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Planning,
Accommodation and Security
Planning the
trip
During
the year, we decide which region to visit and work out a
basic direction according to the weather and terrain. We deal
with the finer details during the trip on a daily basis.
Despite certain regions being more highly recommended, we
had some of our best days riding away from these - just across
the countryside, transiting from one area to another. We average
70-- 80 km per day, and start about 9.30am, after breakfast and
packing up, and usually get to our next B&B 4-5pm.
Tip: If
you are new to France, get to know the system of regions and
departments. The regions are the larger provinces, divided into
departments, and it is essential to know which one you are headed for
to search for accommodation, etc. 
Velo routes: Many
areas have cycle routes, planned by the local tourist authority, marked
with signposts along the way. Maps were available on the internet
(provinces and departments have their own tourism websites)
and in the tourist offices. They are planned to follow roads that are
both quiet and scenic, ones they have assessed as best for cycling.
There are also 'voies verts' or greenways, usually old railway lines
that have been converted. Although they were easy riding, we found that
they often did not give as good a view as the road, as trees had grown
up alongside when they were still railway lines.
Tourist offices: When entering a new department, get hold of the 'carte
touristique' (tourist map) which will list all the tourist offices - very helpful for
finding accommodation. The size of each office is indicated by the
number of stars. The bigger the office, the longer the opening
hours, with the biggest ones being open on Sunday mornings.Entering the town, the tourist office is always in the
centre ville, or centre of town, and usually near the church or town
square. They are usually very well signposted.
French tourist offices are fairly plentiful and provide excellent local maps and guides for the area.
Mostly, the staff were helpful and friendly - we only experienced
a couple of grumpy people.
Tip:
when asking for directions, from anyone: beware 'French
Kilometres'. You may be told the distance to your enquiry, but as a rule of thumb double it! We might
be told that our chambre d'hote was one kilometre out of town,
and five km later we would still be pedalling, thinking we were
hopelessly lost, when we would finally arrive...!
It goes without saying that we could not practically
attempt a trip into the French countryside without knowing a few words of French. More English is spoken in cities,
but our hosts, especially the older ones in the countryside,
often did not have a word. Despite the communication barrier, we
were in general blown away by the friendliness and helpfulness of
French people. Many folks we met went out of their way to help us
when we needed it, especially our hosts.
Accommodation
and food
We had pretty good luck with the
'Gites de France' network of chambre d'hotes. Each
region publishes a book or map, although this is limiting if
the book only covers one department - which you could cycle through in
a day. Another network called Clevacances
has fewer B&Bs available. In some areas, many chambre d'hotes are
not part of the networks, but only listed with the local office de
tourisme. If you know which towns you will visit in advance, find their
websites which will list all their available accommodation.
If we were staying in a gite-de-france establishement, we would
ask for their country-wide guide and plan where we could aim for the
next evening, then ask our hosts to phone and book for us. This gave us
the security of knowing we had firm accommodation. Otherwise we would
go to the office de tourisme in a town we had reached in the afternoon,
and ask them to help us find a chambre d'hote. The smaller the town,
the more helpful. In the bigger ones they might request payment of 1 or
2 € to phone. Average price range 55-60€ (per night, bed and breakfast
for two people.) More touristy areas were more expensive, eg. Loire
valley, and especially Provence!
Accommodation pitfalls:
We learnt the hard way about the Compostelle routes; a
series of pilgrimage routes that all finish at Santiago de
Compostela in Northern Spain. They are very popular with walkers,
and accommodation can be hard to find along the way. We got
caught one night in Conques - a surpassingly beautiful mediavel
town on top of a hill in the Lot valley. I was certain that we
didn't need to arrange anything in advance, as there were so many
places listed in the book. When we arrived, too tired to go an
inch further, we found it to be a major stop for 'pellerins' -
pilgrims. The cheapest place we could find was a hotel for
80€, not including breakfast! The town made up to us with a
free organ concert in the church that night, where we listened to
the priest belting out 'House of the Rising Sun'!
