Tour de Normandie-Cotentin

Stage 1, Sunday: Ouistreham to Carentan

distance 110 km; climb 700 m

 

Meet the Glaudax brothers (aka Richard & Tony) on Saturday evening at the Ship & Castle pub by the Portsmouth international ferry terminal where you can get some dinner and stow your luggage on our van before boarding the 23:00 overnight ferry to Ouistreham. The group will reassemble in the Ouistreham ferry terminal on arrival for a welcome to Glaudax breakfast, a quick briefing and le grand départ!

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You will be following our GPS-mapped and recommended EuroVelo coast-hugging route heading west, passing the WW2 allied landing beaches: Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha... There's a chance to visit the impressive and moving British Normandy Memorial and shortly after that Aromanches is a great place to stop for morning coffee and croissants.  Omaha Beach at 66k, where the Americans took heavy losses in June 1944, is a good place to find lunch and the US cemetery & memorial. 

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Carentan is a charming small town with plenty of interesting places to visit if you still have the time and energy when you get there!​

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Night 1: Hotel Le Vauban

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Stage 2, Monday: Carentan to Cherbourg

distance 86/106 km;  climb 610/650 m

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Today we are riding northwards up the Cotentin peninsula, passing the fifth and final D-Day landing site at Utah Beach where there's a museum and Le Roosevelt bar/cafe. A couple more coffee places are available before the short and long routes split at Quettehou, where lunch choices include a boulangerie and bar/restaurant. Those riding the longer route will find many more lunch options in the thriving and delightful fishing ports of St Vaast and Barfleur – one of the most beautiful villages of France. 

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The two routes merge as they both head westwards on quiet, undulating wooded lanes to our evening destination, the great channel port of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin​

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​Night 2: Hotel le Cercle

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Stage 3, Tuesday: Cherbourg to Coutances

distance 86/96 km; climb 700/800 m

 

Wakey wakey legs! A 230 m climb in the first 9k maxing out at 9% will get the blood pumping and the expletives flying! Not to worry though, the rest of the day is downhill (apart from the uphill bits). At 28k we arrive in the splendid medieval town of Bricquebec-en-Cotentin, petite cité de caractère, an ideal first coffee stop. Shortly after that the routes diverge. Choose between shorter but hillier on quiet undulating lanes, or take the longer EuroVelo voie verte former railway line, now smooth high quality gravel. Both routes come together briefly at La Haye, where you'll find a good choice of cafes, boulangeries and restaurants for lunch, before splitting again for our afternoon ride and final challenging climb up to our overnight stop at the ‘Toledo of the Cotentin’ – Coutances.

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Perched on its rocky promontory, the town is a natural refuge and historic capital of the Cotentin, taking advantage of its location between Rennes and Valognes to become an important trading centre and a flourishing bishopric. Although badly damaged by bombing in 1944, Coutances has managed to preserve its small-town charm and its unspoilt monuments. Notre-Dame Cathedral, a great masterpiece of Gothic architecture, is well worth a visit, as is the Jardin des Plantes. Listed as a Historic Monument in 1992, this garden has been preserved in its original form from the 17th century.

 

Night 3: Hotel la Pocatiere

 

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Stage 4, Wednesday: Coutances to Vire

distance 78 km; climb 1,100 m

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Welcome to the queen ​stage – short and lumpy! We plunge straight down from Coutances into the Prépont valley and immediately winch ourselves up the other side. That's all in the first 2 km and sets the scene for the day: rolling roads over the hills with 16 km of smooth and level gravel respite in the middle of the day on a path by the River Vire. The Boulangerie Pâtisserie de Saint-Romphaire with coffee at 30 km will be a welcome sight.

 

At 36 km we arrive in the beautiful and unspoiled Vire valley, where rock faces overhanging the river are popular with climbers. Our route soon turns up and away from the river to include an optional but highly recommended 100 m bonus climb up to the spectacular viewpoint at Roches de Ham, offering beautiful sweeping vistas of the meandering river and its gentle landscapes (tired riders can simply stay on the river path to bypass this climb). Lunch options today include a creperie at Roches de Ham, or in Tessy-sur-Vire 10 km further on there are shops, cafes, a bakery and picnic benches by the river. 

