Annecy to Normandy help

[Wonkey donkey]

Evening all. Planning a trip in September covering Italy down to Monaco and then route grand alps back to Annecy or Geneva. I know the area pretty well and am happy up to the point of Annecy. Bikermate I am going with wants to spend a few days in Normandy on the way back and get the ferry from Caen to Portsmouth. I am after an idea of what route I should take from Annecy to Normandy, avoiding as much as possible, motorways.

We have around a day and a half to get form A to B so can anyone recommend a, fast ish route through France, avoiding motorways that will be semi interesting to ride? From what I gather that part of France can be pretty dull so any suggestions would be great.

Cheers

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I have moved this into the main French section.

Richard

 

[wessie]

you won't go far wrong drawing a straight line on a map from Annecy to Caen as this will take you via the Morvan, Loire & Perche areas.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tEzFG5PqwXPYiiWc8 I just selected 3 waypoints with no motorway and Google did the rest. 12 hours riding so it is a hard slog to achieve in a day and half riding when you factor in stops. You might want to add some motorway sections to fit your timescale

 

[Wonkey donkey]

Cheers Wessie. I agree re some motorway stretches so will factor it in,
Many thanks

 

[SBD]

I’ve done the Gien - Caen bit a few times but was years ago. Was ok, reasonable roads, not too busy then, Sully - Chartres is flat & not very exciting, after that it picks up a bit as it gets hillier.

The Caen bypass is always heaving, can be really slow. Caen centre is quite nice and the WW2 Memorial is worth a gander.

 

[Andy63]

Cant recommend a route however there are two cities that are a good half way stop (well slightly more than half way), Orleans or Tours
Orleans is perhaps a more impressive city and speaks for itself in terms of architecture and nightlife.
Tours is a lovely place if you d go seek out the hidden old town area of Place Plumereau very viberant full of resaurants and bars you will find it west of the main street Rue National. https://www.google.com/maps/@47.3943687,0.6819363,3a,75y,268.43h,87.24t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1smA7njaOP1Z8zQZdcwov-oQ!2e0!6shttps://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?panoid=mA7njaOP1Z8zQZdcwov-oQ&cb_client=maps_sv.tactile.gps&w=203&h=100&yaw=186.92473&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656?authuser=0&entry=ttu
Both are on the Loire river which is worth the ride between if you have the time.

In Caen usually stay in the Ibis Caen centre or Mercure (same building) with underground parking just up the street from the hotel is a small "old town" area with bars and restaurants on rue du Vaugueux https://www.google.com/maps/@49.185...2L5Sw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu

 

[Wapping]

The classic, tell me and my friend, great roads (no motorways) across France for not much under 500 miles (or maybe not much under 600 miles) we have a day and a half….

Depending on where you want to aim for in Normandy (it’s a very big area) there is only one way or, at a push, two. I have routed it to Le Tréport in Normandy, simply as it is on Normandy’s upper eastern corner, as I’ve assumed you and your friend will want to work your way westwards (“Over a few days”) towards Caen.

Here’s way one, 480 miles, avoiding motorways. This is near enough most of the classic way to get to Calais ie. Dijon > Troyes but then, instead of going to St Quentin > Arras > Calais, you need to turn north west, to skirt to the east of Paris, to head roughly between Beauvais and Amiens.



Here’s way two, 579 miles, avoiding motorways



ViaMichelin, broadly similar to way one, 432 miles



For questions like yours, I cannot recommend ViaMichelin and Kurviger enough. ViaMichelin gives pretty safe suggestions A to B. Kurviger will sort of do the same, unless you put it into its extreme twisty algorithm mode, when things often change. Either way will require you to fine tune, to suit you and your friend’s holiday plans.

As a bit of fun (and to show what can be done, with very little effort, using nothing more than an iPad) I put Kurviger’s route two into MyRoute. I then switched MyRoute’s map layer to Michelin maps. The longer 600 mile route, if you have time and want to avoid motorways and ride D roads, is not bad.








It does though need a bit of tidying-up as Kurviger can get carried away. Here, for example, you’d probably want to stay on the D7 instead of mindlessly jinking off:



In other words, don’t just accept routes blindly, when they are spat out in under a second. You might end up, unfairly cursing your Garmin for taking you on the rediculous excursion off the D7, when all it is doing is taking you exactly where you told it to go.

Hopefully, this will give you and others some ideas, not least on using apps and websites to help you. I’d now suggest thst you sit down with your friend to chew over it all over. You know him and yourself, way better than we do. Can the 600 mile route work, avoiding D roads all the way? Can you adjust it so that it does suit you? I bet you can! For example, take half a day out of your “For few days” mooching about in Normandy and add it to your “Day and half” to go from Annecy to Normandy. Bingo! You now have two days…. I guess you get the drift.