On another occasion, we could only book a place
about 30km further than we wanted, as everything enroute was
filled up with pellerins. Our train from Paris was delayed for a
couple of hours on the track, so we arrived at 3pm with 70km to
ride to our chambre d'hote!
We also got caught by the midsummer music festivals
held around France on June 21, in all large towns. Both times we
managed to find accommodation, but only with a struggle. In
future, we will aim for a small place on that date!
If we were going to a small town or remote location,
especially on a Sunday, we tried to book a place that offered a
table d'hote for the evening meal - it must be arranged in
advance. These were usually 4-course feasts, often eaten with the
hosts, including aperitifs and wine. Breakfast is orange juice, baguettes and preserves,
with coffee, tea or chocolate. The standard was usually in line
with the price of the accommodation. The better ones included
croissants, fruit, yoghurt and cake!
During
the morning, we would find a boulangerie and buy a baguette. NB -
this must be accomplished before 12, when everything closes! In
the afternoon, we would find a supermarket or epicerie (grocery
shop) and buy the topping (cheese, tin of fish, pate) for our
lunch the following day, as well as a cold picnic supper for that
evening. We often ate these for supper as it is not feasible to climb on your bike again and ride into town for supper!
Tips: Stock
up on Saturdays. In the
countryside in France, most shops are closed on Sundays and
Mondays (except boulangeries). We learned the hard way! One
Monday, we ate a sad lunch of dry baguette, leftover nougat
and water, in the parking lot of a CLOSED supermarket. Not a
single town had anything open that morning!
The
boulangerie van: In very remote
areas, you could ride for an entire day and not find a
boulangerie - but be lucky enough to be hooted at by
a boulangerie van, driving through a village. Chase it to
where it stops and buy your bread!
Smelly cheese:
'Coeur de Lion' meaning 'Heart of the Lion': Very tasty, but once
opened, the person carrying it had to ride behind - as the Lion
Heart smelled more like a Lion Fart.
Security
This
is worth mentioning because we became complacent in the safe
countryside, then got caught in the towns. We once suffered the
loss of a pump and saddlebag in a medium-size town, while we
went into a supermarket together. From then on, one of us would
guard the bikes unless in a very small town.
In 2006, we suffered the crushing loss of one handlebar bag out
of the Montpellier Office du Tourisme, left unattended for a
moment. Unfortunately, this was the bag with our passports and
tickets, one camera, and sadly, our journal. We suspected a theft
ring was operating there because the young staff seemed
unconcerned, and the next day, back in the office, I heard a
woman enquiring about her suitcase which had also obviously been
stolen there!
Out of Johannesburg,
securely wrap panniers with cling-wrap. On our first tour,
baggage handlers cut the secured zip tags off Ken's panniers and
took our bike tools, meaning we could not reassemble our bikes in
Paris. They had also opened the package I had made for my
pedals on my bike, to see if anything was worth stealing, and
one pedal was missing. This was a disaster as we had an early
train, which, if missed, would ruin the start of our holiday.
Fortunately, we were helped wonderfully by French people. We
reported the loss to the baggage rep, an Air France lady. As
an aside before we left, I asked her where to catch the Air
France bus. Some time later, she came running out to the bus
stop, knowing where to find us - and she had my pedal! It had
fallen out into the hold after the handlers had ripped open the
plastic. Next, in Paris, we met a wonderfully helpful man on his
morning ride who took us to a bike shop to quickly borrow tools,
helped us put the bikes together, rode with us to show us the way
to the station, used his credit card in the machine to buy our
tickets, (the queue at the counters was very long, and our SA
cards would not work without the eurochip) rushed us to the
platform, validated our tickets in the machine (compostez le
billet) and helped us load the bikes on the train. We made it
with one minute to spare!!!! If not for his help, we would have
lost out on a night's paid accommodation.
Back to: Bikes, equipment and
Transportation
Next: Impressions of France | Cycling in Germany and Switzerland
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- Bikes,
equipment
and Transportation
Planning, Accommodation
and Security
- Impressions of France
- Cycling in Germany and Switzerland
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