Vic's Travel Blog: Le Tour de Normandie

Summary of our trip from the 7th to the 11th Aug 2014.

We took the fast ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg where we stayed for the first night. Then followed 3 days cycling which took us to Ouistreham - over 126 miles in all. After a night in the port we came back to Portsmouth on in the morning.

Our trip to Normandy started with us staying overnight in Cherbourg. We stayed at the Mercure hotel which was only a short cycle ride from the ferry terminal. Prices and rooms very good, but the evening drinks and breakfast was a little expensive. There are plenty of alternative hotels in Cherbourg.

The next morning we went to the town centre, which was pleasantly atmospheric, with its small cafes and central market square. The route out of town seemed to be simple at first as there was a cycleway all the way to the east. But since the town maps were not clear we did lose our route initially, and took some time to find our way out of town. The objective was to find a route which wasn’t too hilly and would follow country lanes.

At last we got to the edge of Tourlaville which joins onto Cherbourg to the east. We found the road we wanted and to our surprise, it was marked as the cycle route to St. Malo! Excellent! As we were to later to find out the signage on this route was excellent and it took us all the way to Rocheville where the old railway line cycle route starts. These were excellent quiet country lanes, firstly steadily rising up and then down to the start of the old railway line track.

Also there were a number of wayside crosses on this route.

Just before we got to the railway track route we stopped in a small hamlet and asked an old lady who was in her garden if she could fill up our water bottles. Well, she invited us in to sit at her patio table to eat our sandwiches. Then she poured us all a glass of wine! We had a lovely chat with her with Crystal acting as interpreter. What kindness and hospitality she showed. We will be writing to Odette to thank her.

As you will see from the photographs the old railway track is a gravel path. It is excellently well surfaced, but is not suitable for narrow rimmed racing bikes. Our ordinary road bikes were fine. We stopped for our afternoon tea at the lovely town of Bricquebec , which has cafes, bars and a lovely castle , which appears to be open to the public.

We did get rather wet at times!

The map shows our route, which covers approximately 63 km (40 miles) from the centre of Cherbourg to the chalet holiday village at Port Bail where we stayed.

I would not recommend the holiday village as it’s really designed for people with cars who are self-catering. The next morning we stopped in the old port of the village and had breakfast at the hotel/restaurant named ’13 Arches’ which was excellent. This would be the best place to stay in this village as it has a lovely bar, very pleasant restaurant with a great menu and seating outside overlooking the estuary.

The next part of the route is show here:

We journeyed on back to the old railway track and followed this route all the way through to Carentan where we stopped and had an excellent lunch. This was clearly the best value lunch I’ve had in years, in any country.

In the afternoon we journeyed on and found ourselves on a very pleasant quiet set of roads which took us via Isigny-sur-Mer where there was a bustling street market in the centre of the town and on to Vierville-su-Mer and Omaha Beach. From here the cycle ride followed some busy coastal roads and eventually we turned off onto a quiet side road to dropped into the lovely little port of Port en Bessin.

The map above shows our route where we covered 85 km (52 miles).

There are plenty of restaurants in this lovely little port. We stayed at the King’s Hotel, which I think is ideal for cyclists, but there are a number of others to choose from.

Sunday morning market stall in Port en Bessin

The next morning it was raining hard so we delayed our departure until about 11:30 am. We journeyed uphill away from the port along the busy coastal road, but did find opportunities to move on to side roads where we could, and soon we cut down a side road into the lovely seaside town of Arromanches-les-Bains:

This was the site of one of the main British invasion beaches of the Normandy Landings in 1944. Here there are lots of cafes and restaurants and we had a great Normandy style lunch with cider gravy on roast pork washed down with a glass of local cider! We visited the museum to learn about the Mulberry docks and the massive feet of organisation and engineering which made the liberation of this area very successful.

After lunch we pushed our bikes up the hill above the village and then cycled on through seaside towns all the way to Ouistreham, which was our last night of the trip. We were pleasantly surprised by the fact that this part of the route enabled us to go on some quiet roads and along seafront promenades so we were away from the main route of the traffic. Sandy beaches all the way! In Ouistreham there are plenty of restaurants and places to stay all of which are very close to the ferry terminal.

This was our route on the last day: