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France


Looking back down the road to the pedestrian border bridge from the French side. Hendaye Harbour. Hendaye Harbour is in the mouth of the River Bidasoa. Irun in Spain is on the far bank. I didn't mea... Hendaye. Hendaye Beach. The rock stacks in the distance are called the Two Twins. This is a different road to the one which I used in 2011. Ciboure Beach. A bust of the novelist Pierre Benoit, who died in Ciboure in 1962. It's also where the composer Maur... Some people on an inflatable being spun around by a boat. The marina of Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Oh no. Yesterday I replaced the right pedal (just the black part). Now the left pedal crank arm is c... It lasted 2.7km and then came off again so I've tried tightening the screws even more. I'm worried t... It's very bright now. The sign which says "cité de l'océan" is just being ba... I'm near the end of today's route and the pedal hasn't fallen off again but I haven't tested it much... Bayonne. Here's my hotel at last. Tonight, my view is of the pool, part of the terrace of the restaurant, which closes at half past ni... Bayonne. Bayonne. Bayonne. Bayonne. Bayonne. The old castle in Bayonne. A short bus. Parking here is limited to 30 minutes. The green countdown timer shows you exactly how long is left. The River Adoour. It's been raining for the last hour. Strangely it was raining quite heavily as I rode towards this b... The centre of Capbreton. A dry place for me to have another look at the map. The rain has paused now. I wonder whether that water has just started gushing like that today. That's an unusual sign. Only children are allowed to cycle on the pavement here. Hossegor. I thought the building in the foreground was the mayor's office, because of the flags. It'... I think that is still a school but the stone inscriptions which say that the left side is for boys a... The pedal seems to be staying on fine now. There were some moments today when I put a reasonable amo... Because it's been too wet to get the camera out, this is my only photograph of the 7 km road from To... Tonight's hotel. I'm out of the mountains now so today's 45 km ride wasn't hard and the bike had no ... There are a lot of notices in this hotel room. One in the lift explains that because the hotel is in... How has my chain gone that rusty in one day? That man is doing something with a bike. Today's ride is simply 22 km along this, the A63. It's what I think of as a Missouri-style road, a k... One of the reasons for planning a short day today was because I was expecting it to rain again. The ... After Magescq, the motorway becomes a toll road. The rod along the left side probably has a bit more... How can the motorway be the Camino? You can't walk on it. An Intermarché distribution centre with a lot of lorry bays. There are two hotels on this site. I booked the one with the earlier check-in time and I'm still too... When choosing which of the hotels to book, I was anticipating arriving here in the rain, soaking wet... Strangely, this is the second night in a row that I've looked at the restaurant menu online, decided... This church in Castets has a labyrinth. There's another cyclist in the distance in front of me. He can't have stayed on this road for very l... A rest area by a motorway junction, with a wooden bike rack which I'm not using. I think there might be unicorns living in these woods. A monument to Henri-François Beconnais, a champion cyclist, motorcyclist and driver, who was ... In Labouhéyre, the tree branches have been trained along wires to form a canopy which covers ... There is a little book exchange box in the square. There won't be anywhere to eat near to where I will be staying tonight and I've got plenty of time s... The scenery is gradually changing from forest to farmland. Tonight's accommodation is a small bed and breakfast where I'm not allowed to arrive until five o'cl... Instead, I'm getting some shade from this structure which contains a large concrete trough. My room. Here's my bathroom. This tropical-looking plant is growing outside my window.... A view of the house where I stayed last night. Only one third of that tricolore is left. An open-top bendy bus on a trailer with a Luxembourg registration parked in a motorway service area. This was obviously a crossroads once. It's been modified to make it two separate roads but I can sti... Perhaps I should have followed the road round to the left at that previous junction. That would have... At the North end of that unpaved section, a huge hole has been filled with whole bricks and smashed ... Despite what I said ... Unfortunatley, it seems that there is now a blockage on the Northbound side of the motorway