Cycling France

I recently completed a cycle across France with mum – who’s 70 years young`

We cycled from Bordeaux to Sete along the canal pathways. It was quite the journey.

Here are the images (starting on our stopover in Qatar, and ending in Paris)

Our Qatar hotel. I would absolutely recommend stopping over when flying 25 hours. So worth it.

Collecting our hire bikes at Musette in Bordeaux. They were heavy, but we never got a single flat.

Day 1: It was cold and raining or our pre-dawn start in Bordeaux. Ah well… Sometimes we encounter wrinkles in the eiderdown of life…

Our route. We planned 10 days, with around 60 ks per day (and one rest day in Carcassone). It was May, it was around 12 degrees, & it rained about half the time, but it wasn’t hard. We stopped every 2 hours, and it would take around 6 hours to cycle each day. The only danger was the shops all being shut between 12 and 2, so no access to hotels or cafe’s during this time in small towns. We soon learnt to stock up on Pan du Chocolates!

Google maps led us down some strange paths.

I soon changed my phone app to “MapOut”. It cost $7, and worth every penny. You don’t need roaming or Wifi, and it tracks your location exactly.

Also I bought a Quad Lock to secure my old iPhone to the bike. (I used my good phone to listen to podcasts).

The only annoyance is typing in the pin whilst cycling, to see the screen, so I soon learnt to fix the settings not to go into sleep mode.

Quad Lock Bike Mount Kit for iPhone X/Xs

 

 

 

Coming into Agde, check out the canal, above the river. A feat of engineering from hundreds of years ago. Quite an amazing thing to cycle over. PS Agde just happens to be the prune capital of France! *insert joke of choice here*

 

Another canal superhighway.

 

We cycled to this lovely B&B outside of Toulouse, on the Garonne River. So worth it!

View from our Air B&B in Castlenaudry.

The ancient walls of Carcassonne

Sauvettere de Guyenne – our favourite village of all

And the best accomodation. So good i’m including a link here:

https://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/le-neptune-ginestas.html?label=gen173bo-1DCAEoggI46AdIM1gDaA-IAQGYATG4AQfIAQzYAQPoAQH4AQOIAgGYAiGoAgO4ArWX0-sFwAIB;sid=054633a28534c655786f9f2ec7523b88

The hotel owners were busy chopping strawberries for the morning jam. The smell was sublime!

Beziers

And then we were in Sete! Miles of cycling beside the seaside

View from our hotel window of fishermen nattering below. They stayed there for hours, ’till the sun left. I’m loving the blue jean vibe.

A mediterranean sunset in Sete.

And then, we caught a train to Paris!

Amazing views from Montparnasse tower. 

So yes, I’m pretty much wearing the same clothes in every shot. I had to pack light, ok!

Meeting up with … (enter stage left): Pappa!!

Even the homeless have a certain Je ne sais quoi

 

A bit more info about our cycling France adventure.

We booked all our accommodation ahead of time on booking.com – the biggest plus of doing this was viewing all our bookings in the app, ensuring none of the one night stays were booked under the wrong dates. (An easy mistake to make). However, we met other cyclists who were “winging it”, booking as they went, but they had camping gear on them just in case. The downside of this was that many of the hotels in smaller towns were actually closed during siesta during 12-2, and check-in is often between 3-4. I made it a habit of emailing ahead each night before, to request early check in. They were all fine with this, except one.

We decided to cycle for around 6 hours a day – from around 7 or 8 am. Although this sounds alot, it was generally flat, and we stopped after every 2 hours to eat and stretch. Almost the entire trip was on cycle paths. It was no where near as difficult as cycling around Sydney is.

We followed 3 mains cycle ways: From Bordeaux it was the Roger Lapabie cycle path (excellent quality)

Then once we hit the Canals, it was the Canal de Garonne (also good)

Cycling the Canal de la Garonne: From Bordeaux to Toulouse (Cicerone Cycling Guides)

Then the Canal du Midi (an overgrown pebbled goat track, in places – the country roads were better options)

Cycling the Canal du Midi: Across Southern France from Toulouse to Sète

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me. And if you’re worried. I say – JUST DO IT!!!