From Isère river, we cycle to the Rhône river and spend the night in Beaurepaire at a great, laid-back campsite with a swimming pool and lots of cyclists. It is impressive how many families with really young children are cycling and camping.
After crossing the Rhône, we slowly wind our way up into the Massif Central. Completely new landscapes open up. Today’s destination is Bourg-Argental in the Loire department. Since the Camping d’Astree is ‘supposedly’ full, we get creative and rent a cabin at the campsite for €25 instead. It works out, and we enjoy perfect weather and a starry sky through the skylight at night.
Its is August. Traditionally, the first three weeks of August are when most French people take their holidays. The towns are deserted and campsites are almost exclusively occupied by French people. We test the municipal and inter-municipal campsites located away from the tourist crowds.
It goes through the Haute-Loire, through the gorges of the Loire and up to the first pass.
The highest train in France, a narrow-gauge railway, starts in Raucoules and now operates as a tourist train powered by steam and diesel.
The next attraction is in Le Puy-en-Velay: Saint Michel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The whole place is very picturesque. With just 16,000 inhabitants, there are many beautiful houses, hotels for long-distance hikers, cafés and brasseries for nature lovers.
The chase continues. At the next hilltop, Fix Saint Geneys, there is less of a village than a great supply station with local, homemade specialities from the Auvergne. Here we fortify ourselves with cheese, sandwiches and cake, and buy some things for dinner.
Auzon, our destination with a campsite, turns out to be a non-starter: the former campsite has been converted into an unstaffed caravan park and is off-limits to tents and caravans. In the hot and humid weather, we first drink the cold beer we have just bought and then battle our way another twenty kilometres to the campsite in Brioude. Shortly before 7pm, the reception closing time, we check in and manage to get the emergency place because we look like emergency campers :-(. The ‘Tradition’ baguette the next morning is the best of this year’s season.
In Massiac, we take advantage of the last opportunity to refuel – petrol for the stove and energy drinks for our bodies – before we dive into the sparsely populated heart of the Massif Central. ‘Here you find more flower meadows than people’. Today, one pass follows another. Perhaps different from Alpine passes, but extremely challenging nonetheless. The headwind saps our last reserves of strength. In the end, every ant hill seems insurmountable.
After another 100 kilometres and 1,600 metres of elevation gain, our bodies are crying out for a day of rest. Le Claux, in Auvergne, in the middle of Europe’s largest volcanic landscape (2,700 square kilometres) with six inhabitants per square kilometre, the Puy Mary (1,783 metres above sea level) rises at the end of the valley, and we check into the beautiful Camping Municipal. The ringing of cow and goat bells lulls us to sleep. During the day, the church bells of this sparsely populated village seem to compete with them.
Cows, goats, chickens, geese, a horse with a foal, a fat pig, a dog and a cat all coexist. Thistles and other flowers line the path, along with noisy, seed-spitting broom and butterflies.
Quite idyllic. Perfect for relaxing. We stay another day. The little local grocery shop provides us with everything we need. With wild, deep red currants, grown in the summer sun at 1,200 metres, we cover our vitamin C requirements until we get stomach ache.
Next comes the queen stage: a continuous climb of around 500 MASL over the Col de Serre to the Col de Pas de Peyrol. This is located at the foot of Puy Mary, a real cyclist’s pass.
Now it is thirty kilometres downhill. Most of the cyclists coming towards us uphill look very worn out. We cycle through picturesque villages and landscapes.
Shortly before Aurillac, the beautiful Auvergne region comes to an end. From here on, we cycle through slightly hilly terrain under the scorching sun, with temperatures reaching 37 degrees in the shade. Later on, the forest will offer us some cooling shade.
Our insider tip is the area around Puy Mary and the Monts du Cantal for all our France lovers in Darmstadt, Alp Bruchgeere, Osterfeld, Rubigen and Wenkbach! You would definitely enjoy it here. And for all cyclists who want to try something different from EuroVelos, we recommend the Rhone-Loire Cycle Route, which starts at an old railway bridge. Mostly a railway cycle path – but with a fair amount of elevation gain. Here is the GPX track to download: https://rapl-kiste.de/gpxviewer/Rhone_Loire_Radweg.gpx
Our itinerary has also been updated. If you click on the map, you can zoom in on the details. https://rapl-kiste.de/wp/maps/