Home to the Rhône via Barcelona

My first tour without a firm objective. I knew I wanted to start from my front door and meet up with my family somewhere in the Ardèche. Barcelona seemed like a reasonable intermediate destination, but the rest was pretty much à la carte.

The resulting -less thorough than usual- planning was noticeable, as the route featured more major roads than I would normally prefer, and even turned around and bit me on the day two when I needed a train to complete the second half of the route.

However, there were still plenty of opportunities to bask in the quality of the French road network and many pleasant surprises, as towns I had given scant regard while planning the route turned out to be fantastic places to visit.

Particular highs were La Rochelle, Brouage, Auch, Barcelona (obviously) and the Mediterranean coast. The major lows were Andorra which, I suggest, is best avoided at all costs and the grim, but unavoidable, Mistral!

	Route	Date	Distance	Total
	Bourne End to St Malo	18/07/07	120 KM	120 KM
	St Malo to Nantes	19/07/07	108 KM	228 KM
	Nantes to Rochefort	20/07/07	180 KM	408 KM
	Rochefort to Carcans	22/07/07	130 KM	538 KM
	Carcans to Nerac	23/07/07	175 KM	713 KM
	Nerac to St Gaudons	24/07/07	137 KM	850 KM
	St Gaudons to Tarascon	25/07/07	102 KM	952 KM
	Tarascon to Andorra	26/07/07	93 KM	1045 KM
	Andorra to Claramont	27/07/07	154 KM	1199 KM
	Claramont to Barcelona	28/07/07	60 KM	1259 KM
	Barcelona to St Felu	30/07/07	122 KM	1381 KM
	St Felu to Cerbere	31/07/07	121 KM	1502 KM
	Cerbere to Beziers	01/08/07	137 KM	1639 KM
	Beziers to Valliguieres	02/08/07	161 KM	1800 KM
	Valliguieres to St Sauveur	03/08/07	130 KM	1930 KM