For the summer of 2007, I planned to cycle through France by the Route St. Jacques until the border with Spain and visit Amaia in Irun. From there, I wanted to cycle back to The Netherlands by the 'Langs Oude Wegen' route. I downloaded these routes from internet and put them on my new GPS. Cycling by GPS has been a good experience.
During my trip, I changed my plans severely. I followed the intended route until Angoulême, but the landscape was becoming boring as it was pretty much the same as last year, and took a train to Hendaye. In Hendaye I crossed the border to Irun to visit Amaia and Aitor for a day. For the trip back I wanted to follow the coast of France to see a different scenery instead of more of the same when following the 'Langs Oude Wegen' route. But after one day I realized that I would enjoy being back in Holland more than I would enjoy cycling and camping on my own in France. To solve my little problem, I took some trains and made it to Lille in two days where my parents picked me up. During this return-journey, I cycled from Gare Montparnasse to Gare du Nord which was I very nice experience and I recommend cycling through Paris to anyone.
In 9 cycling days I covered a distance of 1200 km and I have been away for almost two of the planned four weeks. But I definitely do not regret coming home early!