so a lot... A small town called Le Barp. The market in Le Barp. Apparently that hotel is very good. Its reviews made me want to stay there. The only problem is that... Apparently 82 rescuers died in a fire here in 1949. When I started this trip, there was a large fore... Cayac Priory, dating from the 13th Century. This cycle route sign is thinking big. It says that this is the way to Spain and, in the other direc... ... Norway! Just a picture of some people washing their cars. The next section of road goes through a motorway junction so, quite sensibly, the cycle lane is in t... An unusual communications tower. My hotel is one of several on an out-of-town industrial park. It's behind this place which sells and... This is where I'll park tonight and, with any luck, that's where I'll be eating. It's part of a chai... Bordeaux sunset. An odd bush. My road towards the centre of Bordeaux. The junction is a roundabout but the tram lines go straight ... A tram. The Stade Chaban-Delmas, home of the rugby team Union Bordeaux Bègles. Maximum attendance 402... The cycle lanes in Bordeaux are pretty good... ... although this one has a bit of an issue. Here comes today's biggest climb: the Pont d'Aquitaine. A view from the bridge. Looking back down. The land is higher on one side of the River Garonne than on the other so the brid... When I saw the exposed mud along the side of the river, I thought it might be a symptom of the long ... The Garonne. The Pont d'Aquitaine. Two quite different buildings. Not the only freestanding set of gates around here. Saint-Vncent-de-Paul. The Pont Gustave Eiffel, which I will be using to cross the River Dordogne. Below is the picture whi... It's gained a bike lane! Eiffel's bridge was built in 1883, replacing an earlier multi-span suspens... Some gravel. In 2011 I showed a view downstream towards the old railway bridge so here's a view upstream towards ... Because I'm now outside the original bridge, I can see these big markers showing where the navigable... An old stone tower in somebody's garden. Saint-André-du-Cubzac. Saint-André-du-Cubzac. Salon de toilettage? The view from my hotel window. My bike is locked to the fence on the far side of the car park, compl... This hotel is contactable in a lot of ways. A very clean-looking church in a village called Virsac. This place is called Asso Califourchon. It looks like a junkyard but must attract quite a few visito... For a couple of days, it has felt a bit like my rear wheel had lost some of its air but it's suddenl... It looks like there was a fire here. Somebody has left flowers on the gate so I wonder if it happene... A lizard. just another fancy house. The Post Office in Étauliers. Étauliers. A strange mural in Saint-Ciers-sur-Gironde. Those creatures are eating a human leg. Grapes. More grapes and a quiet road similar to those which I have been using today. The wooden post has a s... From here I can see the Gironde, which is the estuary shared by both of yesterday' big rivers, the G... These sunflowers look like they have had too much Sun. They're turning their backs on it now. Another view. Mirambeau, where I will be staying tonight. Tonight's is quite a small hotel so I had to predict what time I would get here. I estimated between... My hotel. The restaurant is closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It's a quirky little place, which I quite like. Here's the view out through my bedroom door. My door... Tonight I will be eating in the restaurant with the red umbrellas in the middle of this picture, sha... It's a very cow-based restaurant. The menus are printed on fake leather. An interesting thing is tha... A baguette vending machine. It looks like they come out end-first through a small slot in the front. I don't trust that horologer. Earlier I mentioned that the light wooden door in ... The scallop shell is, f course, the symbol of the Camino de Santiago. The I keep seeing them everywh... This roundabout has a beach hut on it for some reason. Like yesterday, I'll be using my own choice of route today. This is the D137 which goes from my star... This road is called Route de Silo. I can see why. A village called Bois. Passing over the A10. The war memorial in Tesson is decorated with a different type of shells. The River Charente, approaching the centre of the city of Saintes. The field on the far side of the ... This is normally a one-way road along the riverbank. There are roadworks on it at the moment and the... A steep street in Saintes. Saintes. The Roman amphitheatre. Here's something that I've seen a few times on this trip: structures which keep the Sun off parked c... What's that? A lot of hotel rooms on this trip have had the curtains closed when I arrived. Normally that's to ke... The