The route

There was no logic behind designing the route for our tour this year, apart from  Anne's strong desire to ride over the Millau Bridge again and to stay in the Cevenol Hotel at Millau. Last year when at the hotel, Anne was entertained by a local French Rugby side during breakfast - it took me ages to get her out of the breakfast room!! Is that her logic for wanting to go back? 

I thought it would be nice to conclude our tour somewhere in Brittany. We love this area of France and have holidayed there twice with the girls and once with my parents. There is one small coastal village in Brittany that surpasses any other place we have visited and that is Sainte Marine. The tranquility and beauty of this miniature harbour village for us, represent the romance of France. http://www.brittanytourism.com/discover-brittany/islands-and-headlands/ile-tudy-and-sainte-marine

So here's the route.......

As we are taking Nia as pillion, the daily rides are planned to be much shorter than they were in last year's tour. The maximum mileage is 226 miles (Ashford to Folkestone and Calais to Chartres) on the second day. The shortest planned daily ride is 106 miles from Sainte Marine to Roscoff on the penultimate day, however, as we have booked a holiday cottage in Sainte Marine for a week we may venture out for small rides around Brittany during that week.

Another addition for this year's route is that I have added places of interest to visit, rather than just ride for a day from point A to point B. Such places include Oradour Sur Glane (http://www.oradour.info) and the Gouffre de Padirac (http://www.gouffre-de-padirac.com/#/en). 

Not another travel blog!

Not another travel blog!

If you followed our blog last year, you would have read about how frustrating it was to continually stop at the autoroute tolls, whether it be in France, Italy or Spain.

Anne and I were desperate to go back to France this year (we loved it so much last year), however, to avoid the frustration, we decided to do the route on the D and N roads only - No autoroutes!

Well that is not strictly the case, as we will be travelling on motorways in the UK (Cardiff to Folkestone and Plymouth to Cardiff), but the rule is that once we hit French soil - no autoroutes and no tolls (apart from the toll to cross the Millau Bridge.

The other difference from last year, is that we will have Nia travelling with us as a pillion on my bike. We’ll have 3 long days (day 1, 2 and 3) and then the days will be short - averaging about 150 miles a day.

So, if you decide to follow our blog this year - we hope you enjoy it and that it doesn’t send you off to sleep too often!