Bastille Day, the 100th Tour de France - it's all happening right now in L'Hexagone - the nickname for this country because of it's roughly hexagonal shape.

And while it's all about bicycles for these few weeks, throughout the rest of the year, France celebrates food and wine.

Cycling tours of France - the happy marriage of the two

Six tasty reasons to cycle in France and Italy this year:

1)  Source highly coveted first-press olive oil at an olive mill in Provence (Best of Provence Plus! the Luberon and Aix-en-Provence Sept. 20-30 and Oct. 4-14)

2) Dine on farm-to-table fall harvest bounty also in Provence where dinner one evening features Chef Erick Videl who prepares recipes from Roman times using local ingredients sourced at a farmers' market in Arles.

3) On Italy's Emilia Romagna Culinary tour (Sept. 16-26), the ExperiencePlus! family farm near Brisighella taste local produce to prepare all of the ingredients for a picnic buffet in a building that is a converted pig barn, (at one time it had up to 600 pigs) surrounded by 27 acres of vineyards, sugar beets, alfalfa and peach orchards. Since 1999 the farm has served as the headquarters of European tours, with offices, bike mechanic shop, sleeping quarters for tour leaders and a garage where 300 bikes reside when not being deployed all over Europe.

4) Dip in the Mediterranean sans crowds in Puglia's now quiet beach towns (Oct. 12-22) and in Sardinia (Sept. 27-Oct. 7) where for two nights guests lodge almost at water's edge.  Between swims in Puglia, guests find an abundance of ripe fruits and nuts on the side of the roads providing a smorgasbord of walnuts, figs, almonds, apples, and citrus fruits. The second harvest plantings of fennel are also starting to come in.

5) Sip a highly prized local wine in a little-known Provence village where a small wine merchant shop under the castle in Lourmarin sells local wines from the massif/valley, mountain and urban regions. Visitors can enjoy tastings of these highly prized wines.  On a coastal tour of olive-filled Tuscany (Sept. 28-Oct. 7 and Oct. 12-21), Montebelli Agriturismo, a hotel/vineyard/farm, opens for dinner where tour guests sample the fruits of their winemaking labors with an aperitivo on property.

6) Sample wild game as close to its source as possible at a shepherd's barbeque on Sardinia where fresh meats are paired with cannonau wine. The tradition is to break off pieces of internationally regarded pane carasau, the flat, crisp bread eaten by shepherds when away tending their flocks for long periods of time.

ExperiencePlus! Bicycle Tours began in 1972, the first North American tour company to offer bike tours in Europe. The Colorado-based company now offers global cycling tours immersed in local character to 20 countries on five continents. 

Follow the Tour and taste the food

Follow this year's centennial Tour de France race. To commemorate this famous event, the Tour for 2013 will be in France only and the route will go past all time iconic spots. After starting on 29 June in the beautiful, mountainous island of Corsica, the race then heads to the Riviera running from Nice to Marseille before restarting in Aix-en-Provence.??After the obligatory Pyrenees climb, riders head north to Nantes then Brittany and Mont St Michel. Back down south then via the Loire Valley and Lyon to more mountains including Mont Ventoux (on Bastille Day) ending in Annecy before the final stage from Versailles to the Champs in Paris on 21 July.??This will be a Tour not to be missed.

Watch SBS every night for their coverage??- getting all the detail from the official 2013 tour site.?French-born chef Gabriel Gate also keeps you up to date with the food.

Read more about the Tour de France......?

Plan your own Tour de France

Thousands of kilometres of official bike routes snake their away across France. Some are short local routes, others are long-distance routes that connect France to the rest of Europe via the EuroVelo network making France an ideal place to take a cycling holiday.

Official leisure cycling routes are generally split into two categories:

V�loroute: Longer-distance routes that are usually signposted and have been designated safe for cycling. They have gradients no greater than 3%, and they consist of a mix of greenways and smaller back roads.

Voie verte: A multi-purpose track that is free of motorised traffic. Often these are converted railway tracks or canal towpaths ?All of the routes below fall are designed around one or both of these concepts, and all can be ridden in its entirety or broken up into shorter breaks or day rides. ??

La Velovydee?Velodyssey is a 1,200km Atlantic Coast bike route that stretches from Roscoff on the coast of Brittany to the Spanish border. It's broken up into 15 signposted sections and crosses four regions. Some 80% of the route is on car-free paths. The official website has more information and maps. ??

Paris to Mont St Michel?The Veloscenic route links Paris to the Mont St-Michel, weaving past the Eiffel Tower and out to Versailles before heading for the coast of Normandy. The signposted route stretches almost 260km and is divided into sections. The route is relatively new, and some parts are more developed than others. Maps and route information can be found on the official website.??

Bordeaux to Toulouse?Following the Canal de Garonne from near Bordeaux and then the Canal du Midi from Toulouse, it's possible to take a gentle ride from the Atlantic coast in the west to the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Cycling publisher Excellent Books has a Cycling Southern France guidebook that takes in the entire route. ??

Nantes-Brest Canal?The Nantes-Brest Canal provides a leisurely 365km bike ride from the bustling city of Nantes in Pays de la Loire to Guily Glas, some 40km short of Brest. It's a popular and well-supported route that has good facilities for cyclists along the way.??

Trans-Ardennes bike path?One of France's best-developed greenway routes is the wonderful 83km Trans-Ardennes Bikes Path, a largely undiscovered path that follows the peaceful Meuse River from Charleville-Méziéres in the Champange-Ardenne region to just 2km shy of the Belgian border. It's a glorious and gentle ride that can be pedalled in a day or broken up into a series of shorter outings. 

The Loire - Vélo route, France's oldest official route, is also one of its most popular, attracting more than 700,000 cyclists a year. It links Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, near Saint-Nazaire in the Pays le da Loire, to Cuffy, near Nevers in the Centre region, stretching across 800km of French heartland. Now part of the EuroVelo 6 route that links France to the Black Sea, it passes castles and vineyards, and crosses rivers and picturesque countryside. There is more information, plus route maps, on the official website.??

Tour of Burgundy?The 'Tour de Bourgogne' is a regional network of cycle routes that will eventually cover more than 800km (around 580km are currently finished).  It includes all four departments of Burgundy, and is made up for five main itineraries, taking in countryside, canals and the region's famous vineyards. The official website has more information and maps. 

Ile de Ré the idyllic island of the west coast of France, is very much a haven for leisure cyclists. No Tour de France training is required, though, with the highest point on the island a mere 19 metres above sea level. But with more than 100km of dedicated cycle paths on a land mass that measures just 5km long and 30km wide, there's still plenty of exploring to be done on two wheels. The official tourism website has more information.??

Corsica?If you like a few more mountains on your islands, then head instead to Corsica, home to the first three stages of the 2013 Tour de France. Mountainous and rugged, it offers challenging cycling surrounded by truly spectacular scenery. See this Q&A for more information and route advice.

Ride the Tour de France ?You don't need to be a pro to ride the Tour de France. Thousands of people climb Tour mountains or recreate their own Tour de France each year. There's even an organised mass participation ride, L'étape du Tour, that coincides with the Tour itself. ?

(Lynette Eyb, editor of freewheelingfrance.com has these ideas to help you plan your very own Tour de France)

More ideas and information....