France’s Seine a Velo cycle route stretches more than 400 kilometers between Paris and the English Channel (Le Havre or Deauville, take your pick). We chose to ride between Rouen and Paris, so most of it. Here’s what we found.
The highlight, at least for us, is Claude Monet’s gorgeous garden at Giverny, a few kilometers south of Vernon. Inspiring! And to find he used some of the same flowers that are in my garden! Though there’s really no competition about whose is nicer.
More about the challenges of enjoying the gardens while on a bike trip below.
The overall route? Although Seine a Velo route was unveiled in 2020, I’d describe it as a work in progress. Some sections are great, but we were unprepared for some of the gravel sections. My 28 mm tires handled it, but just barely.
As you ride, it becomes clear that the Seine is very much a working river, so you’re not always as close to the water as you might want. And in other places, as the Seine twists back on itself it feels like someone was thinking EDI (basically bike every damn inch of the river’s path). I’m especially thinking of our second day.
But because this is a (mostly) river route, it’s (mostly) flat.
Day 1: Rouen to Vernon
We began our journey where Joan of Arc spent her final days. We arrived in Rouen by train after spending time exploring the D-Day beaches by bike. If you can, take some time — even just half a day — exploring the core of this Roman and medieval city: the Cathedral, the neighborhood full of charming half-timbered buildings, the new church next to where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. We went on a “free” walking tour (payment is your tip), which I would recommend. The city also has the biggest collection of Impressionist paintings outside Paris, housed in the Musee des Beaux-Arts.
Getting out of a city can be a challenge, but Rouen has a bike-friendly mayor, and we picked up the Seine a Velo route along .. the Seine. Then it was up and over a ridge and through the woods. By mile 10, we were back along the Seine.
For those who want to skip the climb, I was surprised to see us pedaling past Elbeuf – Sainte Aubin around mile 15. That was the last stop on our train before Rouen.
By then our route was back to flat.
That white ruin of a castle you see on a hill as you cross the Seine into Les Andelys? That’s Chateau Gaillard, built by Richard the Lionheart, who was both king of England and duke of Normandy. We just looked up from the river; climb if you dare.
My biggest quibble with the day was that the path often turned off just before the center of a village. How many chances for a pastry did we miss?
But we had little time to sit. We had 4 p.m. tickets for Monet’s garden, and we needed to get to our bike-friendly hotel first. There’s no place to leave bags at the garden, unless you want to leave everything on your bike, and honestly, carrying them when it’s so crowded with visitors would not be fun. So it was almost 65 miles to the hotel, then 3 or so miles to the gardens. And then back to the hotel.
I know, a lot of miles. You may want to split this up.
The original plan had been to get tickets to Giverny for the following morning, but by the time we went looking, they were all sold. In the end, going that afternoon was the right call. But if we thought it would be less crowded … nope. And if you have extra time in Giverny, wander around the village. There’s a museum with ever-changing exhibits as well as plenty of shops.
Here are just a few of the many, many photos we took.
Most visitors to Giverny don’t spend the night in Vernon; there’s the train station for day-trippers and a dock for the river cruises. While Vernon is not a fancy town, you will find a range of restaurants, groceries and more. You can also stay in the village of Giverny, but no surprise it’s pricier.
Day 2: Vernon to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine
We waited out the rain — yay, no need to rush to the gardens. We watched other cyclists head out from the hotel in rain gear while we waited another hour or two in the dry.
And then we stopped for a morning pastry.
My usual.
Our destination that day was Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, nearly 60 miles away and within commuting distance of Paris.
This was a tough day. At times I questioned the route’s choices. Why take us down and around an inland harbor just off the Seine that involved a rocky path when we could have taken one of two roads south and avoided it? Felt EDI to me.
Sometimes there simply weren’t other options, which is why we biked for a stretch after Mantes-la-Jolie in the bike lane on a very busy D road next to trucks and later on had to circumvent the Renault factory next to the river. Could there be a way to have avoided another challenging gravelly section along the river after that?
At one point, you just follow the route. And the signs.
On the hand, we biked past the impressive Chateau de la Roche-Guyon.
Just a few kilometers away, in Haute-Isle, we stopped for this church carved into the cliffs.
We had to peek through the locked gate.
And what about Conflans?
There’s a hotel and some restaurants along the river as well as the Conflans Fin d’Oise train station (frequent and cheap service to Paris). But most amenities are away from the river.
Day 3: Paris to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine
Yes, we did this in reverse, after a break (another story). And as part of a bike ride from Paris to London on a route called the Avenue Verte. It essentially overlaps with the Seine a Velo route from Notre Dame in Paris to Conflans.
Getting out of Paris is surprisingly easy. Both routes start (or end) at Notre Dame de Paris.
From there, you will take bike lanes to the Canal Saint Martin. From then on, you are almost always on a wide path following first the canal and then the Seine. We biked past the Stade de France, the big stadium in the suburb of Saint-Denis.
Saint-Denis doesn’t have the best reputation in France. It’s poor. So when we later came across a group of teachers chaperoning about 50 middle schoolers on bikes, one man raised an eyebrow and asked how safe it was. Honestly, just fine.
One thing I learned on this trip is to take advantage of a bathroom when you see one. So I was hoping for one at the Parc des Impressionistes in Rueil-Malmaison. Nope. Lovely plantings, by the way.
But there is one right after the park, right on the route. Free, and automatically cleaned too. No smelly port-a-potty.
This was an easy, low-mileage day (less than 40 miles). As I mentioned, the Seine is a working river, and in Conflans we watched this ship pull away from its mooring.
My dinner: foie gras and duck. So French.
Practical stuff: How to find a bike-friendly place to sleep
Cyclists want a safe place for their bikes while they sleep. Some places let you bring your bike into your room. But others don’t.
France has a system called Accueil Vélo to flag all kinds of bike-friendly businesses. Hotels, for example, have to provide secure and safe bike storage. That’s how we found our hotel in Rouen, for example.
Others sometimes included bike storage in their description. Or we would ask before we booked. We used Booking.com a lot on this trip and sometimes someone had already asked the question, such as at the basic hotel we used in Vernon. (Bikes were stored in the basement.) When we were told there was no space for bikes, we moved on to another option.
Exploring by bicycle 