Over the last month I received few emails asking me to detail the route we took, how many kilometres we cycled per stages, if it was going up and down, if it is interesting all the way, where we slept, ate, rested…

So here is my first attempt at answering some of these questions. 

First, to prepare our journey, I got the guide book shown on the picture which proved to be an amazing source of information. Not only did the book help with finding our way, but also gave some details about the history, geography, customs and traditions as well as other anecdotes about the places we were going through. The very good part also, which helped a lot, is that when buying the book you can access the .gpx files for each of the stages that the book describes. I had downloaded them all from the website and uploaded them on my Garmin which simplified our route planning a great deal.

If you decide to get this guide book, make sure to acquire the last edition (mine was the 3rd -2018) as I came across other travellers who had a previous edition, and it did lack detailed map, and the route was somewhat different too. Please note that just having the book (and not the .gpx files) would not have been sufficient to find our way, despite the fact that it is signposted, because having to look at the book or find a sign post constantly does take away some of the pleasure of the ride. I know a bit about it because I had a GPS failure and did the last 8 or 9 stages without following the GPS. It was somewhat more stressful, but when we arrived in Holland then all became so clear thanks to the way to signpost in this country which is by far the best and easiest to read and follow.

The route that is followed on this book isn’t exactly the Eurovelo 15, it does deviate a little bit from the initial path but remains quite close to it most of the time. There is only one day, in France, where we didn’t actually see the Rhine at all… And in Holland the route follows the Nederrijn rather than the Waal once the river splits into 3 different rivers.

The book is divided in 27 stages, each in between 35 km and 75 km. We did sometimes cycle 2 stages in one day, and even though we lost one day because of my wife’s broken bike, we managed to do the whale journey in only 26 days. If we weren’t cycling with a 5 years old child, we would have needed much less time, or would have taken more time to actually do some more visits like tourists do. The thing is we never really planned for Azur to cycle the whole of it, and when we saw he was doing it, we then really wanted to make it, and the cycling took over the tourist life. If you know your pace, then it would be nice to get some time reserved just for the sake of visiting some the places that are on the way. 

I hope this will be of some help to some of you who are planning to cycle the Eurovelo 15.

On the next post I will explained where we stayed at night, what we ate, and how we planned our way on a day by day basis!