Avignon to Palermo
Previous: Provence: around Avignon
The plan, hatched in the bitter Christmas cold of Avignon, was to head as far south as we could. Sicily seemed like a good idea and so, on New Years Day, we headed off south to warmer climes (weirdly it was significantly warmer just 30 km south at Arles). With Chris needing a couple of important items mailed to him, we locked in a hotel at Palermo as our destination in 3 weeks.
Now, we normally never plan more than a few days ahead at a time, and sure enough, the almost simultaneous snapping-off of Chris’s break lever and the cancellation of the weekly Ferry from Toulon to Sardinia threw a couple of well-timed spanners in the works. So we took a week’s break at Hyères near Toulon to get the brake fixed (I cannot recommend the Doc Headshok Atèlier de vélo in Hyères highly enough!), and to plot plan C (ride and train to Genoa, from where there are daily ferries to Palermo) in case the following week’s ferry from Toulon was also cancelled.
But after a pleasant week’s séjour in Hyères, the ferry left from Toulon as scheduled, and our ride through Sardinia was wonderful. Before Sardinia, we had rated the ride from Cassis to Toulon (day 6 on the road) as by far the best day’s ride of the trip. But it has since been pipped by the coast road from Alghero to Bosa (day 12 on the road), surely one of the great coast rides of the world!
Day 1 Avignon - Arles
1 January 2025. (57 km)
We farewelled Avignon on a cold, cloudy morning, with a brief stop on the bridge for one last look back at that view), and onwards past the turnoff to Les Angles (another quick wave), and on to new experiences.
The ViaRhona south was the familiar mix of off-road trails and back roads. We tried for lunch at Montfrin, but everything was closed except a bar where we were able to get a couple of coffees and load 2€ coins into the vending machines for a lunch of les Pringles et Pistaches.
From Montfrin, we crossed the Gardon and on to Beaucaire, which had an impressive chateau on a cliff-face, but we failed to take any photos. After a ride around it, through the back-streets we crossed the Roubine Royale canal on a footbridge and out onto the levee path that took us all the way to Forques, where the Pont-du-Gard crosses le Petit Rhone, and then across Le Grand Rhone into Arles, winding our way through the old town to Hotel Mouette, which is pretty cute.
In the spirit of taking it easy, we took a rest day in Arles after one day on the road, with perhaps a little too much tourism: La Fondation de Van Gogh, Le Musée reattu, Les thermes de Constantine, the amphitheatre, lunch in the Forum. All the monuments and galleries were fine, but there was something special about knowing we were walking in the footsteps of Van Gogh. The courtyard of the old hospital that looked after him was a peaceful place to sit.
Day 2. Arles - Martigues
3 January 2025. (65 km, with a challenging section along a busy road)
In plotting today’s route to Martigues, we decided to stay on the ViaRhona as long as possible down the river, rather than take the default cycle.travel route east through Saint Martin de Crau.
We suspect the default would have been a better option, as the route we chose found us dicing with danger at one point.
Having navigated the roads along the river to get out of the old town of Arles, we had another Van Gogh stop at Le Pont de Langlois aux Lavandières. From there, the Via Rhona took us along the canal for a long way (with a stiff tailwind making it very pleasant). We stopped for lunch at Cafe d’Avenir at Mas Thibert (too much meat for Maree; too much camembert for Chris), and then a quiet ride on the canal trail for another 9 km until we turned off the veloroute towards Martigues.
And that was all good for another 10 km until our plotted route suggested we head the wrong way up an off-ramp from a busy road that took us through the industrial edge of Fos-sur-Mer. If we knew how busy it was going to be, we might have chosen another route. See these comments on cycle.travel for more information if you are headed in the same direction. We both breathed a big sigh of relief to turn on to quieter roads from Fos-sur-Mer to Martigues.
Martigues is a very cute, colourful town built around canals and waterways - another self-titled Venice of Provence. We stayed in a small, quiet studio on L’Île de Martigues, and felt we deserved another rest day. We had a quiet day wandering the canals and admiring the view from the study room in the library on the island. Cycle.travel had us leaving the next day via the ferry that stops outside the library, but it looked a bit small for our laden bikes. We walked across the bridge that evening to find a better selection of restaurants and decided that the bridge would be a fine way to head out of town.
Day 3. Martigues - Aix en Provence
5 January 2025. (47 km)
The road across the bridge out of town would have been cruisy, had Maree’s rack pack not come off (held on by one strap), dragging across the bridge, with a convoy of beeping cars behind. No damage done, other than to her pride: our Ortlieb bags passed another test.
