As you can see, piecing all the maps together in a long line would have been impossible in my relatively small living room, but here they all are stacked up on one another. I have followed the route from Calais and the good news is that there is only one slight break in the Eurovelo 5 route; once you cross the Alps at the Saint Gotthard Pass, the map for Switzerland stops and there is a short gap until you get to the northern point of Lake Maggiore where the Italian maps kick off. I put this down as a minor problem for the moment (which will, no doubt come back as a big problem to haunt me in the summer when I get lost freewheeling down the other side of the Alps). It is interesting re-reading the description of the route on the back of the Eurovelo map of Europe (for the list of towns and cities that EV5 passes). It does state that you should follow the Ciclopista del Sole in Italy. I’ve decided to follow La Vie dei Pellegrini. Need to think about that one more. The other thing that I am reminded of is that the EV5 crosses the Alps, as mentioned above, at the Saint Gotthard Pass. Jean-Marie Vion and his mates went to the Saint Bernard Pass. Why? Is there a better view?
Categories: Cycling
PS – when a sign says the road is closed… well, make your own decision. One time I should have listened, as it cost me half an hour of backtracking. Another time (pictured here), the road was, in fact, fine. Even cars could go through. I'm not sure why the signs were even there.
Having cycled a tiny section of Eurovelo 5, from Strasbourg, France down to Freiburg, Germany, I can say that while there wasn't a "break" in the path, there were points at which the signage was confusing and occasionally rather difficult to follow. For example, sometimes the shape of the sign determines the direction a route takes. When two cycle paths diverged, sometimes, as in this picture, it was indicated by the shape of the cycle path signs. In other cases, as it took me a while to realize, it depended on the order of the signs on the pole, like this one, which meant that Rhine route went to the right and some other cycle route went straight.That said, I didn't do enough research ahead of time or have any official documentation… I have the GPS coordinates from that ride, but you'd probably do better not to follow them, as I was in a hurry and when I lost the nice route, I didn't bother to find it again or note what sections were nice or not. Next time…Anyway, if you want to see my photos from that section of the ride, they start here in the middle of an album, as I haven't bothered to organize them yet. :-/More later, and perhaps I'll catch you tomorrow at 8! (UK time…)Cheers,~George J.