Getting Ready for France

Welcome back! This year we are heading to France — the land of wine, cheese, bread, and bikes. We leave Chicago on Wednesday, July 4th with a direct flight to Paris, which hopefully cuts down on the airport shenanigans. (We are flying United, although I’m sure Delta is working furiously to bump us off a connecting flight for old times sake, ha!).

Starting the journey at the Cliffs d’Etretat, we’ll follow the coastline west to Normandy to visit the D-Day beaches. There happens to be a Medieval Festival right where we are staying in Bayeux, so clearly, we will need to check that out. Heading further west will be Mont Saint Michel where we plan to stay overnight and hike the bay when the tide is out.

The 2017 Médiévales De Bayeux posters went full Game of Thrones!

Our friend Nate Caucutt and his family live in Lorient — in the Brittany region of France — where we will visit for a few days and watch the fourth and fifth stages of Le Tour De France ride thru town. Following that, we drive waaaay back east towards the Alps with a quick stop in Auvergne for a hot air balloon ride over extinct volcanoes (weather pending).

Spotted last year in the Amsterdam airport… so obviously Paris was next

Arriving in Geneva, Switzerland, we will meet our bike tour guides — Alpine Chaingang — and begin the crazy biking adventure. With a summertime ski chalet as our home base, we will bike for six days on various routes in the French Alps. If we manage to stay alive, we will see even more Tour De France action (stages 10, 11 and 12), as the riders will be entering the Alps and biking some of the same roads during the week. Hopefully, Chicago Divvy bikes and Soul Cycle classes have prepared us to pretend like we are competing for the polka-dot jersey.

Check back for updates and pictures! Oh, and if anyone can teach me French, now would be a great time.