The Périgord, the Pays de la Loire and Northern Burgundy

The summer of 2001 took my wife Carol and me (and our bikes, of course) back to France for the 14th time. This time we would be joining 4 friends (Sue Fleming, Patty Keeble, Chris McGee and Sue McDonald) for a tour of the Pays de la Loire and northern Burgundy after we had cycled by ourselves for 11 days from Toulouse to our meeting place in the Vendée. Our frequent cycling companions, Peter and Heather Stark, had also planned to join us with the others but a family illness caused them to remain behind in Canada - a great loss to our group. Carol and I had not been to the Loire region since our first cycle trip in France in 1984. Both Sue's had also cycled the Loire valley in the past but this would be the first cycle tour anywhere for both Chris and Patty. Because of the size of the group, all our accommodations had been booked before we left. As with all my tour reports you will be seeing my personal view of the trip, colored by my many biases, and a disturbing tendency to verbosity. As I always say: Caveat emptor! (Let the buyer beware!)

(There may be some references to prices in francs. At the time of our trip, the franc was about 21 cents Canadian or 14 cents in US funds.)

The attached map outlines our route. Select the trip segment below.

Part 1: Toulouse to the Rendezvous

Part 2: Pays de la Loire

Part 3: The Upper Loire and Northern Burgundy

Link to some of our other cycle trips

Link to our home page