decent time, we will do it.
Thanks for the detailed route info.
It is long, not going to lie.
Shorter and still very scenic drive in the Vercors: the d70 road from Crest to Leoncel and St Jean en Royans. Instead of driving all the way around col de Rousset. It's narrower than the latter, but still OK, and should be quite a bit faster (at least 30-40 minutes). You can decide once in Crest.
As an example, a few years ago, I have driven in reverse from Pont en Royans (beautiful BTW) to Aix en Provence by way of Crest, Montbrun les Bains, Banon, Manosque - an even longer route - and it was really fine as a single driver. The roads aren't fast, but there is basically no traffic, so it is not stressful IMO.
I missed this 2nd reply. Did what you first suggested, but made the critical error following google maps on last stretch just prior to Pont-en-Royans which went east. I kind of figured I was on the wrong side but didn’t confirm until ending up in Royans. That was a big bummer as I believe I missed the highlight- and was pressed for time so couldn’t backtrack. We did have a fine picnic along the river in Royans, and opted to do Bourne gorges to salvage the ride.
We decided we need to return sometime when we weren’t rushed. The villages were nice.
It is indeed not obvious to find the way to the main parking lot in Pont en Royans. But anyway, the drive through the Bourne gorge is a nice one and it does look like it was a good adventure :-)
Just a "heads up" - our car GPS was challenged with getting us through Lyon to that train station. Or maybe it was the driver! And the traffic was crazy/ There are not many parking spaces for the rental car return. We arrived after hours and got the last marked space. Don't know what we would have done if there had not been any spaces. Took a lot of pictures (as usual) of the parked car; deposited key in the inside key drop, no issues afterwards.
If you are using the car GPS, you might want to have directions from an additional source at the ready.
