Paris Trip - Gourney-en-Bray to Dieppe

Final day of the Paris Trip!  50 miles, 3 hills over the first 20 miles and 1-2% descent for the next 30 into Dieppe.

Checking out the Le Havre to Paris route - La Seine a Velo.

Cloudy and quite cold as we set off.  Didn’t have all the gear on, but pretty close.  Of course once the hills start, you warm right up.  And then during those long descents, you get chilled all over again!  Doesn’t help that the current waterproofs are truly waterproof - from the outside in and the inside out, makes things cold and clammy.  Still surrounded by beautiful farmland as far as you could see.

Stopped Neufchâtel-en-Bray again for lunch as we were passing by right at 12:00

The Avenue Verte was even more fun with a bit of a descent.  We averaged 18mph for most of the last 30 miles which was a real treat on a last day!

Made it to Dieppe via the Avenue Verte all except for the last mile in the Centre Ville, which was a nice contrast to the mostly all on road route we took on the way out. 

Mandatory kitchen equipment, I think!

There was a certain amount of celebration at the end of the day!

Overlooking Dieppe Harbour

My prize for all that navigating!  Plat du Mere

Chocolate macaron dessert!

Very nice end of the tour treat!

Miles pedalled:  126 + 117 =243 

Altitude gain:  5025 + 3825 =8,850 

Rest Day (Sort of):  Paris

Favourite meal:  Ile St. Louis w/ Le Chat

Number of Beers:  Classified

Biggest Beer:  Montmarte

Most Exciting Moment:  Arriving at the Eiffel Tower

Congratulations, Chris, fantastic job on your first cycling tour!  It was not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination and you smashed it!

Paris Trip - Santeuil to Gournay-en-Bray

 This is an out and back tour.  You’d think it would be a repeat of the trip out, but in the main it’s not.  You see things from different angles or things you missed ‘and’ you repeat the things you liked.  We didn’t see this on the way out…

Today was a good day.  We left Santeuil up a bit of a climb (huff puff!) and then pedalled across miles and miles of farmland.  Beautiful and no traffic.  There were three hills today.  Two small ones and the biggest one of the tour

King of the Mountains retains his title!

Passed by more chateaus along the way.

I was told not to talk about the big hill we had to climb so I stopped.  Later on, Steve said to me, ‘I think we should have some food before the big hill’.  I said, ‘We’re on top of it!’

Lunch in Gournay-en-Bray, after the big hill!

We have a bath, one of the best parts of the trip!

Had a lovely big lunch, so not really interested in dinner tonight.  Some chips and beer / wine were plenty for the evening.  Penultimate day done!

Paris Trip - Paris to Santeuil

Crazy Parisians on bicycles made for an exciting departure from Paris especially when mixed with rush hour traffic!  In thinking back about the trip today, might have been better starting earlier or later to avoid Monday morning traffic - bike and car!

The bike lanes were almost as busy as the car lanes.  At times, we were going 12-14mph and bikes were whizzing by us!  Really great that there are the bike lanes though, quite separate from car traffic.  Wasn’t always the case, but quite often.

Today’s route took us along and across the Seine in places.  The first third was getting out of Paris.  We took a different route out than we took in.  The route in was very scenic through parks and interesting parts of the city, but the 30 miles took us a full day.  The last parts getting into central Paris were very downhill, less fun getting back out.  All of that would not be a problem usually, but due to the lack of a hotel in Vaux, we were going an additional 12 miles on the way back.

We did get to do the run up to and around the the Arc de Triompe (albeit some of it was walking) - felt very Tour de France when I had a second to think about anything besides navigating and signalling!  12 avenues meet here with no traffic lanes marked - utter chaos!  What an amazingly crazy roundabout! 

Getting out of the city was ‘exciting’ and I’m sure there was a better route.  We do know of a great one, it’s called the Eurostar.

About 7 miles to get out, but the we pedalled on quiet lanes and along the Seine and the Oise for the rest of the day - lovely, and quiet!

Starting the trip back to Dieppe and staying in a French farmhouse in Santeuil, a quaint little village with no shops and no restaurants.  

Picked up a picnic dinner from a little supermarket - wine, cheese, hard sausage, fois gras.

Wine is not so highly taxed here so you can get some quite nice ones for €5.

Dinner on the patio in the front garden.

Such a contrast to Paris, not bad just a total contrast.  City centre to French countryside.  Very nice place to overnight!