The other side of the bridge was a busy market that required some tricky navigation around the stalls and trucks on the bike path. Then on to suburban streets, along a bike lane at first and then onto reasonably quiet back roads. There was a stretch labeled as ‘busy road’ by cycle.travel that led to a tip and the start of a walking track along the etang. The road was not busy at all, but the walking track was, with lots of Sunday walkers with their dogs and bike riders, and even a group on horseback.
We stopped at the nearest point to the Etang and saw our first flamingo, who had obviously missed the winter migration. Just a hint of pink to be seen. After the walking track, it was back roads including a tricky crossing of the D9 soon after we left the trail. The road straight across was blocked by concrete barriers. We persisted despite the difficulties and awkwardness and survived, but we really should have stopped, zoomed out and checked for alternative routes.
From there we followed small roads up the hill to Les Pennes Mirabeau to find most everything closed again. We bought some provisions at a ‘superette’ and took lunch in an uninspiring square down the road among the rubbish and the obligatory dog poo. From there the road climbed through a more rural area over the hill into the valley of pays d’Aix. There was some fun downhill rolling into Aix, and some surprising little back lanes to get there.
Arriving early in the afternoon, we found ourselves experiencing the most unfamiliar sensation: it was actually warm enough to sit outside in a square to take in an apero (and we were still only 74 km from Avignon). Ramping up the taking-it-easy-ness, we took two rest days in Aix, with some excellent eating out (La Bouchée and Tita were highlights), and a lot of wandering the old town.
Day 4. Aix en Provence - Marseille
8 January 2025. (33 km)
It was a short ride into Marseille, mainly downhill, but not without its challenges. We took a slightly different route out of Aix to the west of our route in. Once we were out of the suburbs of Aix it was a pleasant ride along back roads following the autoroute until the 10 km mark, where we had to brave the intersection of the D59 and the autoroute, crossing a busy feeder road from the D59 to the autoroute, and then getting out into the left lane to take the Avenue de la Croix d’Or south.
The Avenue was busier, with faster traffic, than we’d prefer, without a verge to speak of until the roundabout a km down the road, after which there was a marked bike lane (except through roundabouts). It was ok, and we took the opportunity to stop for a coffee at a boulangerie to gather our strength for the ride into Marseille.
Once we hit the Marseille arrondissements, the traffic slowed to 30 km/h (more or less), but there was a distinct lack of bike lanes. We soon learnt that the Marsellaise drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists treat the road rules as guidelines at best, so the ride in required extra vigilance for unexpected behaviour from all around us. When we finally hit the first arrondissement, at least there were bike lanes/routes to be seen, although they were slow going, anticipating and navigating around random pedestrians.
We were told that people either love or hate Marseille, and we sort of get it. It is a bit grimy, but also spectacular, and it’s a bit edgy, and that can cut both ways. But in our day and half there, we never felt unsafe walking around the districts we ventured into, and found that it had a lot to offer.
Our hotel (Hotel Montgrand) was good. Arriving at 1:30, we dropped our bags and bikes and went out for a walk down to the old port and up to the church of St Vincent de Paul to re-trace Maree’s Dad’s steps when he was 14. We wandered the restaurant district near the old port and ate well.
Our ‘rest’ day in Marseille involved a fair amount of exercise, with a long walk up to the Cathedral de Notre Dame Garde on the hill and down the other side through the hilly back lanes of Roucas Blanc to the coast road, where we found a restaurant for lunch. We walked back along the coast road through Corniche, past the one beach for the day with some impressive beach volleyballers and one brave swimmer. A small detour into the Parc Emile Duclaux for some good views of the town and the massive parts of the city that we hadn’t had time to visit. Back to the restaurant district that night was good again.
Day 5. Marseille - Cassis
10 January 2025. (34 km + another 5 to Port Pin and back)
Another short ride to Cassis, allowing us to spend the afternoon looking around once we got there (as uncharacteristically, we decided not to have have a rest day there). We chose the alternative route out of Marseille offered by cycle.travel as it promised less busy roads. We think this was a good decision, as the roads we followed were busy enough (but with generally slow traffic).
After a flat couple of blocks, it was a very steep climb to Cours Lieutard (some red Turbo assist was necessary), where we turned for a brief stretch of cycle path, before turning onto the small roads out of Marseille, clogged with traffic. We spent a lot of time sitting in stationary traffic for maybe the 13 km. At Aubagne, we turned right onto the road to Cassis, which was mostly delightful: a clean verge cycleway most of the way into Cassis. The last 5 km were a fun steep rolling descent into the delightful seaside town.