roofless church in Les Essards, seen from inside a plastic bag which is protecting my phone from... Scenery. Pont-l'Abbé-d'Arnoult. The round stone structure has a rusty spigot coming out of the far side, and a trough coming out on ... I didn't go through the arch so I didn't get to see the delights of the village called StAgnant. The 19th of March is the most common date for road names in France but this is the first one that I'... On the horizon on the right is the town of Rochefort, where I will be staying tonight. On the left y... One of them is this transporter bridge. That seems like cheating though so I'm going this way. The two ways to cross the River Charante at Rochefort. Like the Dordogne bridge, this one has also had a good bike lane added in recent years. A view of the transporter bridge. The new cycle lane. Looking West, the sky and the river are both blue. I stayed at the summit of the road bridge for a few minutes to get this picture of the transporter g... Rochefort. The huge French flag which is visible from everywhere on this road is on the Town Hall. Outside some of the houses there are stickers like this referring to "forgotten people from his... A fancy house. Rochefort. Rochefort. Rochefort had a naval dockyard from 1665 to 1926 and was mainly a military town. Here is part of the... Rochefort is also a spa town but the spas didn't become popular until the 1990s. Togight I'm staying... One reviewer said that this is what hotels used to be like 30 years ago, with nice big rooms. I agre... I didn't expect my bike to have made this many friends. A half-finished building in Rochefort. Part of today's route. The mud at the bottom of this drainage ditch next to the motorway has formed interesting shapes. A b... A lot of today's ride is on roads like this, which are almost exclusively for bikes with just the oc... An unattended exhibition of some kind next to the beach. I don't know what these discs are but the picture shows even more of them than there are here. The b... The board on the right has illustrations of different types of knots. The tide goes out a long way here. The beachfront cycle path at Les Boucholeurs. Of the two cyclists that you can see, one came the cor... Les Boucholeurs. Châtelaillon Plage. The church in Châtelaillon Plage. The market in Châtelaillon Plage. The main street is closed for the market. Somebody here is using a bus shelter as a stall. Angoulins sur Mer. The view from a bench where I have stopped for a rest. It doesn't come out at all well in this photograph from my phone, but I think that lump on the horiz... Kite surfers with La Rochelle in the background. When the map showed that I had to ride round a lake, I was expecting something more natural than th... I'm now near La Rochelle University, where most of the roads are named after academics. This is Rue ... The self-service hire bike scheme in La Rochelle includes cars. It looks like the same company also ... Part of the working dock area of La Rochelle. One of the marinas near the city centre. The French textbooks which I had at school repeatedly used La Rochelle as their example of a French ... La Rochelle. When I visited the state capital of Arkansas two years ago, I made sure to see ... I will be staying where it says "HOTEL" no the right of this picture. La Rochelle. I like to try to get a room with a view for my Friday quiz nights. Hotel prices dropped quite a lot ... The toilet roll is in this little raffia basket. This isn't a spare toilet roll; it's the active one... My clothes will dry quickly with this combination of direct sunshine and the sea breeze coming strai... An arty view from my desk. There is music from are a few competing sources coming in through my windows. The loudest is from th... Somebody walking past with a harp on wheels. I need a few things from a supermarket so I'm going to go for a little walk around the old town now.... La Rochelle. Rue des Merciers. An arch which doesn't seem to have much purpose. The central market. La Rochelle. This picture got in here by mistake. The entrance to a hotel which is fancier than mine but doesn't have the view. Most of the windows of the building in the middle are boarded up at the moment. A mobile cheese shop. St. Louis' Cathedral. La Rochelle. The Great Clock. That's a lot of flavours of slush. The marina. Another view of the Great Clock. The marina. There's a ladder under the clock face. 5p? I'll have it! I'm feeling a bit cheated now. The rooms above mine have balconies. Oh,the harpist has come back and set up outside my window... with a chef. A big boat entering the marina. Somebody on a Brompton has stopped to talk to the harpist. The webcam on my laptop isn't very good but I've eventually managed to get it to show