Le Grand Tour: Day 27 – La Bernerie-En-Retz To Saint-Gilles-Croix-De-Vie (86km)

By Andrew on July 29, 2022 • ( Leave a comment )

CURRENT LOCATION: Camping Le Petit Pavillon, Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie

I’m getting a little tired and weary. Not of the cycling – that’s fine – but of all the names of places. In Brittany it was a case of not being able to spell the towns and villages properly. Down here on the west coast it’s actually remembering the dam things. Just look at the title today. It’s a miracle it fits on a web page.

I haven’t a great deal to add to what you can in the pictures and video today. Everything went to plan. The route was easy to follow, the terrain predominantly flat, no wind to fight against, a game plan with the end-of-day campsite that worked perfectly (I identified three two-star sites in the rough area of where I wanted to be and told myself I would stop at the first one which looked OK; that happened when I got to campsite two, at the first one in the centre of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie I couldn’t see a blade of grass so moved on…)

The first half of the day was in open countryside, the second half through the tourist towns of the west coast and the forest that seems to surround most of them. Very pretty in different ways.

Tomorrow? Should I push myself and attempt to reach La Rochelle by the end of the day? Google’s cycling route seems to follow the EuroVelo 1 / Vélodyssée and puts it at 121km. That would be doable. Train to Royan first thing on Sunday (ah… that in itself might be an issue) as I cycled the Royan to La Rochelle stretch of the Vélodyssée from south to north back in 2015. There’s a municipal campsite very close to the centre of town. That would leave the cycle to Bordeaux on what remains of Sunday and Monday. Something upon which to ponder tomorrow as I cycle.

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