Really, a true odyssey. The entrance to France, on the Eurovelo 1 of track called Vélodyssee, is a real pump track, a disaster, to swear. Even the Ortlieb bag does not survives this and a holder breaks. The French do not seem to need to maintain their bike lanes. The domestic tourists come back every year and they are happy that everything is like last year. This has been for at least twenty years. That was when we spent the first time our holidays on the Bay of Biscay. We are a bit torn between ‘travel’ and ‘holidays’. Because it goes in the high season of the French through the touristic area.
Behind Biarritz, the cycle paths are getting better – but also more boring. For three days and three hundred kilometers we have been riding flat and straight ahead, through pine forests, pine forests, fern landscapes. Families with children and day tourists cycle with us. The coast is unique, endless and natural. However, near at the coast line or on the beach we can not ride.
So we cycle straight in the second row. There is little that pleases our eyes. The most exciting thing is the curve that awaits us in seven kilometers. (This is reminiscent of the music piece “Organ²/ASLSP” by John Cage which has performed in Halberstadt. Sometimes there is only one change of tone per year, to which extra visitors arrive https://www.harzlife.de/kurios/john-cage-projekt.html).
Bikepackers come to meet us in abundance. All of them go south – only we go north.
The entrance to Dune du Pilat is cancelled. The roads and cycle paths there are closed. Four weeks ago it burned here and the embers are still smoldering in the ground.
In front of Arcachon, the landscape finally gets back to charm. We cylcle through small seaside resorts. It is late summer, the sun is low for longer and longer and soon everything falls into a slumber here. When the cycle path becomes emptier, people become more communicative again. After three weeks of high season, it is all over.
We have been riding at 25 to 32 degrees for weeks, apart from outliers.
Until this year, we did not know that floating bridges even existed. And now we use another one after the one in Bilbao. We enjoy our stay in La Rochelle and on the Ile de Ré.
We decide, enough coast, off into the inland and cycle the next few days on the Vélo Francette. It goes from La Rochelle to Ouisterham (Caen), runs through the country, past sometimes almost abandoned, sometimes pretty villages, is completely signposted and in much better shape than the Eurovelo 1. We find campsites that are now open outside the short French peak season and are geared towards cyclists. On the first in Coulon we pay nothing. However the shower is cold. The second in Parthenay is a real candidate for the top 10. At fourty degrees celcius air temperature we are happy about the swimming pool. We enjoy the torrential rain and the thunderstorm a short time later in our tent. Cooking at 10pm with cold beer from the fridge and in the morning a laundry with drying before departure.
From the nice campsite in Rochelle sur Loire we head back towards the Atlantic. We have an entertaining evening with Andy and his buddy who started in the North of England. They cycle from Saint Malo to Nice and have just completed day 3. The ‘France en Velo’ is their guide book. Funny travel cyclists! ?