Epilogue
European Cycle Touring - The Return
The decision to return to cycle touring in Europe after an absence of more than two years was an exciting one for us as well as being a bit of a challenge. We were unsure about how perilous an air journey in the time of Covid might be and then there was the dilemma faced by all air travellers related to the effects of air travel on the environment. Though we were unable to resolve either issue completely, we decided to grasp the nettle.
La Voie Bleue along the Moselle had appealed to us for some time as being a relatively benign way to get back into the saddle, and the realisation that Frankfurt, a major hub, was a convenient place to start on the Main River, convinced us. One of our 2020 Warmshowers guests, Ulli, had invited us to drop in should we ever get back to Germany again and he was generous enough to pick up us and our boxes from the airport, making it a first for us not assembling our bikes at the airport of our arrival.
The Moselle Route is described in one of the Cicerone guides in some detail, though back to front for us, and French tourism has published a considerable amount of material on La Voie Bleue. And it’s all true folks- well, in our experience, most of it. They tend to let their enthusiasm run away with them a little, bucolic being a favourite word, but we were lured in and happy to be so.
Although cities can be difficult to negotiate at times, the rivers and canals we followed usually took us to the heart of the cities en route and places like Trier, Metz, Nancy, Dijon and later Nice, were reasonably easy to manage. Another appeal of this route was the attractive mix of rural and urban landscapes.
The German section of our route, along the Maine and Rhine, was very well signposted, with distances included, and the Moselle was generally good too. Although cycling canals and rivers can numb the brain at times, we were happy to sit back and relax. The surface of the tracks was amazingly good and even where we had to share, such as on the D559 along the Mediterranean, and the D933 from Macon to Lyon, there was often a good shoulder provided. The canal route in Bourgogne was excellent and we look forward to completing the full loop in the future.
Some rides hover close to the surface of memory either because they were, indeed special places or because of the serendipity of the day. Our day cycling around Lyon with our ‘guide’ Olivier was blessed with wonderful weather and a visual feast comprised of much of what Lyon had to offer. We both thought it a beautiful city.
We loved the voie verte (an old railway line) which runs from Givry to Macon. It has a brilliant surface and some wonderful views as well as good campgrounds like Camping Moulin at St Boil where we met the Mancunian Francophile worker.
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Though the ‘tunnel of bats’ (Tunnel du Bois Clair) was closed, the over-the-top ride had a quite manageable gradient. Before this, our morning’s ride through the vines from Beaune to Santenay was a niche cycling sensation with lots of possible gourmet and degustation stops at towns like Meusault.
The Corniche del’Esterel beyond St Raphael was a final spectacular morning’s ride in which the red of the rocks, the massive drops to the deep blue of the sea below, in addition to a slight frisson of trepidation over the traffic (not too bad), and the necessity to watch where one was going, all combined to make for something quite memorable.
Food and accommodation are never a problem in France, though too frequent supermarket visits become tedious. We used campgrounds for about half of our trip, cycle hosts for six nights and either Airbnb or hotels the rest. Campgrounds in France and Germany were generally ok and we found some comfortable hotels along the way. It would help if they took the trouble to mention security for cycles in their facilities list.
What more beautiful place to spend the last balmy few days few before returning home to a slightly turbulent spring, than Nice.
We’ve appreciated the comments. With luck, we may have other rides on the horizon. There’s definitely something compelling about cycle touring that’s hard to ignore!
Today's ride: 1,500 km (932 miles)
Total: 3,082 km (1,914 miles)
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9 months ago