After a picnic lunch on the main beach, we had the energy to dump our luggage and head out for a ride around to the national park for a swim at La Calanque de Port Pin.
We needed to lock the bikes up ~1 km from the Calanque, and it was a nice walk along the cliffs and over the ridge to the beach, where Chris braved the bracing waters for his first Mediterranean swim. On the way back, by following the strange noises emanating from the cliff-top rocks, we managed to find the world’s smallest blow-hole (Le Port Pin trou-souffleur: make sure the sound is on in the video).
The hilly ride home in the late afternoon posed no difficulty with our e-bikes. We wandered the port front looking for a restaurant for dinner, but they all had the air of tourist traps, so we found a quiet little restaurant in the back streets which was good. All in all it was a great day, and something of a relief to have left behind the craziness of Marseille’s streets.
Day 6. Cassis - Toulon
11 January 2025. (59 km, 1050 m ascent)
Once again today we chose the longer alternative route from Cassis to Toulon to avoid busy roads, and it was 100% the right thing to have done. The best day’s riding of the trip by a country mile. The 6-km ride back up the hill from Cassis was some effort, even with our pedal assist.
We then turned on to the Circuit de Castellet passing heaps of Saturday morning pelotons (going the other way, of course). The road through the Beaume forest was a pleasant, long climb on a smooth road with not a lot of car traffic. At the top, we passed a large posse of hunters preparing for God-knows-what. And over the top was a scarily fast descent down the not very winding road to Sainte Anne de Castellet, then back roads to le Beausset for lunch at a Boulangerie.
From le Beausset it was another climb to the cute village of Sainte Anne d’Évenos, before turning up a steep valley below impressive cliffs with narrow tall caves. Near the top of the climb, we did something we would certainly not have contemplated on our normal bikes: we took detour up to the lookout at the village perché of Évenos.
The smooth roads and picturesque landscape, gave the day an air of a Tour de France leg, and that was cemented when we finally hit the top of the 500-m hill looking down to Toulon. The descent down the hill through the hairpin bends into Toulon was a buzz.
Not unlike the Blues Brothers’ Dodge falling apart on arrival in Chicago, when we hit our first intersection at the bottom of the hill in Toulon requiring a complete stop, one of Chris’s brake levers snapped off. Having nursed the bike to our hotel, Chris managed to tape the bike lever back on to make it semi-functional. The prospect of getting the brake replaced en route through Sardinia seemed remote (and the not-very-helpful Toulon bike shop at 5 pm on a Saturday did little to instill hope).
However, an hour later we received a curt email from the ferry company telling us Sunday’s ferry to Sardinia was cancelled (due to ‘weather’, which we assumed meant wind, although there was little wind to be seen in Toulon). At first this felt like a dissapointment, but on reflection, it was a blessing. We decided we would keep heading east on Sunday and find a place to stay for the week, where we could cook our own meals after a couple of weeks of restaurants and hotels.
Day 7 - 9. An unexpected detour Toulon - Hyères
12 January 2025. (28 km)
So, we decided to head east to see if we could find somewhere to settle for a week before the next ferry. The route out of Toulon was a surprising contrast to the entry into and exit from Marseille: civilised off-road bike paths all the way (although with a fair bit of Sunday outing traffic on them).
Pausing 20 km in at the beach at the old greek ruins of Olbia, looking out over the Presqu’ile de Gien, we decided that this was a nice enough area to spend the week. So, we booked a 7 day stay in an airbnb on the outskirts of Hyères.
It was a quiet week, allowing us to re-discover the joys of cooking for ourselves, and just taking it easy.
On the next day (Monday), I went straight to Doc Headshok, a bike workshop (with an impressive 5-star rating on Google) in a small residential street at the back of the Hyères airport, where I was greeted by the very helpful Dom, who was happy to fix my brake (given a week to get the parts in), and negotiate a warranty claim with Magura. It was all fixed 4 days later, and I happily added another 5-star review to Doc Headshok’s list.
We kept our rides local and flat while my brake was broken, but on Friday (17 January, ~10 km) with a shiny new brake, we rode into Hyères and up the steep hill to the imposing ruins of Chateau d’Hyères. Cycle.travel plotted a route around the ruins, but it’s really not one for a bike, being a difficult walk up and down stairs and rocks. We locked our bikes half way up the track, but really should have locked them further down at the start of the loop around the ruins. Anyway, impressive views from up there. And more nice views from and a picnic in the gardens of the Villa Noailles on the way down the hill. And more nice views again further down outside l’eglise de Saint Paul.
