La Loire à Vélo day 0 - Stoke-on-Trent to Nevers

I live in Staffordshire, so getting to Nevers was a bit of a mission. The Eurostar doesn’t accept bicycles except in bags, so it wasn’t an option for me on this occasion. Therefore, I planned the route to get trains to Dover on Saturday, take a ferry across the Channel, a train from Calais to Paris, then a train from Paris to Nevers.

It was a bit of a logistical challenge, but it worked..

I started on a Saturday afternoon, catching a train from Stoke-on-Trent to London Euston, then through to Dover where I stayed the night at the Premier Inn close to the ferry terminal.

On Sunday morning I got up early and made my way to the ferry terminal. It’s surprisingly easy on a bicycle, and felt pretty good cycling along a reserved lane marked with a red line past the queues of cars and trucks. Everyone I met in the ferry terminal was friendly and helpful, and when I made it to the area to line up to wait for the ferry, a lady spotted me and told me to go straight on ahead of the traffic. Super easy! I locked up my bike and made my way into the restaurant area to find myself a table and grab myself a coffee and croissant.

Arriving in Calais, the weather was beautiful. It’s a slightly surreal experience getting off the ferry though. I think that the car exit might take people on to a motorway, so what actually happened was that when I exited the ferry, one of the staff pointed me at a man in a car and told me to go to him and follow him. I did as I was told, and the car guided me across the port, through various fenced off areas, and eventually out of an exit on to a road into the town of Calais, at which point he drove off.

I had a few hours before my next train from Calais to Paris, so I headed into town to explore the market and eat. I found a very good bakery where I had a sandwich and a decadent Paris Brest pastry. While I was eating outside the city hall, a French couple came and joined me. I think they were in their sixties, and bikepacking around the north of France. They had cycled from Paris to Calais, and were making a loop through Normandy and then back to Paris. They explained that each day, they would check their phone around 4pm and work out where to camp for the night.

It was quite the contrast to see all my bags loaded up with gear for two weeks staying in hotels, whereas they each had a couple of relatively small bags and somehow had tent and other camping gear stashed away. I guess after a few bikepacking trips, they had learned what were the essentials and what was unnecessary weight.

After eating, I caught a train to Paris Gare du Nord, then cycled to the Gare de Lyon for my final train of the day to Nevers. I arrived in Nevers in the evening, made my way to the hotel, and found a nearby restaurant that was still open. A plate of steak frites felt just right for settling me into the rhythm of the trip.