Paris · Lyons Forest and Seine Cliffs + Paris · Vexin and Seine Cliff Roads

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Paris north-west edge

   It is a hard-working suburban landscape of tower blocks, tram lines, small houses with allotments and the grey sheen of a river that has seen a lot of traffic. La Défense's towers lift above the horizon to the south, and the Seine runs wide and sluggish, with barges and the occasional rower. It is not a place to linger, but for a morning ride it is a useful starting point, close to the motorway and the fast roads west.

   Read the complete Paris north-west edge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Paris north-west edge is where the day begins. Next is Vexin ridge road.

2. 2. Vexin ridge road

   The Vexin is a frontier country, and it shows. The plateau between the Seine and the Oise was for centuries the border between the kingdom of France and the duchy of Normandy, and the river Epte, which flows along its western edge, marked the line. In 911, the Viking chief Rollo and the French king Charles the Simple agreed at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte to give Normandy to the Norsemen, and the Vexin was the buffer between them. The history gives the villages a particular character, with fortified churches and the remains of castles.

   Read the complete Vexin ridge road write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Vexin ridge road comes up 47 km in. Next is La Roche-Guyon Seine view.

3. 3. La Roche-Guyon Seine view

   Above La Roche-Guyon, the Seine swings through a great meander, and the view from the cliff road takes in a wide loop of the river, green islands, poplar lines and pale chalk bluffs. The valley here is cut into thick white limestone, and the river has carved long, steep walls on the outer bends, which glow almost pink in the late afternoon. Barges pass slowly below, and the fields on the flat plains inside the loops are patched with wheat, rape and maize. It is one of the most peaceful panoramas anywhere within an hour or so of the capital.

   Read the complete La Roche-Guyon Seine view write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   94 km in you reach La Roche-Guyon Seine view. Next is Lyons-la-Forêt lunch.

4. 4. Lyons-la-Forêt lunch

   Beech trees are the point. The forest of Lyons, a few kilometres from the village, is one of the largest and finest beech woods in Europe, about ten thousand hectares of tall, silver-trunked trees that stand in cathedral rows, and in spring, when the leaves are just out, the light under them is green and gold. In autumn it turns copper. The roads that cross it are some of the best in Normandy for easy riding, with long, smooth curves, a good surface and little traffic, and the sense of riding through a vast, quiet hall is hard to beat.

   Read the complete Lyons-la-Forêt lunch write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Somewhere to get off the bike, 142 km in. Next is Gisors return.

5. 5. Gisors return gate

   Gisors is a Norman town that stands guard on the border with the Île-de-France. It lies on the Epte, the old border river, and its great castle, a motte-and-bailey fortress with a tall octagonal keep, was built by the Normans in the late eleventh century and strengthened by the kings of England, before it fell to the French king Philip Augustus in the twelfth. It was one of the key strongholds on the frontier, and the walls and keep still dominate the town. A local legend says that the Knights Templar hid treasure in the castle, and it has kept treasure hunters busy for generations, though nothing has been found.

   Read the complete Gisors return gate write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Next is Back to Paris.

6. 6. Back to Paris

   The ride that began on the north-west edge of Paris comes back to the same place, and there is a pleasure in returning to a starting line after a long loop. It is a hard-working landscape of tram lines and tower blocks that looks better in the evening, when the sun sinks behind the towers and the river takes on a pale glow.

   Read the complete Paris write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 472 km. Next is Mantes-la-Jolie fuel.

7. 7. Mantes-la-Jolie fuel

   Mantes-la-Jolie carries its pretty name with a straight face, though the town of forty-four thousand is mostly practical rather than pretty, a Seine-side workhorse about fifty kilometres downstream from Paris. Tradition says Henri IV gave it the nickname, and the one thing that truly justifies it is the collegiate church of Notre-Dame, a Gothic building of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries whose façade and proportions echo the cathedral in Paris so closely that architects call it a rehearsal for it. Walk in and the light through the nave is worth five minutes even if you are in leathers.

   Read the complete Mantes-la-Jolie fuel write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Fill up here — 189 km left and no pump marked after this. Next is La Roche-Guyon.

8. 8. La Roche-Guyon

   La Roche-Guyon is squeezed between the Seine and a wall of chalk, and the village has the look of a place that has been fitted into the only space available. The château, one of the oldest in the area, backs straight into the cliff, with rooms and a stairway hollowed from the rock, and a medieval keep on the crest above is linked to it by a long covered passage. For centuries, it belonged to the La Rochefoucauld family, whose most famous member, the seventeenth-century moralist, wrote his sharp little maxims about human vanity, and the family still has links to the house.

   Read the complete La Roche-Guyon write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   La Roche-Guyon, about halfway. Next is Vétheuil Seine bends.

9. 9. Vétheuil Seine bends

   Claude Monet moved to Vétheuil in 1878, and the village has never forgotten it. He was poor, his wife Camille was ill and the family shared a house with another household, but the Seine here, curving gently under the chalk bluff, gave him a subject that he painted again and again: the church on its hill seen across the water, the river in winter ice, the poplars and the light on the islands. Camille died in 1879 and was buried in the village cemetery, and Monet left in 1881, settling at Giverny two years later, where he would spend the rest of his life.

   Read the complete Vétheuil Seine bends write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Vétheuil Seine bends sits at 378 km, late in the day. Next is Auvers-sur-Oise.

10. 10. Auvers-sur-Oise

    Few villages have as much weight on their shoulders as Auvers-sur-Oise. Vincent van Gogh came here in May 1890, lodged in a small room above an inn, and in the seventy days he stayed painted around seventy canvases, among them the church, the wheat fields and the town hall bedecked with flags, before he died of a gunshot wound in July. He and his brother Theo lie side by side in the little cemetery above the fields, under a blanket of ivy. The room he rented at the Auberge Ravoux is preserved almost bare, and it is more moving for being so small.

    Read the complete Auvers-sur-Oise write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

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

    Planning note

    Auvers-sur-Oise is where this day stops to eat. Next is Back to Mantes-la-Jolie.

11. 11. Back to Mantes-la-Jolie

    Return visit. Read the place description above.

    Read the complete Mantes-la-Jolie fuel write-up.

    Recorded stop-planning note

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

    Planning note

    Finish at Back to Mantes-la-Jolie. That is the ride.