Velofrancette 2026 - Magne to La Rochelle

 

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Travelogue 

Today we cycled the final section of La Velofrancette and made it to La Rochelle.

And what a great day. Most of the cycling was alongside a truly beautiful section of river. There were reflections galore and lovely mature willow trees. It was very tranquil and the cycling much easier than previous days (though we did our best to make it harder than it should have been!).

The first chance we got, we stopped for coffee. This was in a small town called Coulon.

Cycling along the river again, we were both amused and mystified by a series of what we can only describe as scarecrows. We have no idea why they were there!

There were lots of steep, single file bridges to cross. It's possible you were supposed to dismount and cross on foot, but my knowledge of French can be a little selective and self-serving at times and so I rode across them. Tut tut. How naughty.

Perhaps as a consequence of said naughtiness, karma did it's thing and on checking the map at a particularly ambiguous set of signs, we discovered we'd cycled 5 km off route!

Oops! There wasn't anything for it. We had to cycle 5 km back to the route. So that was an extra 10 km. I promise not to be so naughty in the future!

All that extra cycling gave us an appetite so we stopped for food and drinks right by the river in Marans. We both had excellent camembert, butter and salad sandwiches.

After that, the cycling became even easier as we approached the coast and soon we'd reached La Rochelle.

We were greeted by our Airbnb host in person. We was a lovely, friendly guy who seemed genuinely pleased to meet us. He helped me to stow the bikes downstairs and then gave us a tour of the apartment, and shared useful information about the neighborhood.

We shopped at a local Carrefour, ate lots and lots of food and settled in for a relaxing evening.

We have two full days here in La Rochelle.

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Velofrancette 2026 - L’Houmois to Magne

 

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Today's Route 

Route So Far 

Travelogue 

We had a good night in the cabin by the pond. In the morning we had breakfast, packed up, jumped on our trusty bikes and set off again, expecting a relatively easy day with some climbing to begin with and then mostly downhill from there. We'd got this idea from having a quick glance at the profile last night.

But we were in for a surprise!

Yes, as you can see from the profile above, from about the 40 km point, there's a very clear downhill trend. But that's the keyword here. Trend. In fact, the road went.....

down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up,down,up, etc

And all those little uphill sections really added up so that by the end of the day, we'd done more climbing than any other day! Oh and there was a headwind too. Obviously.

So this was a tiring day. Legs moaned and no amount of caffeine or sugar would cheer them up.

Eventually, we cycled into Parthenay and our morale got a couple of much needed boosts. 

Firstly, the old sector of town is very impressive. It's a mediaeval, walled city and a lot of the old streets have been well preserved. It's worth visiting this part of France just to wander down these streets.

Secondly, we found a bakery :-) And what's more, it had a four for the price of three special offer! How could we resist? That's a rhetorical question by the way. We're not interested in anyone's ideas on how we could resist and eat less French baked goods, thank you very much.

With coffee and pastries inside us, we carried on. 

We eventually found ourselves in Niort, a large town up river from our destination, found a supermarket and did our usual shopping.

From there it was a 30 minute ride along the river bank to our campsite in Magne.

While we were putting the tent up, a couple parked by us in their large, self-converted van. We started chatting. They were a French couple in their sixties and they'd recently cycled back to France all the way from Singapore! On a tamdem! And...their route had included the Pamir Highway. They were very friendly and more happy to tell us stories from their travels and share tips about the Pamir Highway. We passed some of the evening in their company.

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