In the depths of a wet, windy and dreary British winter I revisit my travels in Europe last summer to bring back a little of that warmth, sun, sea-breeze and joi de vivre that the continent – and in particle – France seems to have in such abundance.
Follow me as I start my journey back to England after Paris-Brest-Paris. On this first leg of the journey I travel to Dieppe via Rouen which takes in the winding and scenic L’Eure valley; followed by a second day in France kissing the shores of the North Sea at Le TrĂ©port to Cuhem in the heart of North East France.
En route I encounter a classic car rally, several chateaux and sumptious villages with many medieval dwellings in them.
It’s starting ah head Homeward now Friday the 25th of uh August looks like it’s going to be a Broody day just starting to skirt my way around the uh outside of Paris now uh today’s route slightly different got to go to damp and fire uh fire a City got the name but you’ll
See it later on hopefully it’s not going to rain too much but you it’s been hot and sunny all the time so far so got a little bit of rain I don’t mind it’s Russia so this is going to be interesting Oh Uh got nice Valley I’m going down and I’m still on the outskirts of par I haven’t actually crossed the S yet but um yeah beautiful valley though I’m just slowly curving my way around pass the Renault Factory just before I just love these gently sloping and winding roads like this
One could be in the Els this is a much nicer way it’s um heading out further west um I found through a bitter experience that uh you go to Central Paris and out the other side you’re in for lots of steep hills and uh you still
Have to go over the hills one way or the other but this way you sort of gradually wind your way around them the TS around the outskirts of Paris quite tweet and uh I guess because there’s enough people the cafes and the bakeries and so on
They’re still open but uh when you get further out L the times are sort of um commuter town I guess there not much going going on for them that’s it up the valley side again now going to another lovely wooded part now still haven’t crossed the sand well not of my knowledge
Anyway really nice food it’s d11 not long went through 72 just gently rolling very nice these are the current views it’s uh gently rolling Woodland pasture land very nice lovely for cycling on smooth Tac just gently rolling heels on too bad think a past hopefully the worst of the
Hills now got a little bit of a headwind uh it’s in the 20 something may be low 20s today much more bearable temperature and uh yeah so now they’re uh they’ve harvested the crop to getting the fields ready for the next season so uh the cycle of
Life it never seems certain here does it yeah yeah nice very rural lovely keep it posted classy I very pretty Villages along this uh Valley this is a nicer route than the Avenue ver there more to see classic Mar I think a lot of villages and towns
Are preparing for the like autome uh orust sort of Fate you know marking the end of sum of I guess celebrating the Harvest and everything they call them Brook HS and uh they got another name for them which I can’t remember I’m seeing lots of signs for
Those but there’s a very jolly year go through these Villages it’s similar to the crosswell in many ways for the uh the architecture of the buildings the wooden beams lots of floral decorations around very very nice and then we’re back out into this lovely uh Rich pasture land and Woodland relatively flat little
Roland heading to ran that’s uh I remembered in the end it was ran where I’m heading today and then going after ran I’m going to head to D there might be a disaster uh just have to just have to see that was uh I like the name of this one it’s sort of
Zou to the river valley um just have it very jolly and I’ve feeling very jolly at the minute cuz this is a a lovely ride back and I’ve got such nice views of this beautiful Valley Wide expansive valley floor yeah the birds are uh Happy they’re picking the last bits of corn
Out of the fields yeah good it’s all good so I don’t know the sun’s come out as well might have to put the shades on soon we just see how how it develops okay give you an update later is So I just um found this tranquil little campsite by the river uh you can’t gain much access to it because the um most the houses have got private access to the river side so this is one of the few little places we can actually just stop and have a picnic and look at
The river but it’s very picturesque the whole area I’m now moving on to a main road uh hopefully it’s not going to be too busy nice bit of river well how nice is this a nice little bit of Riverside Meander just past the halfway mark on this ride to
Deep and uh so far it’s been really this first half has been excellent much more interesting AV so definitely we’ll plan to use this route again unless the next half or past the next bit are not very nice just have to see yeah ended up on a bit of Avenue V after
All never mind it’s all right the minute we’ll just keep cracking on finally crossing the [Applause] sand [Applause] [Applause] so maybe this is the sunent how many SS are There So after crossing the sun before uh I got to this uh Place uh U vosic and um there was a really steep climb which there always is up from the send Valley got the top of it all the way back down um back to the Senter again as you
Can see behind me nice view but it does mean that somewhere up there prob probably have to run I’m going to be climbing over some more Hills again these uh poles are very interesting not quite sure what they do they sort of dangle people off the end of the mosic Mighty
River um lots of White Cliffs on the so all these sort of Hills that you see on the um the right Bank of the river I I was going to take some P pictures before but I was on a very busy road and it wasn’t massively