Your turn now…..



PS I always love the “Avoiding motorways” thing. The bikermates’ holy mantra, repeated like a Catholic nun saying her rosary.

 

[Wapping]

Just as a last thought.

I looked in RiDE magazine’s various routes, to see what that might throw up. They have a two day journey Caen to Grenoble. Scroll down in here, to Getting to Rhône Alps:

RiDE -RiDE Guide to Europe – Third edition

All the routes and GPX files for the RiDE Guide to Europe, volume three.

www.ride.co.uk

Yup, their suggestion goes the other way but it works in reverse too, obviously.

All you’d then have to do is use their suggestion but cut the corner, as you start in Annecy, not Grenoble:



That is easy to do:



See this post and thread on the advantages of stealing / borrowing ideas from wherever you can find them:

How to steal, use and improve ideas

I was flicking through the online pages of the latest edition of the German Tourenfahrer magazine 4/2024, when I saw this article: https://www.tourenfahrer.de/tour-datenbank/tour/hattons-weg-1329/detail/ In essence it’s three bods’ holiday from Germany down into the middle and south coast of...

www.ukgser.com

Once you have paid for decent membership of Kurviger and MyRoute, then the rest of the tapping around is free. Use the internet, you really can’t break it….. oh, and maybe buy a map or two, too.

 

[Wapping]

Here you go.

Annecy to Honfleur (a popular destination) 507 miles.

Motorway to start Annecy > Macon > Chalon sur Saone. Then N and D roads all the way Then a bit of motorway at the end, before switching to D roads for the final run into Honfleur. This’ll set you up nicely for the ‘Must do’ Normandy beaches and the return sailing from Caen.



You could change it a bit to leave the motorway, not at Chalon sur Saone but at Macon. Then go more on the diagonal through the Morvan. But, I concentrated mostly on getting you to Normandy.




All I did was join RiDE’s two day route of Caen to Grenoble together in MyRoute on my iPad. I then reversed it. Then I added in Annecy at the start, before editing out the bit down to Grenoble. I then amended the destination to be Honfleur, deleting Caen.


Here is the Annecy to Caen route, overlaid with the Annecy to Le Tréport rout in red. As you can see, not surprisingly, they both take roughly the same general direction but their distances differ by about 100 miles. 100 miles on French D roads is, give or take, three hours. You could go up either section for the run at the start between Annecy and Orleans.




PS The sad truth is, in all of this I never touched a paper map at all. Apps, algorithms, the internet, an iPad and a dollop of imagination, was all that was required

 

[Wonkey donkey]

Brilliant boys thank you. I didn’t realise what I thought was a simple question would offer up so many options. Wapping you go above and beyond thank you.

 

[Wapping]

Thank you.

I have tidied-up the route between Annecy and Le Tréport, which Kurviger spat out. Besides taking some odd deviations, the chief problem is always that the maps used by Kurviger, differ from those used by MyRoute. This means that sometimes the MyRoute version would take the wrong exit at a roundabout or take little excursions off the ‘proper’ road, only to then turn around again. I do wonder how often bods blame their GPS device for these ‘errors’.

Here it is:



Is it perfect? No. No route ever is for everyone.

Might it need some final tidying-up? Very probably, yes.

Would I load a route of 550 miles into my GPS without breaking it into two (or more) chunks? No.

Would I ride it? Yes, if I had the time. Some bods, in their seemingly endless pursuit of riding D roads or ‘twisties’, forget that progress can be slow that way, particularly if they are by nature a bimbler or want to stop for 30 minutes every hour. Some cannot picture what 550 miles means, getting caught out by “Well, it didn’t look that far on my map or computer screen”. To put it into perspective:

London to Endinbugh direct ie. Using motorways and main roads is 400 miles, so 150 miles short of 550. As a clue as to what that means, London to Sheffield direct, is about 150 miles.

London to Aberdeen direct is 540 miles, so about the same as 550.

All they need to do is equate it to distances in the UK (a mile is the same length abroad as it is here at home) and ask themselves would they ride (or even drive) from Aberdeen to London in a day and, if so, avoid all motorways and major roads doing so? The answer will probably be much the same abroad. It’ll become more so if they are chasing their own tails, wanting to get to a hotel before the restaurant shuts.

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It was quite a fun exercise. Not least, I hope that it shows that anyone can do the same, using the simple to use tools that the internet offers, often for free.