The Plan

THE  PLAN

We started planning this holiday about a year ago.  At the beginning we had no fixed idea of where we would be going, but we did have some basic preferences.  We were keen to travel slowly, to eat and drink local produce in the regions we were going through, to spend some time in France, and to do some walking in the mountains.  After many revisions, we have now decided on the route we plan to take.

We are intending to cross France from north to south, starting in mid-April in Dieppe on the English Channel, and ending at the end of June in Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer on the Mediterranean coast.  We aim to do the trip on foot, using a combination of long-distance walking paths (Grandes Randonnées), canal towpaths, and normal roads.  

Our planning map - the proposed route is marked with a thick pencil

Our route takes us through 21 of the 96 Departments, and 6 of the 13 regions in metropolitan France.  We will be travelling along some of the principal rivers of the country (the Seine, the Loire and the Rhône), through villages, towns and a couple of cities, through pastoral countryside and long-established vineyards, up into the Alps and down through Provence to the Mediterranean coast.

We currently estimate the total distance of our walk as about 1,650 kilometres, although we may end up walking less (in case of injury, illness or particularly inclement weather) or more (we have read lots of accounts of people having difficulty locating the sign markings on the Grandes Randonnées and ending up walking further than they had anticipated, and we expect this to also happen to us).