Safe to do so but there’s a lot of lots of M clip so these are all chalk and probably Flint bit like Sussex wheel I suppose all these Hills uh you can’t see the ones between the tree and uh yeah very impressive some some little uh caves and things right so Ruan is
Next um I’m expecting to be busy I went there many many many years ago maybe oh over 40 years 45 and I remember it was hellish um just walking around the city center so I just hope that uh they’ve improved the TR the infrastructure of cyclist since then
Because uh otherwise it’s going to be very interesting okay so that’s an update uh at this point and I will give you another one later on so it looks like I’m starting to leave the center of Ruan now lots of bars lots of restaurants along the river side bit blusty today not many
People uh outside and it looks like uh River Cruisers like Viking river Cruisers come here along with other River Cruisers um looks interesting place I’m not stopping I’m just keep keeping going I just want to get to uh deep I’ve actually gone too far turning around another Valley Road bit more hilly this
One look that roof that’s what I call a proper roof that good solid build for years get some solar panels on it nothing wrong with it nice place day after day L on Hill all thing that’s one hell of a piece of scuffing you don’t mind me seeing you send in into
GM North Sea straight ahead all somewhere in deep going the wrong way down to oneway street is this like CL jaau DM today I’m blessed with one of those things as cist most wishes for a Tailwind after yesterday’s headwind it’s most welcome and despite the forecast of showers um it’s gloriously sunny
Wow so with any look today’s going to be a breeze oh I do like to be beside the seaside oh I do like to be beside the sea well I wouldn’t be be signed the sea for too much longer so I thought i’ capture a little bit of the wave
Action um because I’m going to be going into deeper rural northern France and then Belgium and uh we won’t be seeing the SE until I get to the Netherlands in uh is it 3 days time I think today Saturday last Saturday this uh particular Expedition next Saturday I’ll be at the flying gate
Weekend and uh yeah something amazing happened uh I met some well there were lots of people who asked about my bike uh here it is just in case you’ve forgotten what it looks like yeah so lots of people asking about my gate um and one of them was a reporter
From gcn and they’ve written a nice little article and they featured 10 steel bikes from uh P breast par and guess what my gate is mentioned as am I so I’m well Chu with that um and uh really the the kudos for that needs to go to Trevor Jarvis who built
This beautiful machine and uh for whom I’m very sad to say we weren’t able to get into the um competition this is a competition and uh for the best handmade bikes but I I didn’t know the rules and so on it’s very Arcane um hopefully in 2027 one of Trevor’s machines will be
Able to be awarded the Accolade that it so rightly deserves cuz this is a beautiful machine not just to look at but to ride it’s absolutely steady as a rock very comfortable and when you when you do need to put the power down if you’ve got any power to give that is it
Uh it really responds so uh thanks Trevor beautiful machine good morning I’m just been blown along at 29 mil uh kilm an hour here very nice indeed I guess those uh guys wished they were traveling in my direction but I had enough of that yesterday so today it’s payback it look
Glorious these are the views just coming into toille um somewhere that I am pretty certain had an active role in the in the war from memory toille have to look it up anyway beautiful morning cows might be some sheep over there lovely glorious can’t complain no way yes very nice [Applause] he [Applause] f just love it when those old uh classic car rallies past you which they often do when you’re on a cycle route I think they must look at cycle routes and think yeah that’s a good place to drive old cars very nice up get up there
Okay I know you want to see one last little bit of the sea so here it goes looking Broody over in England I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s uh sort of very wet over there uh just climbed away from the coast hopefully the last really steep climb
I’ve been sort of hugging the coast so it goes up and down up and down and uh yeah I just stopped amazingly stopped at this uh Cafe sort of restaurant place um nobody in it are you serving food no kitchen doesn’t open until 12:00 so I got myself a coffee walked across
The road to The Patisserie and got a fantastic and I have to say I can’t I can’t uh emphasize this enough a solid block of chocolate FL FL I’ve never seen one before Oh my God it was so gorgeous so I just went back to the
Cafe and uh popped that in drank the coffee and paid up and uh amazingly on the menu they had desserts presumably the kitchen doesn’t need to be open for a dessert but who cares they lost I gained oh my God I gained so much I’ll have to post a picture of
What’s the the chocolate FL because it was it’s going to take me a long time to get over it put it that way oh my God is than go truck are powered very nice uh raining still but uh you know it gives you that little bit of a break behind the Tractor watch’s go is well been quite lucky with the weather I got rained on for an hour or so quite heavily and uh the sun came out again and it dried out and all the dogs came barking um and yeah lovely all the butterflies out the fires are out
And Yeah clouds are dissipated a bit of Blue Sky cannot complain just cruising Along on course for uh arriving with my hosts this evening in about an hour and a half’s time hopefully nothing goes wrong and uh yeah nice oh nice pile of dirt wind powered that’s what I’m being
At the minute just blowing along with the Wind on my back what a sight’s just coming in cruising in off the plateau those Hills in the distance might be the border with buing I don’t know find out tomorrow but we’re cruising in to the end of the day there there He P