The hills and valleys of the Ardennes are about as close to Calais as you're going to get any decent roads for a bit of fun without worrying about speed cameras, points and bans.

Get off the train, head about 200 miles south-east and you are there. Bound by the Meuse to the west and the Our to the east the topography of the area is largely dictated by these rivers along with the Ourthe, the Semois and the Sure. They have carved the valleys and created the hillsides which provide us with the fun roads. If you continue eastwards you enter the Eifel hills, offering more good roads but you are now in Germany, so you may get more hassle from the police and from concerned citizens.

Most of the roads are more fast B than open A road, but there are still a good few quick twisty routes where you will keep close to 100mph averages so there's plenty of variation.

Typically the roads vary from pretty good minor N roads with decent surfaces running along the river valleys, to narrower but still very usable country roads which often climb up over the hills. Sometimes they end with a longish straight over the hilltop until they get interesting once again as they drop into the next valley.

Notorious bike roads are marked with large signs as 'Routes dangereuse' which obviously portends good things for bikes - just remember there may be some over-excited bikers coming the other way and possibly cutting corners. Best left for out of season or midweek use perhaps.

We're not talking Massif Central here, there just isn't the space for endless empty valley roads, but it's still pretty easy to string together some good twisty routes which don't go through too many villages; and the odd town is welcome for coffees and a crêpe anyway.

It's not worth straying too far south of Bouillon as the terrain starts to flatten out and the roads get very boring as you drop out of the hills, then it's a long treck south to the Alsace! But there are plenty of interesting roads to the north, such as the N808 up to St. Hubert and the N889 and N834 to La Roche en Ardenne.

Head eastwards towards Vianden and there are a lot of good roads in the hills - and Luxembourg roads are often really well surfaced.

And from here it's only 50 miles or so cross country to the Ring, so you can get some rundens in one evening if you fancy it and still get back in time for tea.