Postcards from Provence and beyond

Three weeks today, we start pedalling back home, to Provence, and finally we have a plan.

It’s hard to believe that 5 weeks have slipped past, since we arrived in Devon, after cycling through France, in a heatwave.

It was a wonderful couple of weeks, just us, the bikes and time enjoying exploring the back roads and quiet villages of France.

I imagined that the summer days, back in the UK would creep past, with each week feeling like a month, but the opposite has been true. The weeks have flashed past in a busy blur of events, visiting friends & family, and the day-to-day simplicity of life.

In fact it’s been so busy that we’ve only been out on the bikes for a handful of rides, just enough to keep our legs turning, and giving us a chance to enjoy an occasional slice of carrot cake!

But with just 3 weeks to go, and the busiest of weeks still to come, we thought it was about time that we got to grips with the route we will take, to get home. Over the last few days, we’ve disappeared down the rabbit hole of route planning, finding our way through the west of France to get to Toulouse, in time for Provence Rugby’s first away match of the season, against Colomiers.

This will be our third ride back from the UK, and each time, we have taken a route through the western departments, and I’m keen not to follow roads that we have pedalled along before. That would be far too easy (and a little boring too).

So we’ve gone back to looking at places that we visited over 30 years ago, and have planned a route to take us through some of the areas that we remember well. We have also been told about a rather superb cake shop, called Gateaux, in Tusson, so have decided to add that to the route, and stop for a second-breakfast there.

Whereas last year, we felt we had too much time, before we needed to be in Angouleme for the rugby, this year is the opposite. We have our last event in England at Dunster Show on 21st August, and we have the ferry booked from Plymouth to Roscoff, the following day. So that will be a rather chaotic end to our stay, but we will have been here long-enough, and just want to get home.

We now know that we will need to be in Toulouse on 3rd September for the Provence Rugby match, so have had to be a bit creative with how we get there, in time. We will be carrying the tent again, so with the extra weight, we aren’t keen on doing 100-120km days, and we want to be able to enjoy the route I’ve planned, revisiting old memories too, and have some time off the bikes, and visit some good friends, along the way.

The other thing is that this isn’t a big challenge, but a nice way of seeing France & getting home, and we’re determined to enjoy it.

As such, we will start with a gentle morning ride, along the estuary from Roscoff to Morlaix, where we’ll catch the train to Nantes (we have even managed to book us and the bikes without any glitches, this time). Then we’ll spend the afternoon pootling through to the stunning Marais Breton, to spend a couple of days with friends.

It’s an amazingly beautiful area (and wonderfully flat too) and I’m not sure they imagined they would become a permanent fixture of our adventures, when they offered us a night’s stay, the first year we pedalled down. It was a chance meeting that has turned into lasting friendship, so it will be lovely to stop there, eventhough the ride won’t really have begun.

From there, we will head inland, making our way towards Celles-sur-Belle and Parthenay, where we spent time, on holidays with a caravan, over 30 years ago. I have a feeling that they will have changed a little (or a lot), since then – a bit like us!

Then we will continue down (stopping for cake at Tusson), before dropping into Cognac, where we’ll have a day off, to explore. We feel we need to, as we have really bad memories of the only time we visited the town, and feel that we need to give it a second chance (after 30 years).

It may sound ridiculous (in fact there’s no ‘may’ about it), but we got caught in a terrible cloud-burst, as we wandered the streets. We looked and felt like drowned rats,within seconds and were freezing cold and miserable, within minutes. It proved to be the start of a change in the weather that left us soggy and wet for the rest of our precious time away. It didn’t help that we discovered a leak in the caravan, and we just dripped for what felt like days, putting us off the area for a long time.

Surely, it will be better this year, but we’ve taken precautions and booked a little house, in the heart of the town, for a couple of nights, so even if the heavens open again, we will have somewhere warm and dry, where we can hide away, rather than relying on the tent

What we realised on the cycle up through France, a few weeks ago, was just how much weight we carry on the bikes, with the tent, chairs, and general necessities of life. So being pragmatic, my first thoughts of heading through the heart of the Dordogne, and round Agen soon got set aside. We don’t mind hills, but when I started planning my preferred route through, some of the gradients we would be tackling made me go a little pale, so I shifted the plan to drop round towards the canal paths, just west of Marmande, and to follow that route, into Toulouse, where we’ll arrive just in time for the 9pm kick-off at Colomiers.

It will be the only part of the ride that we have done before, having taken the path from Agen to Toulouse, the first time we cycled home. But this time, we will have the rugby to enjoy, and then a day off in the city, which captured our hearts, when we were there, a few weeks ago, for the rugby final. We didn’t have much time then, but this time,we will be able to enjoy exploring the city, a little more.

From there, we have a week to pedal home, and having ridden the ‘Mediterrannee’ cycle path, a few times, I have found another route, which will take us round Carcassonne & Beziers, and through Montpellier, before we head towards Saint Remy and finally home – aiming to arrive just in time for us to get to Aix, for Provence’s second home match of the season, after having pedalled over 1200km.

I have everything drafted and am spending time working my way along the roads, checking them on Google StreetView, tweaking the route to keep us on quiet lanes and backroads, whilst Andy is finding campsites for us, at suitable intervals, along the way.

At least we have a plan now, and I have a feeling that we’ll be turning the pedals to start the trip, before we really know it, as the next 3 weeks are pretty busy.

Let’s just hope that this time we don’t hit extremes of weather, like the heatwave, or the storms that disrupted our route, this time last year.

You never know, if all goes well, we may even change our views on Cognac. Let’s hope so!