And on our last day (18 January, 38 km), we had a bigger ride out to the beach and fort at Brégançon, which was another nice undulating ride through wine country to the best looking beach we’ve found for the trip so far.
Day 10. Hyères to Toulon Port to Porto Torres, Sardinia
19 January 2025 (28 km by bike to Toulon and ~300 km by ferry )
The ride back to Toulon for the Ferry on the Sunday was by the same route as left on, and we had a pleasant afternoon sipping coffee on the waterfront, and later in the ferry waiting area talking to fellow foot and cycle passengers heading off for Sardinian adventures. The crossing was fun, and the sleep was good in our cabin (but hot because we failed the thermostat intelligence test).
Day 11. Porto Torres to Alghero
20 January 2025 (49 km)
It was a civilised 12 pm arrival at the port, and by the time we had had our compulsory first Italian coffee at a bar, it was after 1 before we hit the road. At the outskirts of Porto Torres, cycle.travel threw us our first surprise: a 2-km section of supposedly sealed road was mainly rock, gravel and puddles, with a few sections of what appeared to be old Roman paving. But it was actually quite fun on our fat-tyred bikes.
The least unwelcome surprise of the day was a locked gate that required a 5-km back-track and detour to get back onto the otherwise good-quality backroads into Alghero. We stayed at a good old fashioned hotel in Alghero (Hotel Angedras, where we were able to wash down and oil our bikes), and had a great night wandering the old town, where we found a 16th century laundromat to do some laundry and particularly good restaurant for dinner (Aragon).
Day 12. Alghero to Bosa
21 January 2025 (44 km, 843 m ascent)
As well as getting muddy yesterday, the gears on Chris’s bike had started slipping and were generally being annoying. So, after a pleasant breakfast and checkout at Hotel Angedras, we rode down to the promenade and found a likely looking tree to hang a bike on. After a refresher from Calvin Jones at Park Tools, the gears were soon shifting perfectly again.
It was 12 by then, so we retired to the nearest seaside cafe and had an early lunch of foccacias and coffee in the sun.
So, it was another late-ish start out along the coast road to Bosa. And it was a spectacular ride indeed. Lots of climbing and fun descents and lots of amazing views that have to make it one of the great coastal rides of the world. The road was very good quality almost all the way, with the notable exception of a bumpy bridge 8 km out of Bosa. More on that later.
The old town of Bosa on the side of the hill next to the river was particularly charming, and our host Anna at Da Ida, greeted us warmly. The narrow streets, narrow doors and scaffolding outside Da Ida were going to make getting our bikes inside difficult, but the workers on the scaffolding kindly offered their building as a storage place. On retrieving our batteries from the bikes in their little back room with a low door, Chris managed to give himself a scalping injury on the door jamb, which impressed all involved greatly.
With Chris sporting yet another embarrassing head bandage, we headed out for a meal of pretty good pinzes.
Day 13. Bosa to Riola Sardo
22 January 2025 (59 km, 791 m ascent)
Having retrieved our bikes from the dangerous low-door room (Maree did that bit), we discovered that Maree’s lock was missing. We quickly deduced that it must have flung off on that bumpy bridge yesterday. We headed out to buy some breakfast, hatching a half-baked plan that Chris would ride back out to look for it. But thankfully, Anna kindly offered to drive us back and look for it. At the bridge, after a first sweep among the strewn hubcaps, we were pessimistic about finding the lock, until the walk back when we noticed it hanging on the rail. And so we headed back for yet another late start to the day’s cycling.
The day’s cycle.travel backroad suggestions were all great, and the long climb up to the ridge at Magomadas was hard-ish work, but fine. After a stop at a fruit stall to scoff down a persimmon (cachi [It]/ kaki [Fr]), it was a fun afternoon of undulating back roads. We stopped for a picnic lunch in Sennariolo (including a couple of sweet oranges that we picked up from the ground under the orange trees in the park).
Sennariolo is a cute town with lots of nice murals. We rode around and through until we caught up with some fellow cyclist tourists who had been stopped by a local, Luciano, at the top of the last steep section of Via Regina Emelia, with the good advice to back-track to a less steep road (see this cycle.travel post).
