Route advice (again), please

[Scott_rider]

I'd be grateful for a few recommendations of a route from Llanes, Northern Spain to Calais, which we want to do with 3 overnight stops.
It's about 850 miles and the last overnight stopover needs to be about 100 miles away from Calais.

We've done this journey before and all the way to Calais with only 1 overnight stop by coming up the west side of France on the A roads and we don't want to do that again as it was 2 long days in the saddle and a ball ache.

We've also done this journey before with 5 overnight stops by coming down the east side of France to Barcelona and then scooting across the Pyrenees, which was very good but we don't have the time on this trip to do that route again.

Any suggestions would be great and thanks in advance .

[Cornishman]

There are too many options for a trip like that. I would suggest you head over towards Pau then head for the Massif Central, on the map I’ve chosen Mont Dore as a waypoint but anywhere nearby would do. If you followed something like the central or right hand routes on the map you wouldn’t go wrong. From the Clermont Ferrand area I would head to the east of Paris.

B14D7F5F-89B8-46EB-9796-0097D67428AA.png (607.27 KiB) Viewed 1840 times

[Godspeed]

If you don’t mind an extra couple of miles to get back up to Calais then I really enjoyed staying in Senlis just north of Paris.

7CAD1F35-6744-4694-9A4E-30E0384E5122.jpeg (161.07 KiB) Viewed 1836 times

[Scott_rider]

Thanks so far, guys

p.s. I’ve stayed in Senlis once before for a night and liked it.

[bikenav]

I would go similar to Cornishman above push on a bit through Spain sounds as though that is familiar territory to you, then my main aim would be to hook in to the Massif Central, use a France topographical map as a guide stay in the brown as much as possible and out of the green and to the East of Paris I find Champagne quite nice to push through and remains interesting riding whilst still making good progress. Think perhaps of sacrificing touring time in the first and last thirds and enjoying the middle third as much as is possible. Rocamadour is on my Schematic may be worth a look. Still relatively a hard schedule by my standards but it sounds like your experienced at covering the ground.
topo map http://www.vidiani.com/maps/maps_of_eur ... isions.jpg
a very rough guide

Screenshot (156).png (434.7 KiB) Viewed 1801 times

[Cornishman]

What is your priority?
Good roads.
Interesting places to visit?
A mixture of the two?

What accommodation are you using?

[Magnon]

A lot depends on the bikes and whether or not you want to use the odd toll road to get some miles under your wheels. If it were me, 250 miles a day would be about as much as I want to do and I’d use non toll motorways when available just to reduce the hours on the bike. First stop would be somewhere just south of Bordeaux, second night at Saumur and then either Abbevllle, Amiens or preferably Arras for the last stop leaving a short hop to Calais.

[qcnr]

Why not up towards Bordeaux, then take the little ferry further north, Royan, then carry on up towards LeMans?

[Cornishman]

Why not up towards Bordeaux, then take the little ferry further north, Royan, then carry on up towards LeMans?

The roads a bit farther east are so much nicer.

[Scott_rider]

Thanks guys, much appreciated . I think we will head towards the Massif Central as suggested. Not so keen on doing the Bourdeaux side again because we've done that before. From the Clermont-Ferrand area we'll head towards Roanne and then up the east side of Paris to Calais (because we've done that part of the trip before and the roads were good).

p.s....our priority is good roads and we always pre-book a hotel.