Normandy Cider Route from Cambremer

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Cambremer

   Cambremer is where apple country begins to show its hand. The village lies in the Pays d'Auge, in the Calvados department of Normandy, a green, rolling land of orchards, hedgerows, half-timbered farmhouses and fat dairy cows, and the roads that wind between them are lined with apple trees. There are only about a thousand people, so it is a small place, with a church, a few shops and the sense of being in no hurry. The surrounding farms are the true attraction, because this is the heart of the Route du Cidre, a signposted trail past dozens of producers who sell cider, pommeau, perry and calvados directly from the farm.

   Read the complete Cambremer write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cambremer is where the day begins. Next is Beuvron en Auge.

2. 2. Beuvron en Auge

   In the heart of the Pays d'Auge, Beuvron-en-Auge looks the way Normandy ought to look in a children's book. The half-timbered houses, with their dark beams, pale plaster and tilting upper storeys, date mostly from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, and they cluster around a covered market hall in a village of a couple of hundred people. It is on the list of the most beautiful villages in France, and for once the label is deserved. The geraniums are suspiciously tidy.

   Read the complete Beuvron en Auge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Beuvron en Auge comes up about 12 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bonnebosq.

3. 3. Bonnebosq

   Bonnebosq is a small village in the rolling heart of the Pays d'Auge, a place of orchards, hedgerows and thick-walled farmhouses, and it is the kind of stop that rewards you for not expecting very much. There is no famous monument here and nothing you have to see. What you get is Normandy at its most ordinary and best: black-and-white Normande cows in damp green fields, apple trees in rows across the hillsides, and half-timbered manors tucked behind banks of hedge and old stone walls.

   Read the complete Bonnebosq write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 26 km into the recorded legs you reach Bonnebosq. Next is Beaumont en Auge.

4. 4. Beaumont en Auge

   Beaumont-en-Auge hangs on a hillside above the Touques valley, and the view over the valley is the first thing you notice. The village is small, only a few hundred people, with a main street of half-timbered houses, a church and a steep lane down to the river, and it has the look of a place that has been admired for a long time. A Benedictine priory once stood here, and some of the older buildings keep traces of it. In the Pays d'Auge, a land of orchards, meadows and cows, it is among the prettiest of its kind.

   Read the complete Beaumont en Auge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Beaumont en Auge closes the day.