Charlie welcomes you to his bicycle touring website. To learn more about us and our interests, browse our other website: http://www.lupicas.com.

Today is Wednesday the 4th of July and in just a few days, Sunday July 8th, I will be leaving on another great adventure, or so I hope.  I have been all over Europe with my wife and son but this year things have worked out a little different.  Wife, Deborah and son, William are off on their own 2 week adventure to visit grandma back in the USA. Then on their return, William is off to summer camp for 2 weeks.

With the family headed off to the US I decided it was time I finally stopped talking about doing a bicycle tour and actually did it. I have been hoping that my brother would join me but he and his partner are heading to London.  This will be her first time visiting "the continent" and I'm sure they will have a great time even though I will miss having the company.

 For weeks, perhaps months I have been trying to decide exactly where to go and what to see on my touring adventure.  At first I thought I wanted to go back and tour the Clermont-Ferrand area of the "massif central"; the rugged mountainous area of central France.  I found a tour in one of the travel books titled "Les Volcans d'Auvergne"; or the Volcanoes of Auvergne. This is a beautiful, mountain terrain dotted with the remanants of extinct volcanoes. But the whole tour was only 3-4 days.

 Plan2: Next I thought I might want to go back to Le Mont St. Michel; the magnificient medieval monastery and supporting village nestled on a small "island" off the coast of Normandy.  This destination would include a stop in Paris, then off to Giverny -- home of the French painter Monet, and Honfleur -- the once great seaside resort favored by the impressionists. After stopping at Le Mont St Michele I planned to head over to St Malo; a wonderful walled city that has managed to retain some of it's former charm.  But this was still too short.

Plan 3: Do Le mont Paris - St Michel then take a train to Nantes and follow the Loire River upstream through the famous Loire River Valley dotted with castle fortresses, monasteries, cathedrals, and your every day 16th century mansion. The most visited part of the Loire is between Angers and Nevers and it is only a short train from Nevers back to Paris.

Plan 4: Do 3; which if you remember includes plan 2, and add to it a train trip from Nevers to Clermont-Ferrand and then do plan 1.  Starting to get ambitious here since we are now at around 20 days of touring and an unknown number of kilometers, or miles if you like.

Plan 5: not to be outdone by plans 1 - 4 plan 5 seeks to round things out with a tour of Provence. After reaching the end of the tour of Les Volcans d'Avergne take a train to Nimes, ride from Nimes to the Roman aqueduct at Pont de Grad, swing over to Avignon, and then ride off to conquer Mont Ventoux, one of the most famous mountains ridden as part of the "Tour de France". Then "I've had enough, no more; home via train."  First sensible thing I've written in the last twenty minutes.

But wait, there's more; Plan 6: Ditch all of the other plans and come up with a new one. One that is less scattered across all of France. One with a more precise theme than "get on the bike and ride until I can't or won't ride any further". In my research of all of these various options I read a lot of interesting articles and finally came across a book on Amazon.com that was calling out to me; "Cycling the River Loire" with the subtitle, "The Way of St Martin".

Hum, that sounds interesting. As it turns the author suggests a 1300 kilometer (800 miles) tour of the Loire starting at the Headwaters in the "massif central". Actually, it starts in Orange; which is only a stones throw away from Avignon.  So this tour would include Avignon , the massif central with its volcanic peaks, and the Loire Valley -- ending at the Atlantic Ocean. This sounds like it is finally taking shape. It includes some aspect of 3 of the potential tours and has a theme; The Loire River Valley and its castles.

So it seems that I have chosen a route. (Of course there is still time to add segments).

Charlie