sensible-looki... La Rochelle marina by evening... ...and by night. Every hotel has had a coffee machine where one of the options has been a "long coffee" and... It's Saturday morning and some rowing pairs and fours have appeared. They come in between the two to... A little way back there was a permanent sign saying that this road was a dead end except for bikes. ... For the last 10 km, the front tyre has been deflating. That made steering a little hard to control, ... An old sign. This is where I'll be staying tonight but the hotel doesn't open for half an hour and the restaurant... This hotel has a pool table. I managed to get quite an early night this night so I could hear the ba... This is a coincidence. Somebody in the quiz last night had just made gazpacho soup for the first tim... I think the three-course meal deal would have allowed me to get a pudding for free but by the time ... I didn't see any horse-drawn carts. A simple bus shelter. The bridge across the River Lay at La Rochette. La Rochette. Scenery. In this picture I can see a little bit of the road ahead. The church in Essarts-en-Bocage, where I have stopped for a break. I would have stopped in Saint-Mar... I haven't checked whether this cemetery has a water tap because I don't need any but it does have pl... Essarts Castle. A small town called Chauché. Chauché. I didn't expect to be in Les Brouzils by three o'clock. Les Brouzils. Just some farm buildings. For most of the way though France I am staying close to motorways because that's where there are a l... Ha! That little stone barrier won't stop me. The bike has been pretty good today. The only issue is that, after the left and right pedals both ha... This place is called the Hotel St. James so I can't help wondering whether it's named after the Cami... I should give up looking at restaurant menus online. This time I had my heart set on the duck leg wi... The starter is this bouquet of prawns. I didn't expect them to still have their shells on. This is a strange road: two strips of beautifully smooth tarmac, with gravel and weeds on the middle... You don't often see street sweepers on rural roads like this. This one is going at walking speed so ... An unusual house. I wonder if it was once a windmill. A fairly uninteresting village called Montbert. According to the information board, one of the big s... Trains waiting at the end of a branch of the Nantes tram network. The bridge which will take me across the first half of the River Loire.... Most of the drivers, cyclists and pedestrians who I saw were looking at these roadworks as if they c... The way into the centre of Nantes. I'm now crossing the second branch of the Loire, to the North bank. This is the view upstream. This is downstream. The dome is the church of Notre-Dame de Bon-Port. The view back to the island between the two branches. Central Nantes. I'm not intending to eat here but I have now developed an interest in unusual-looking McDonald's bui... The Place Royale. I'm not intending to eat at that restaurant either, even though my hotel is the building on the left... I don't know whether these people have all stayed in this hotel or just in the city. I haven't reall... The view from my window isn't great but having a window that opens wide at all makes me happy. The a... Nantes. This is a piece of art by an artist called Ali Cherri. If I understood correctly, it consists of sc... Nantes. I think the green line on the ground is a suggested route for tourists to follow. There were maps of... Nantes. I don't know what this old stone thing is. Nantes. This is a strange roundabout. You can spiral down into the middle of it and disappear into an underg... You want me to visit the Pommeraye Passage? Okay. The green line goes in there so it must be worth s... Oh, yes it is. It's a bit like Leadenhall Market but built on the side of a hill so there are entran... Pommeraye Passage. A slightly different view of the Place Royale. When I arrived here I walked an unnecessarily long way round this floor to get to this room, and par... Part of my route t of Nantes, a city where a lot of people have cargo bikes. The River Erdre. It joins the Loire at Nantes but the last part of its length is in a tunnel under t... I came along this section of towpath, which had a lot of runners on it but not many bikes. I'm in quite a transport corridor now. I wonder what this sign has done to deserve getting shot at so much. Oh, I know Cricklade. I went there on ... Unusual: a section of path which is explicitly not part of the Camino. Part of the D69. It's not a busy road. This is on a different section of the D69, which is as straight and quiet as the one in the previous... The Retro Farming Museum. There's a warning not to be within 3 metres of this