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Access + Resources Wild France We picked the most delectable trips in France, where softcore adventure is combined with hardcore pampering and three outrageously divine meals a day. Mangez! By Amy Marr OUTFITTERS & TRIPS Butterfield & Robinson (800-678-1147, www.butterfield.com) Choice Trip: Provence Biking (seven days, $4,895 per person). B&R offers 17 itineraries in six regions of France, including the choice-trip itinerary profiled here by Bill Vaughn. Backroads (800-462-2848, www.backroads.com) Choice Trip: Dordogne Biking and Walking (six days, $2,998). Explore cliffside villages, forested hills, and lazy rivers—by bike, foot, and canoe—then dine on local specialties like duck confit and foie gras. Abercrombie & Kent (800-554-7094, www.abercrombiekent.com) Choice Trip: Loire Valley Barging (seven days, $4,000). Canal-cruise through the Loire Valley—long a favorite country retreat of kings and courtiers—aboard your floating playpen, decked out with splendid staterooms and a gourmet chef. DuVine Adventures (888-396-5383, www.duvine.com) Choice Trip: Bordeaux Biking (six days, $2,995). Pedal through this world-renowned wine region, pit-stopping at grand appellations like Pomerol and Margaux. Stay at private wine estates, châteaus, and a wine-therapy spa, where the specialty du jour is a crushed-grape body wrap. Buddy Bombard's Europe (800-862-8537, www.bombardsociety.com) Choice Trip: Ballooning in Burgundy (five days, $6,497). The finest view of Burgundy's glorious vineyards, medieval castles, and fortified villages is from the basket of your comfortable hot-air balloon, which nearly brushes the treetops below. Trek Travel (866-464-8735, www.trektravel.com) Choice Trip: Classic Climbs of the Tour de France (six to nine days, $3,575–$4,975). Draft former pro rider Kevin Livingston as you burn your way up classic Tour climbs in the Alps—including the 21 switchbacks of l'Alpe d'Huez. Off the bike, see the towns of Annecy and Megève, which offer lovely reprieves. GETTING THERE Fly nonstop to Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport on Air France (800-438-7245, www.airfrance.com) from 11 U.S. cities (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and San Francisco). From CDG, hop the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse; www.raileurope.com). It's a four-hour trip south to Avignon, in Provence ($149 for a first-class one-way ticket). PRIME TIME May to October is pleasant everywhere, with daytime temperatures in the mid-seventies. Southern France has a Mediterranean climate. (Think sunny and dry.)
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