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Inspire me with ideas for a trip of around 7 days, starting and finishing in Cherbourg. Any must see destinations, route advice, tips, alternatives. I'm toying with the idea of it.
Looking for quaint France, don't want to visit any cities, would use campsites / free camping & food on the go.
(42c slicks on a hybrid, road / track based, not gravel bike packing, using panniers and traveling lightish with tent & sleeping bag)
Ta
loads to see
Utah beach - nice museum (dead mans corner, St Mere Eglise
Campsites all along the DDay coast - can be pircey mind.
Falaise - campsite in the shadow of the castle
Chateau Guillard - campsite at the bottom of the castle _ theme going here
Bayeaux tapestry
Mont St Michel - campsite on the mainland
Loads of D day stuff to much to mention really - my tour was a mix of D day and Medieval
WW2 sites not really my thing.
I did the Tour de Manche recently, started in Roscoff and finished in Cherbourg. Lovely stuff.
Great place for a week ride - Me and the Mrs did this many years ago in the blissful days pre children. Left our car in Portsmouth down some sidestreet and cycled onto the ferry. Camped in lovely tiny sites all the way down the coast to Mont St Michele. Unfortunately I can't remember the route but it was very quiet. I do remember we cycled straight across the causeway and hid our bikes in someones shed at the base of the town we found unlocked as we had all our gear trusting they wouldn't put them out on the street! I bet you can't do that now. Happy days.
We used to cross to St Malo and the head south until we got to the sea. Then west, then North and then east.
On another tour we went south and down the Loire valley.
What ever you do have fun we always used too
I'd second St Malo from Portsmouth instead. Loads of seafood and breton galettes. Cycle down into Cancale and eat oysters fresh that morning. Cycle up the Mur de Bretagne. Lots of info around on the Web.
We've been poole-cherbourg-granville-jersey-poole. Was super chilled out, not mega miles but, loved it. Its bigger brother would be the full tour du manche.
My experience of Normandy was it didn’t have much “quaint” as it was pretty much levelled in WW2. I still enjoyed it though. The “Suisse Normande”, centred on the Orne Valley, was lovely.
The west side of the peninsula seemed pretty quaint. Kind of Devon from the 60s (I imagine)
Get off the ferry in Cherbourg and turn left. Follow the coast road down, do not miss St Vaast la Houge (cafe La Port has great food), going in land at St Mare Eglise towards Chef Du Pont, then just ride all over the Cotentin peninsula. If you go over to the west coast Barneville-Carteret are good. The whole of the area is full of small roads little villages and small towns often with little campsites. Places to eat are often simple and superb. Bricquebec is great beautiful. Cotentin is a Parc Naturel and full of history.
Enjoy.
Rode to Caen to get the ferry home a few years ago so I was headed in that direction. The NP des Perches was a nice area to ride through and the Loire-Anjou region is also nice from what I remember of family holidays a long time ago.
Depends on what distances you're thinking of. A loop from Cherborg around those national parks could be good, 700-900km? Rural French roads are so good for bike touring. I tend to just head for the NPs and link them up via the lanes and villages or smaller towns using a satellite view layer to pick out the forested areas or the contour layer to find roads along hill or valley edges that have great views. Itching to do it again this summer.