2016 London to Paris

This is the classic London to Paris route, well basically it is. I caught a train to London from my daughters who lives in Luton. For a start I had problems with the station as I was towing a trailer and the train didn’t want me to take it on. I asked if they took child carriers which they did. So I told him was a child carrier without a child and he gave up in the end and told me to ask the driver. The train came in, there was only a few people on the train being early Sunday, he looked didn’t say anything. I got off at London Bridge and made my way through London. Even on the cycle route there were gates which I had trouble getting through. I made my way down to Gatwick where I had booked Air-b-n-b for the night. It was nice and hilly as you went over the north downs, there was one field that was covered with lavender looked and smelt wonderful. I followed the M23 which made it easy, a bit noisy but OK. When i got to Brighton I followed the coast to Newhaven where I caught the ferry to Dieppe. There was only one campsite that took tents in Newhaven which I stayed at. The ferry was quite old but it was good fun. From Dieppe I made my way to Neufchatel-en-Bray where I camped. The route was easy along a disused railway, the campsite was obvious as well. After leaving in the morning I found my new cycling shoes were too tight and I ended doing the whole trip wearing Crocs. Wasn’t too difficult but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I made my way to Senots where I camped again and then onto Paris where I found the campsite on the edge of the River Seine. I will admit I do tend just to decide and do things. When I got to Paris I found out it was Bastille Day, and we had a lovely evening of fireworks. I got stopped by the police twice as I was jumping traffic light to get away from cars as they didn’t have much tolerance for bikers. I spent a couple of days in Paris then unlike other groups of people I rode back to London and didn’t catch the train. Paris was good fun riding around but I did find a lot of French Parisians still don’t like the English language.I found the twins in the country side didn’t cater for travellers when it came to finding food. Being vegetarian made it even worse. It’s quite hilly but the route was easy to follow. This was the only time I had biked through France and for me I don’t like it as much as the rest of Western Europe.