After a bit of a chat, it was more up and down, until a final fun roll down the hill into Santa Caterina di Pittinuri, followed by another undulating hour or so into our cute hotel (40\(^\circ\) Parallelo Guesthouse) in Riola Sardo. Although the town didn’t have a lot to offer in the way of restaurants, the hotel was cute enough to entice us into a rest day there (leaving a big ride into Cagliari on the day of the ferry: more on that later).
Day 14. A day trip (for Maree) to the Sinis Peninsula
23 January 2025 (70 km)
We headed to the bigger town of Cabras, 10 km down the road, for lunch on our rest day. Chris wanted to catch up on some computer-related stuff, so Maree rode on for a look around the Sinis Peninsula, while Chris headed back to Riola.
After a ride up the hill to the archaeological site for a quick squizz at the Torre Di San Giovanni Di Sinis, she headed to the famous Spiaggia Maimoni which is a sweet beach with fine white quartz - all quite rounded and from a distance you think it is white sand - but actually tiny little pebbles. The water was surprisingly warm, and she pretty much had the place to herself.
Day 15. Riola Sardo to Guspini
24 January 2025 (70 km)
It was a flat ride for most of the day, ending with a fairly gentle climb up to Guspini. After a few stops for this and that around the outskirts of Oristano, the road south was fairly busy. We took a few side roads along the inlet to avoid the busyness, and clocked lots of flamingos. Finally the busy road turned less busy and we tootled along the back roads on the flat.
Then on a particularly narrow road, rider 2 (who shall remain nameless), rammed into the back of rider 1, when they stopped quickly to give an oncoming car some room. No damage to bodies or bikes, thankfully, but the clasp of one pannier was snapped clean off. A bit of roadside maintenance to strap the pannier to the rack got us back on the road.
It was a quiet ride up the hill to Guspini, where we had a nice Sardinian dinner out at Galeria des Saporis. On the way, a plan was hatched to replace the broken pannier once we made it to Sicily.
Day 16. Guspini to Cagliari for the ferry to Palermo
25 January 2025 (should have been 71 km, ended up being 93!)
A difficult day to say the least. Luckily we decided to head off at 9 am, because we needed the full day to make the Ferry at Cagliari.
After an early detour onto a main road to avoid a closed back road, it became a bit of a lottery as to whether the roads that openstreetmap classed as paved were actually unpaved, and vice versa. On one of the long sections of unpaved road, Chris’s rear back tyre started getting soft. We stopped a couple of times to pump it up, but it was a losing proposition. So when we finally hit paved road again and found our way into Serramanna, we stopped at a park next to a cafe and managed to get a coffee while changing the tube.
Out of Serramanna was a particularly rough track along the canal until we finally hit some decent mainly sealed back roads into Assemini on the outskirts of Cagliari by around 2. We were feeling (unjustly) confident about having plenty of time to make the ferry as we rode along Assemini’s separated bike lanes.
4 km after Assemeni we hit the signposted cycleway toward the end of the “CS13” cycle route into Cagliari. There were no signs indicating a closure, but we spent a lot of time discovering that it was comprehensively closed. The first partial barrier was a small, partly collapsed footbridge. We risked wheeling our bikes across this, and it was ok. However, another few hundred metres brought us to a larger bridge across the Riu de Sestu, which had been burnt down, and was totally impassable.
And yet, we persisted and back-tracked to the start of the cycleway and crossed the railway line to follow the bike paths of Elmas across the head of the Riu de Sestu estuary and found our way to the cycleway on the other side of the burnt-out bridge. It was an adequate unpaved and paved road for 4 km past the airport until we reached Via Girolamo Emiliani where the track drops down to the railway line. And there we found that Trenitalia have closed off the trail with high-security fencing, and no obvious alternative route.
With an hour and a half before we needed to board the weekly ferry, we had no other option from this point but to brave the insane network of autostrada that are the only other entree into Cagliari. It was a heart-in-the-mouth 15-km detour through some confusing clover-leaf intersections before we found our way onto the port exit that left us with a couple of km of not-so busy roads, which were a great relief. (See this cycle.travel post and comments for more info).
We made the ferry with half an hour to spare, somewhat shell-shocked and exhausted. But we had a comfortable night on the ferry until the rude awakening at 4 am. We had booked the night before in a Palermo Hotel, and after a dark ride along the port and up into the old town, we staggered into our hotel room at 6 am, looking out across the roofs of Palermo to Monte Pellegrino, and collapsed onto another bed. With some relief, we contemplated that it wouldn’t be an adventure without some days like this.