lightning conductor during a storm. The town of Issé. My hotel, where I've arrived right at the start of the hour when I said I would. The view from my window. I didn't spend very long just looking out of the window but in that short time I saw three classic c... Another touring cyclist has just arrived, and she wouldn't be the last. I don't know where they park... My room has a better picture of the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port than ... Châteaubriant. In Châteaubriant, the streets are closed for a market on Wednesdays. Châteaubriant. That's quite a remarkable extending table. The fortifications are themselves having to be fortified. Châteaubriant Château. An funny little milestone. The next section is an old railway line, as you can see. A tractor creating some dust. Like in some other roadworks zones that I've passed through, the workers here have painted dashed li... The middle language on the cycle route signs is Breton. My guess is that the bottom one is probably ... There will be a vintage car event here in a couple of weeks. That doesn't explain why there were so ... The church in Chelun has an unusual spire. This church is in Rannée. The oldest parts date from 1168 but the gabled aisle along this sid... There's also a toilet dedicated to Rannée's first mayor. A hotelier school? A leafy avenue leading uphill out of Moutiers, with another cyclist working his way up it. Another section of former railway line, which will take me for the next 11 km, almost to my hotel. A bridge over the old railway. "WARNING: BEES". "Dear cavaliers" is a good start to any sign. This one encourages them to use the grass ve... A field of corn cobs and a suggestion that I am under a popular flight corridor. I think these trail... I'm eating in my hotel tonight because there's not much else around here. There is another restauran... This motel car park was quite full last night but I've come out of my room to go to breakfast and fo... There is a road which goes straight into Vitré from my hotel but it's busy, has no shoulders ... I don't know what those strange convex and concave buildings are. All I can see by looking online is... Vitré After leaving the ring road, I came into the centre of Vitré on a quiet straight road whose v... A view back towards Vitré. Another view back along the way that I have just come. Hello donkey. Montautour. Another picture of some cows. I doubt if they get to see many people. Normally if the software suggested using a path like this I would ignore it and go a different way. ... I have been navigating on some tiny unsigned roads so I've been having to check the map frequently. ... Another street sweeper. This one is in Dompierre-du-Cemin. A former station on another converted railway. Who's this man eyeing up my hotel? The cushion in my room. Gazpacho soup! There are two other English cyclists staying here and, unlike me, they noticed that there's a design... This is the first town I've seen where the official name sign is in French, Breton and Gallo. A discarded kitchen unit in somebody's garden. I didn't expect to be going through a tunnel today and, indeed, I won't be. Fougères. Fougères. A road in Fougères which feels like it has been cleaned up recently. Fougères. I was going to go that way but somebody seems to have set up a funfair on it. Two dogs watching me. Also, is there supposed to be a thick cable coming out of that junction box in... I made a bit of a blunder earlier. The old railway line forked and both branches are now bike paths.... I've now left Brittany and entered Normandy. This is the road into a town whose name is St. James, s... This bench has a much better view than ... There's an exhibition of photography in St. James. I'm having a rest here, where there's an owl looking at me. This is one if the kilometre markers of the ... Scenery. Mont-Saint-Michel. I didn't think I would get to see it. Avranches has a kind of magic roundabout. I think I'll be seeing a lot of war stuff between here and Cherbourg. This is the monument to Genera... My hotel, the Golden Cross, just along the road from the Hotel Patton. It has a large car park. I knew this hotel would have bike parking because one of the reviews that I read mentioned it. It's ... The hotel is a 17th Century coaching Inn and is a wonderfully twisty warren. Look how that staircase... The hotel grounds. It has a proper glass, so I'm happy about that, and there are two chairs at the desk in case you wan... Here's what's on at the cinema. Where's dinner then? In here? Ah, no. In here. Avranches. Avranches. Now I have to go down this steep road. Is anybody else getting Dvořák? I've reached the bottom of the very steep road but not the bottom of the hill. Interesting plants. This old