Here’s the “plan”.
Me on the 95 Cali and my mate on his 14 plate Triumph Bonnie are looking to do the D Day beaches and Ypres/Theipval/Vimy ridge loop this year starting and finishing in Zebrugge over 4/5 days.
My oppo isn’t into camping so we’ll be in B&B formula hotels etc
Can any one recommend, places to stay, routes to ride, places for coffee/lunch en route?
Cheers All
Normandy beach b&bÂ
http://www.normandybeach.co.uk
A great place to stay, English speaking as well, will be there myself in May!
We did something similar a couple of years ago. I can recommend Honfleur as somewhere to call in (beyond the eastern end of the D-day beaches, so not a good place to base yourself). Bayeux is a lively place: plenty of bars and restaurants as well as the tapestry and only 15 minutes from Omaha beach. Arromanche is also a good base for the beaches. For the WW1 memorials, I have stayed in both Amiens and Arras, and would recommend Amiens - the St Leu district on the river Somme has some great places to eat and drink. If it’s any help, here’s a link to my ride report in Russian bike: http://russianbike.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=524
Cheers Ian - we might be there in May too so keep an eye out for a Black and Red Cali 
FT I had hoped to do this in 2014 but didn’t get my act together and saw your thread then . Do you have the route you took by any chance?
With the exception that you went Dover Calis and we plan to go Hull Zebrugge you went to most of the place I was thinking about.
Tris
The Alabaster Coast from Dieppe to Le Havre is nice to follow, Fecamp or Etretat would be good to stay at. Nearing Le Havre there are several ways of crossing the Seine, the Pont de Normandie is an experience to ride over ( toll free for bikes but keep well over to the right of the toll booths to find the slip through for bikes)or there are smaller and less daunting bridges upstream,or ferry crossings.Once over the Seine you have Honfleur as mentioned- there are plenty of hotels/ motels here. Going West the coast road is a bit sticky but if you want to see Pegasus bridge it’s best to head North of Caen (D514 from Cabourg) - If you are visiting the D Day sites you probably want to go as far towards Cherbourg as St Mere D’Eglise where the parachutist got hooked up on the church tower.
I’m  not so familiar with the WW1 sites but have stayed in passable and cheap motels in Bethune(premiere classe) and at Arques near to St Omer. If you plot a route down through Picardie you won’t go far wrong. You may find 5 days is not enough.
Hotels can be booked through Booking.com or Venere and many can be cancelled free of charge up to 6 pm on day of arrival.
Tris,
Bear in mind that we deliberately avoided autoroutes, so the route we took was fairly direct, but slow!
From Calais we took the D940 coast road to Boulogne, where we picked up the D901(the old N1 as I remember it). We stayed on this to Abbeville, where we headed south west on the D928, which changes to the N28 at Blangy sur Bresle. It changes back to the D928 at Neufchatel en Bray, where we aimed for Saint Saens, then turned onto the D929 going via Totes to Yvetot. Round the ring road to pick up the D6015 to Bolbec, where we turned south on the D910 to cross the Seine at the Pont de Tancarville (you could continue to cross the Pont de Normandie into Honfleur). After a short distance on the D6015, we turned west on the D675 through Pont l’Eveque to Caen. From Caen we took the N13 to Bayeux from where you can head north on any number of roads to the D Day beaches.
Coming back, we took the D514, which runs along the coast to Ouistreham, where we crossed the river to pick up the D513, which also runs along the coast. As you know, we then messed about a bit trying to find a hotel before ending up at Honfleur, which I was impressed by. From there, we retraced our route to Neufchatel en Bray, then took the D929 all the way to Amiens: this was an incredibly quiet road. To get to the WW1 monuments, we took the D929 road towards Albert, and explored from there. To get to Vimy, we took the D929 to Bapaume, then headed north on the D917 to Arras, and I think took the D937 for a few miles before heading towards the memorial. We then headed through Bethune and Saint Omer on the way back to Calais - a fairly boring route you won’t need to take if you’re going to or from Zeebrugge.
The route from Calais to Pont l’Eveque and the coast route were nice scenic runs. An advantage of avoiding autoroutes meant that there were plenty of opportunities to stop for coffee breaks in towns and villages on the way.
John
Cheers John
- I’ll give that a good coat of looking at!
I’ve been doing some route planning this evening and the 1st leg from Zebrugge down to Le Harve (ish) will be a bit of a tough ride for my mate who has only just got his 1st big bike so I’m not sure if he’s up for a 200 mile run.
I don’t want to put him off on the 1st big trip, so we may stay up north more and do the WW1 sites instead.
Look at a site called Airbnb. We have used it all over Europe and really like it.
Cheers Steve - I’d found that site but its really good to have a recommendation as well