Eurovelo 5 - our experience

We followed the Eurovelo 5 route fairly religiously through Switzerland, France, Germany (for one whole day!) and Luxembourg, to Luxembourg city only. We wanted to go to Holland and northern Belgium, so we then deviated, but picked the route up again in Dover and followed it to Canterbury.

I've written plenty about EV5 in our main journal, but I thought I'd also provide a summary, as it's the sort of thing we would have found very useful when deciding on our route. This isn't one of the most popular (or developed!!) Eurovelo routes, so there isn't a huge amount of info available. We haven't followed a long distance route before, as we like to do our own thing and usually have too many ideas of where we want to go! But EV5 intrigued us, as it passed through so many countries and headed in roughly the right direction. We barely saw any other cyclists, but it was quite late in the season.

Navigation and route

The bottom line is that things are very different in different countries, and may even vary within a particular country. We did make use of the GPS file available here: https://www.biroto.eu/en/cycle-route/europe/eurovelo-via- romea-francigena-ev5/rt00000409 but it doesn't quite follow the signed route in some places. Then there's also the route on the 'official' app, which can provide a third option at times!

Switzerland: the route follows Swiss national route 3 which is very well signposted. We had the odd wrong turn but probably because we weren't paying attention! Note that there are no official Eurovelo signs, although the app does tell you which route to follow.

Overall, we didn't LOVE cycling in Switzerland, as we often seemed to be squashed next to busy roads. Lake Lucerne was a good (bad?) example of this - it's absolutely stunning, but the edge was taken off by the extreme lack of tranquility! Overall, things weren't actually too hilly, with the exception of crossing the alps of course. We enjoyed riding over the Gotthard Pass, which is long but not too steep, and the cobbles were nowhere near as bad as expected. In summary, route 3 felt like an efficient way to cross the country, but not necessarily the best way to see Switzerland.

France: there is absolutely nothing before you get to Mulhouse. We tried to follow the route on the app but it seemed a bit random, so we ended up plotting our own route to get off an unpleasant, busy road. EV15 goes along the river between Basel and Mulhouse, so we'd suggest taking that instead! From Mulhouse, EV5 starts following the wine route cycle path, AND has official signs, so you're all set. Once EV5 leaves the wine route the shiny signs are no more, but there are still EV5 stickers on lampposts etc when needed. Note that we cheated and didn't follow EV5 between Molsheim and Saarbrucken, taking a more direct route instead. We were quite focused on getting home at this point....

This section of the route is pretty idyllic, especially if you like wine regions! However, it's exceptionally wiggly, so you may feel frustrated if you're trying to get somewhere. France is just a great place to cycle, with lots of bike paths and marked routes, which I expect you can find out about if you do more research than we did!

Germany: not much to say as we were only in the country for 24 hours! Back to zero official signs, or any information about which signs to follow, so you really need the GPS file and/or the app. We think the route follows the 'SaarLorLux' bike route, but either check that or take backup. Note that this is possibly the least scenic part of Germany. If you haven't been anywhere else in the country, please draw no conclusions from this ride!

Luxembourg we appeared to still follow the 'SaarLorLux' route, although we prioritised the GPS route as it was easier to follow, and they certainly weren't identical. We were mostly on quiet backroads, and then an excellent cycle path into Luxembourg City. It's very pretty, but not very flat!!

UK : after our deviation through Belgium and Holland, we picked up EV5 again in Dover. Well, we tried to. Again, no helpful info from the app (I really think prioritising points of interest over practical information is a mistake!) so we muddled along ourselves. The route appears to follow national cycle network route 16, which is pretty well signed once you're used to spotting the small markers. It's a very pleasant ride through quintissential England (once you're out of Dover, which is the pits) and takes you right into Canterbury. We did actually see a couple of official EV5 signs, which were a bit random but made us smile!

Accomodation and food

Things were getting tight at this point in our trip, so we camped every night (legally though, I'm not much good at stealth camping!). As usual, we located campsites via google maps which also provides reviews, although take those with a pinch of salt. Even sites with relatively poor reviews were absolutely fine for us. If you're riding out of peak season, do check that your campsite of choice is still open! This became a problem for us in Belgium and Holland, end Sept / early Oct.

Our first Swiss campsite was 40CHF, but things then calmed down to around the 25CHF price point. French campsites are incredibly cheap. We preferred the municipal sites as they were less 'holiday park' in style, but the non- municipal sites were equally cheap and often a little more plush. We only stayed at one site in Germany, but it was fine and reasonable. Luxembourg was more expensive, but nothing horrendous.

We self-catered all of our meals, which was easy and cheap everywhere except Switzerland. Even there, we figured out that 'Denner Satelite' and 'Migros' are budget supermarkets, so we shopped there exclusively and ate a lot of pasta!!

In summary

We had fun following EV5 but I am not sure we would choose another Eurovelo (or other long distance) route in future. We like doing our own thing too much, and are confident that we can plan good routes with the help of komoot or another navigation tool. As mentioned above, we didn't really rate the route in Switzerland in terms of cycling experience (although we felt perfectly safe!) and found the French section overly wiggly, although extremely pleasant. We didn't even get to mix with other cyclists, as there weren't really any, but that might be due to the time of year. I guess the bottom line is that it didn't offer us with much advantage over our usual freestyle approach!

I still think Eurovelo is a brilliant idea, and just wish it had more funding to complete more of the offering. And I'm really glad we gave it a go!