The Plan

Our third cycle tour post children, but this one has an extra dynamic – Pete’s 85 year old father, Jim, will join us for two weeks in France.  After Pete’s Mum died last year, we started thinking about the possibility of Jim cycling with us.  He’s not your average 85 year old and since October 2017, has been venturing out on the bikes with us in preparation.  He’s now more than ready and can’t wait to go.

Our first priority in deciding where to go was somewhere Jim could cycle safely so we looked for somewhere reasonably flat with little to no traffic and came across the Loire a Velo – a ride of about 500 km alongside the Loire river, passing many exceptional chateaux along the way.  This seemed perfect to us as it is a well-established ride with lots of camping options (yes, Jimmy wants to camp!), as well as cycle shops and food shops.   We are even able to hire a bike for Jimmy (no …not an electric one… that would be cheating), at one end of the ride and hand the bike back at the other end, so this seemed perfect for us.

Our next decision was when to go.  We couldn’t depart at our usual time of May as Pete had shoulder surgery in January and needed more time to fully recover.  So we thought we’d go at the end of summer as we didn’t want to cycle in the intense heat that can come in July and August.  We also didn’t want to cycle the Loire a Velo while all the Europeans were still on their summer holidays, so we decided to work things so that we would be starting the bike ride with Jimmy on 4^th September – the week after everyone goes back to school and work.

The planned route - the red part is the Loire
a Velo which we will do with Jimmy.

Of course France is a long way to go for just two weeks (which is what we expect the Loire a Velo will take), so we plan to fly to Liverpool first to catch up with all the relatives and friends.  Jimmy hasn’t been home for sixteen years and still has a brother and sister there.  We of course were there just two years ago so plan a whirlwind visit seeing everyone we can, before cycling down to London to catch up with more friends and calling in on others on the way.  

At the end of August we will catch a ferry to Dieppe, France, and cycle to Paris where we plan to stay four nights.  Jimmy will fly to Paris and then we will all catch a train the 100km south to Orleans where we will begin the ride alongside the Loire.

We will finish that part of the journey in Nantes, mid-September, when Jimmy will catch a train to Switzerland to visit several friends, before flying back to Liverpool to see his relatives again.  Meanwhile Pete and I will cycle south down the west coast of France and into Spain where we will cycle along the northern coast and then down into Portugal.  We will mainly stick to the coast unless the traffic is too crazy and we’ll move into the hills.  

We will then cycle across to Seville, Spain and plan to end the cycling at Granada, then catch a train to Barcelona as we’ve read that the cycling is not pleasant along the eastern coast.  Jimmy will fly to Barcelona and we’ll spend several days there just being tourists before flying back to NZ on 16^th November.

So that’s the plan – it will be interesting to see if things go as planned!