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Vire is a former fortified town which has preserved many fine vestiges. The Porte Horloge (clock gate), the Geôle tower and the chapel of Saint Louis bear witness to the town’s medieval past. Gourmet enthusiasts may dare to sample Vire’s very own speciality – “andouille” smoked chitterling sausage, made to a recipe dating back to the 16th century. It's an acquired taste – the Marmite of French cuisine!

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Night 4: Hotel de France

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Stage 5, Thursday: Vire to Mont-Saint-Michel

distance 83/94 km; climb 700/950 m

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It's another road or greenway choice today, and as usual the road option is shorter but hillier. There are three well-spaced suggestions for coffee/snack/lunch stops on the road route, and two additional options on the greenway route. The routes cross paths twice so it's possible to switch between them if you want. 

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A magical island topped by a gravity-defying abbey, the Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay count among France’s most stunning and unforgettable sights. Set in a mesmerising bay shared by Normandy and Brittany, the mount draws the eye from a great distance, and for centuries has been one of Europe’s major pilgrimage destinations.

This staggeringly beautiful location has long captured the imagination. The story of how the mount came to be a great Christian pilgrimage site dates back to the early 8th century, when Aubert, bishop of the nearby hilltop town of Avranches, claimed that the Archangel Michael himself had pressured him into having a church built atop the island just out to sea.

From 966 onwards, the dukes of Normandy, followed by the French kings, supported the development of a major Benedictine abbey on Mont-Saint-Michel. Magnificent monastic buildings were added throughout the Middle Ages, one vertiginous wing in particular being nicknamed The Marvel. The Abbey of the Mont-Saint-Michel became a renowned centre of learning, attracting some of the greatest minds and manuscript illuminators in Europe. Vast numbers of pilgrims visited, despite endless cross-Channel conflict; in fact, the ramparts at the base of the island were built to keep the English forces out. Other fine buildings line the steep village street, now converted into museums, restaurants, hotels and shops for today’s tourists.

The Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.

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Night 5: Hotel Mercure

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Stage 6, Friday: Mont-Saint-Michel to Saint-Malo

distance 70 km; climb 400 m

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Today's coast-hugging route is the shortest of the week to allow time for exploring our fabulous final destination that is St Malo. There are nonetheless a good number of interesting places to visit, spectacular sights to see, and great places to lunch... especially if you like oysters and other seafood! 

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Built on a rock standing in a naturally defensive position at the mouth of the Rance river, St Malo is a city whose roots go back to before Roman times. Its importance as a seaport developed in the sixteenth century. The city is located in a strategic part of the French coast, the last main Channel port before the tip of Brittany round which all merchant ships from  the North Sea and the English Channel had to pass, on their way south. 

At a time when piracy was pretty much of an accepted way of life on the high seas, St Malo's corsairs were rightly feared by English and Dutch merchant ships. Just as Queen Elizabeth encouraged Sir Francis Drake to pillage and plunder Spanish ships, French Kings were happy to give the same sort of encouragement to the corsairs of St Malo, many of whom became wealthy men thanks to the spoils of piracy.

In the 17th century the city's medieval ramparts were consolidated and extended to protect St Malo from attack from land or sea, giving the old city the fine walls that surround it to this day. Unfortunately the defensive walls were quite unable to protect the city from bombardment during the Second World War, both by the Germans and the Allies, and a large part of the old city was reduced to rubble, though not the ramparts.  The rebuilding of old St Malo was one of the great heritage restoration projects in the aftermath of the war.

The main tourist attractions of St Malo are its fine sandy beaches incorporating a large free-entry seawater swimming pool with diving boards, the historic "intra-muros" city centre with narrow cobbled streets offering a good selection of small shops, cafés and restaurants, and a 2 km walk round the ramparts, one of the great urban walks of France. Access is free, and the walkways on top of the ramparts give wonderful views out over the beaches, the sea, the estuary and the harbour. 
 

Night 6: Hôtel de la Cité

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Saturday: St Malo to Portsmouth

We take the 10:30 ferry from St Malo, arriving back in Portsmouth at 18:20 where we all reconvene at the Ship & Castle for riders to collect their luggage from the Glaudax van. 

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Congratulations, you've completed Glaudax Internationale!

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We acknowledge https://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/ for some of the information above.

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