We survived! The facts:-
- 640 miles
- No tyre punctures (Schwarbe marathon tyres are ace! 4,000+ puncture free miles between the two of us. Excellent)
- One split airbed (Vango Trek – Vango customer services have a nice email from me waiting…)
- One sheered bolt off the bike panniers (fortunately carry spare bolts!)
- One accident with a dumb French granny opening her door and wiping me out. Mostly bounced but some damage to me and bike – bike fixed quicker than me – looks like I’ve taken a knife to the shoulder! One smashed mirror and a few scratches
- 28 nights in a tent
- 20 litres of wine. 50 cakes. 60 chocolate bars (each). 50 Baguettes
- 2 days of drizzle, rest were dry and mostly sunny
And can you believe it – with all that exercise we didn’t lose an weight!!! How unfair is that!
We aren’t going to blog too much detail about this trip, as it was just a bumble around Brittany and seeing what we saw. Overall it was enjoyable, but in truth, probably a bit dull for us. So pleasant, relaxing, but not really exciting or enough to fulfil our “action” hobbies. Without a destination like the Med as per last year, it was a bit dull.
But, lots of nice country side, food, beaches, campsites and pleasant things, and lots of time to read and chill. Mostly nice bike paths or quiet roads, though it was a bit undulating near the coast! Along some nice canals and rivers, through some very pretty places (St Malo was actually really impressive, as was Dinan and Josselin), quite a few reasonable villages and towns too. And an interesting empty lake due to Dam maintenance – Lac de Gureledan).
Overall, nice enough but not exciting enough to repeat. Next time we do a ride, we’ll make it more exciting with an end point or something awesome instead:)
Anyway, campsites were handy enough – ACSI discount card saved us a fortune, so we paid between €7 and €15 per night camping, mainly with electricity and sometimes a good pool, and just over that for a couple of good sites. So not too expensive. We got out on 10 July which is probably the latest you can leave it to avoid the school holidays.
The biggest nightmare was the journey back. 10:30 ferry, docked 18:30, and then we got to the station to get the train back – and the FGW gits were on strike. I mean – we’re used to the French going on strike, but this really was unexpected and caused us grief. Meaning a nightmare train journey via Basingstoke and Salisbury on a full train without enough space for bikes – was a ****** nightmare. Having limped on the last train back – we then had to cycle 7 miles home without lights along the canal… Suffice to say we didn’t get wet – but reiterates the home-France and France-home bits are the worst. Argh.
Anyway. All pictures from the trip are here. Don’t have too high expectations 🙂
