WORLD-CLASS BICYCLE TOURS

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Cycling Through Provence

 

Avignon to the Mediterranean Sea

 

 

 Provence     Avignon to the Camargue and the Mediterranean Sea

Discover the cycling routes provence style, small roads, not busy at all, and where you can take your time. This Provence bicycle tour will lead you through the Carmargue lagoons , heaven to flamingos, egrets, fighting bulls and wild white horses, offering you a beautiful landscape of swamps, "sansouires", reeds and the soft smells of spindrifts. The Alpilles with its famous villages reminding us of a faraway Greek landscape with its cypress and its twisting olive trees. The Card vineyards are all along the way to the wonderful Roman work: "Pont du Gard". Avignon, the city of Popes with its maze of streets where the Theater Festival takes place only in summer. All the villages you will cross, all the local festivities, all the unexpected meetings you will face will be the witness of the truest Provence you'll ever come across which is called the provencal culture shining through the beautiful sun. so you will also take the time for a nap under a large plane tree or to have a sip of Pastis in a shady barrel vault.

Tour Profile: The tour doesn't have any major difficulty. On the cycling routes of Provence, most of the roads are tarred, very quiet with little traffic. Sometimes short paths will be suggested but they are easy. The Provence bike tour encounters some hills. The Provence bicycle tour has a daily distance range from 25 miles to 31 miles with options that range from 16 miles to 44 miles.

Highlights:

• The walled city of Avignon and the Pope's Palace

• The Pont du Gard

• The Camargue Nature Region

• Daudet's Windmill

• Montmajour Abbey

• The RomanColiseum and Theatre in Arles

• The beaches of the Mediterranean Sea

Click to See:  Tour Price - Departure Days - What's Included - Reserve this tour

Arrive in Avignon early to explore this interesting ancient walled city, home to the French Pope for over one-hundred years. Your tour host will meet you at your hotel to fit your bike and give you your cycling routes Provence tour directions.

Cycle across the Gard vineyards through small villages which are typically Mediterranean and which will take you to the wonderful Roman aqueduct "Pont du Gard" dominating everything nearby at its 50 yard height. Swim in its shadow, cycle across the road used by Roman soldiers on their way to another war. Visit the village of Barbentane on the way to your hotel for the night. The hotel has a swimming pool.

Crossing the town of Tarascon you will discover one of the most beautiful French medieval chateaux and the famous Souleiado factory where Provencal fabrics are made. Along the way visit Daudet's Windmill, where the favorite French author worked and wrote many of his stories, Montmajour Abbey and then Arles. Arles is filled with monuments. It has a Roman coliseum where bullfights still take place, a Roman Theatre, and many other interesting sites. Relax and have a quiet evening drink on one of the cafes terraces. Here you will spend the night .

Leaving Arles you will slowly enter into the Camargue landscape with swamps, lagoons and rice fields. Here the bulls are trained for the fight and wild white horses still run free. It is the land of the French cowboy. Crossing the Rhone by boat, you will arrive in Les Saintes Maries de la Mer on the Mediterranean Sea, where you will spend two nights in a hotel with swimming pool and only a few blocks from a beautiful Mediterranean beach.

Day off. You will be able to organize your day as you like it. Numerous activities are possible such as horse riding, boat, canoe, 4-wheel driving, visiting the village, visiting the ornithological park. A wide sandy beach stretches for miles. You can swim, rent a horse to ride on it, or just walk it at sunset for a beautiful sight. Night in the same hotel.

Cycle through the dike "Digue a la Mer" which is forbidden to cars going up north and towards the small Alpilles mountain range, you will see a charming landscape and the vestiges of the Romans. Night in a nice little village at the foot of the Alpilles. Hotel with swimming pool.

You will cross the Alpilles range  from south to north and you will discover the famous villages Le Beaux and Saint Remy. Van Gogh sent much time in the asylum of St Remy and many of his famous paintings were painted here. You can stand where he stood and view the same landscape he saw as he painted. Then cycling through a market gardening area and you will finally be arriving once again in Avignon.

Day 8 -  Avignon

Free time in Avignon and departure.                Return to Top

Overnight Itinerary:   Avignon, Barbentane (Surroundings), Arles, Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, Provence Countryside Inn, Avignon

SELF-GUIDED BICYCLE TOUR

TOUR # FRB--20032/A - CAT A - 8 DAYS - $1190 ( 2* hotel in Avignon)

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Category A Hotels - 4 Nights in 2* hotels, 3 nights in 3* hotel.

HYBRID COMFORT bikes (aluminum frame male or female, 24 gears, front suspension, puncture protected tires, large seat.