10th to the 24th of May 2024 by Vic Ient
We cycled coast to coast starting in Royan on the Atlantic coast (Bay of Biscay), firstly along the Gironde, then the Garonne and then the Canal du Midi to Béziers and the river Orb to the Mediterranean coast!
This was a great trip – we cycled 631 km (392 miles). Over 400 miles if you include the trip we did further east in Languedoc near Nimes in order to visit the amazing Roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard. Click: Photos trip details HERE.
Once we had arrived at Royan the task was relatively simple, – cycling 400 miles and enjoying visiting great places like the beautiful walled city of Carcassonne.
The hard work in setting up this trip was arranging the logistics and booking tickets for the train journeys across France to and from St Malo. Arranging the crossing was really a piece of cake and getting to and from Portsmouth was no problem.
The real problem was travelling by train with bicycles that will ‘fully assembled’. If we had bicycles which could be disassembled the journey would be relatively simple but electric bikes are not easy to disassemble and they don’t fit into a box or bag of a maximum size of 130 cm x 90 cm. Therefore, we had to find railway routes which allowed us to take our bikes on and off just in the same way as you would on local trains here in Sussex. The difference is we were covering much longer distances. From St Malo to the start of our journey was about 400 km (250 miles). However, with my growing knowledge of the French railway system I was able to achieve this, and we had the added benefit of staying overnight at the atmospheric old town in Nantes and at La Rochelle which is a beautiful ancient port on the west coast of France on our route.
Having rested for a day we took the train north to Corunna and then cycled to Ferrol, another major Spanish seaport. We then took a short journey on the narrow gauge FEVE railway where we joined the north coast of Spain at a small fishing port with a beautiful beach, Covas. We then took 9 days to cycle the ‘Camino del Norte’ back to Santander. A wonderful journey by some truly beautiful beaches and craggy cliffs, – much like Cornwall. We went inland to and skirted beneath the beautiful range of mountains which run along the north coast of Spain, – the Picos de Europa before returning to Santander for the ferry journey home.
Great cycle ride to France this August! Here is my Facebook page with a summary of the route. Also, 
