I did a long tour through France in April. The boulangeries are great places to stop for tea and cake/pastry, many have chairs and tables. Bars are also good places to stop, they all seem to have plenty of electrical outlets to recharge your phone etc.
We are bike touring from Rome to London, right now we are in Belgium! It is gorgeous! You have given us much inspiration and instruction in bike touring! Many thanks!
It looks really cool! What about sweat and shower? (I.e. hygiene). How do you do that? It does not seem like showers are accessible every day every where? P.S. Would love to try out bike packing one day.
True, you do often get used to being a little stinkier than at home 😂 but we alternate our accommodations so sometimes we’ll stay at a campsite with showers, or a hostel, or with a warmshowers host. Freshening up in a river while wild camping or in a fountain or other water source have also happened as well :) it’s really not so bad!
Like so many things in life, it's a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter! You may not be able to have a shower every day but you can freshen up almost anywhere. I just commute by bike but I have a backpack always with me for carrying all the things I can't safely leave on my bike whilst parked up. Unfortunately that's the biggest downside of cycling 😢🤷♂️. Thieves! 😡 I permanently have a 2 litre tupperware type container with a little soap and two little disposable/reusable towels. I can pop into a public toilets, fill some water into the container with a little soap and have a quick wipe down all over in a cubicle if I'm sweating. Easy peasy. Only takes a few minutes. The container doesn't take up much room in the backpack because all sorts of other things fit into it with the lid either on or off so it only takes up what I call neutral space.
Nice! It's hard to beat :) We followed the Via Rhona from Lyon to Avignon and then found a route in Komoot from Avignon to Montpellier that ended up being lovely. And then we caught a train to Perpignan where we rode into the Pyrenees towards Barcelona :)
