FRANCE ON THE QUICK
You’ve got a few days free and you fancy heading across the Channel. But where do you go? RiDE’s very own Francophile has the answer…
NORMANDY IS PERFECT for a long weekend away – easy for a huge chunk of the British population to get to, quiet roads, great food and amazing scenery. Inland it’s all green fields, hedgerows and cool woodland, but at the same time you’re rarely ever more than half an hour’s ride from dipping your toes in the sea.
We’ve come up with three routes that should give you a proper feel for the area, working on the assumption you’ll be starting from the Caen area, having arrived in France via Ouistreham, Dieppe or Calais: if you’re arriving via Cherbourg or Saint Malo, or even Roscoff, you can just swap the order to suit.
In fact, please don’t take these routes as set in stone at all – they’re just a starting point, linking some of the key places and best roads together to make a loose loop. You can do them backwards, or mix them up according to where you’re staying each night.
What are you waiting for?
DAY 1 DO MENTION THE WAR
Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah. Nearly 80 years on, the shadow of D-Day still looms large over Normandy as a whole, and over the coast west from Caen in particular. So today’s route starts near the above-named allied landing beaches at the iconic Pegasus Bridge and the Café Gondrée, officially the first building to be liberated in France. It’d be rude not to have a photo, but even ruder to take one inside the cafe, so please don’t (but do look inside – it’s wonderful).
Then we’re off, back up to Ouistreham, which is at the extreme eastern end of Sword Beach, and we’re hugging the coast through Lion sur Mer to Courseulles before turning in to the village of Ver sur Mer to find the entrance to the British Normandy Memorial. Officially opened in 2021, this beautiful memo
