Railroad trains

While in Burgundy, we also stopped at the Parc naturel regional du Morvan. Quoting from Wikipedia: “parcs natural regional (regional natural parks or PNRs) are public establishments in France between local authorities and the French national government covering an inhabited rural area of outstanding beauty, in order to protect the scenery and heritage as well as setting up sustainable economic development in the area.”

The Parc du Morvan is the site of Mont Beuvray, where the fortified city of Bibracte once stood, and where the Roman armies of Julius Caesar defeated the Gauls at the Battle of Bibracte in 58 BCE.

Do the monoliths used to erect this bridge date back to Bribracte? We’d like to think so.

A northerly extension of the Massif Central, it’s trees are frequently cut, so the forest is always young and the trees relatively small compared to other forests, such as the Fontainebleau.

The Parc du Morvan is also the site of the largest mountain biking venue of the French Cycling Federation (FFC), La Grande Traversee du Morvan. We saw only one other cyclist. He had a paper map attached to his handlebars, which I thought was pretty clever as the many intersecting trails, paths and roadways that zigzag the park can be difficult to navigate. We found this map to be useful (scroll down the page to find it) because it lets you select trails based on difficulty.

This is a marker for a hiking trail. Cycling trail markers have an illustration of a bicycle that consists of a circle next to an inverted triangle next to another circle.

The ride took us over gentle slopes…

and a variety of paved and unpaved terrains.

Resources Consulted
Map of the Grande Traversee du Morvan (scroll down the page to find the map)
Bibracte (Wikipedia)
Comite Regional du Tourisme de Bourgogne-France-Comte, The Great Morvan Crossing on a Mountain Bike
Comite Regional du Tourisme de Bourgogne-France-Comte, The Morvan Lakes
Le Morvan par Bernard LeComte
Michelin Voyages, Parc Naturel Regional du Morvan
Regional Nature Parks of France (Wikipedia)

It’s been a little over a year since we said goodbye to London and the U.K. and relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. I was reluctant to leave. The parks, charity shops, high streets, public transit that gets you anywhere anytime, museums and galleries, countryside, pubs, and history at every turn were hard to let go of, but at least we left in style. After a bit of fuss over our lease agreement (beware of renting from KFH) and lots of back and forth with freight forwarders, we mailed three-weeks’ worth of clothing to France, hopped on our bikes, loaded Oliver in his basket, and cycled out of town. Our destination: France, for three weeks of visiting with family and cycling the countryside prior to moving back to the United States.

Departing from Battersea Park, we took one last peek at Windsor Castle, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the Thames and Tower Bridge, and caught a train from London Waterloo East to Folkstone Central, a cab to Calais, and a train to Paris, where we cycled between train stations. Finally we took a train to St. Cloud (a suburb between Paris and Versailles), where we spent a few days before driving to Villentrois, in the middle of France. We then headed east to Soussey-sur-Brionne, from whence we cycled the Canal de Bourgogne and the Parc Regional Natural du Morvan. We then returned to St. Cloud and cycled around the Forêt de Fausses-Reposes, which stretches from St. Cloud to Versailles, for a few days before packing up our bikes and heading back to the United States.

Unfortunately we didn’t take any photos of the exodus through London. This was taken en route between London and Folkstone.

We took a Folkstone Taxi through the Eurotunnel, avoiding the Eurostar because it has a no-pets policy. While crossing the Channel, we were interviewed by Channel 4 for a documentary about the lives of regular people using the Channel in the light of Brexit.

A Folkstone taxi cab in the Euroshuttle, transporting us across the Channel while we are interviewed by Channel 4. Two of several cameras are visible, as well as a shy Ollie. Chloe from Blast Films, who organized the interview, was riding in the car behind us.

From Calais Ville we took the SNCF to Gare du Nord, then cycled through Paris to Gare Saint-Lazare, which took us to St. Cloud, our first destination.

The trip lasted about seven hours and involved at least a dozen staircases, but was otherwise painless. And I would lug my bike up twice as many staircases to cycle the French countryside again.