D-Day jeep pulled up while I was standing here. A little babbling stream. At least here I shouldn't have a repeat of what happened when I parked at the hotel. Cérences. Cérences. I've been seeing a lot of funny little cars in the last few days. A bit more of my route. There's my destination for today: Coutances (twinned with Ilkley). This road should go straight ther... There was nothing wrong with the road. It brought me down the hill into the suburbs of Coutances. No... The steep hill up into the centre of Coutances. Coutances. Coutances. The Town Hall. Notre-Dame Cathedral in Coutances. A smaller church. Is that an extension? There are still walls above where the walls on the ground floor are so it's a ... My room tonight. There are signs around the hotel suggesting various exercises. This one is called the "smart cr... I was about to set off but a rain shower has started so I'll wait a few minutes. Today I'm starting high but will lose that height quite soon so this will probably be the day's onl... Another converted railway. I will be on this one for the rest of the day, about 35 miles. Some of the railway's bridges remain but others have been removed so we now have to descend to road ... Another bit of the old railway. A touring group going the other way. The old station in Lessay. Apparently the passenger service on this line ended in 1970 and the goods... A view of la-Haye-de-Puits from a bridge on the old railway line. An information board here says tha... Is that an old train shed? A fork in the track but this one is well signposted. This bench is almost exactly 10 miles from my last rest stop so I stopped here for another break and... Perhaps confusingly for drivers, this roundabout in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte has one of the warning ... Most of these signs point to other places in Northern France but the one which first caught my eye w... Bricquebec-en-Cotentin. Bricquebec-en-Cotentin is where I will be staying tonight. There's a place to park my bike outside the town hall. An unlocked room under the town hall contains this row of old stone tables with what look like drai... The courtyard of Bricquebec Castle. The building on the left, inside the castle, is a restaurant and hotel. I've booked a room there for... The third bath of this trip. The view from my window. I don't know what the bleachers are for but if it was happening now I would... There's a choice of decent drinking vessels here. The one on the right looks more classy but is actu... Another view from my window. The little bell-shaped tower at the top does actually contain the bells... Part of the route to my room. In the hotel. Another thing that the hotel information said was that parking isn't allowed inside the castle but t... A view into the courtyard through another gate. It's okay that the restaurant is closed because that supermarket is open. It wasn't when I arrived h... I've just learnt a new word: canisac. I think I might just see where these steps go. A view of Bricquebec-en-Cotentin from the mound at the base of the tower. The steps just lead to here. Another view of the castle. A small window in the tower walls. Bricquebec-en-Cotentin. I can see a security flaw in the old castle door: if it was closed, there would still be almost enou... A room downstairs in the hotel. It smells as if the fireplace has been used recently, which seems un... The breakfast room. There is more construction happening. Oh, Monday must be market day in Bricquebec. The cage in the bottom left of the picture has live dov... Now that I've put the paniers on the bike, it might be too fat to get out from here between the mark... The stall on the left sells shellfish. The blackboard is advertising mussels from Utah Beach. Ah, a circus. Perhaps that's what the seating in the castle courtyard is for. This is the end of the line for cyclists. Beyond that gate, the old trackbed continues for about ano... Just an old house. The railway ended but the cycle route signs to Cherbourg continued... for a little way. Now there ar... It's getting narrower... ... and narrower. Well this is pretty but I would have preferred not to have had to come along that stream on the left... A tiny mammal in the road. I think it's a shrew. Here's another picture of it. There are some sturdy planks holding that earth bank in place. Suddenly a view of Cherbourg harbour and the Channel has opened up. They aren't visible in the pictu... Ravalet Château, without its moat. This is an unusual thing to get stuck behind. I don't know whether I've actually beaten the boat to the port but I've got here 12 minutes before i... That ferry is one which goes to Ireland but the red boat in front of it is the RLO Trader, which I s... Waiting to board.