For some years we have had this ambition to cycle from the Mediterranean to Roscoff in Brittany. It's about 1400km and our intended route takes us along the Canal du Midi to Toulouse and then along the Garonne (and/or the Canal Literal) to Bordeaux. From there it is up the coast to St Nazaire and on to Redon where we pick up the Brittany cycle route to Roscoff (again along the canal tow paths). This route looks pretty flat - for most of the way at least.
In the early stages of retirement, neither of us athletes or super fit, we have certain requirements when cycling. It should ideally be warm, sunny, reasonably flat and not more than about 50 miles in a day (preferably 35-40), staying overnight in hotels or chambres d'hotes (definately not camping!) and with a decent evening meal. It is expensive this way but experience has taught us that such holidays are amongst the most enjoyable we have ever had. We rarely book ahead, except for bank holidays, and have hardly ever had difficult finding a hotel.
Our bikes are both Dawes Karakum hybrids (each about £700)and we both carry rear panniers only. Everything is packed inside plastic bags in case of heavy rain and the size of the paniers limits how much we can carry. Once full, that's it.
Getting the bikes to the South of France was not easy. We looked at Eurostar and the TGV but booking ahead for bikes on the Lille-Avignon route is quite tricky. No one seems to know in advance which trains carry bikes. We also looked at Bike Express which offers to take you by coach (and your bike in the trailer). This seemed a good alternative but we are quite a long way from the picking-up points and could not see an easy way of getting there. It is also about 24 hours in a coach which is not much fun. In the end we found an good alternative. We had planned to holiday in France in April and decided we could take the bikes and leave them at a chambres d'hotes near Avignon. We knew a couple who run a chambres d'hote in Noves near Avignon, and leaving the bikes there for a few weeks was not a problem. We can then take our bikes on the local train to Sete .
So we are now back in England with our bikes in Avignon intending to take the train back there in late May.
Over the next few blogs we will add our draft itinerary and then try to update the blog every few days as we travel north. For this we are taking a small notebook computer and hope to make use of hotel wifi where possible.
