Posts Tagged ‘RCI by bicycle’

Germany – Oberstaufen – RCI by Bicycle

Monday, August 31st, 2009

By D’Arcy Kavanagh

The train stopped at the small, immaculate station in Oberstaufen and we piled out, hauling our bikes with us. We jumped aboard and rode a half-kilometre into the charming old part of this resort town that attracts hikers in summer and skiers in winter. The town’s charms – flowers everywhere, Alpine-style buildings – made it a dramatic change from Munich where we’d started our day.

We sat outdoors in the centrum – the town centre – for lunch and watched shoppers, walkers and cyclists drift by. The mood seemed unabashedly relaxed and we welcomed it. Munich is a great city, but sometimes it’s good to have a slower pace of life.

oberstaufenThen we got instructions from a local to our RCI. The route was straightforward: Head to the northwest part of town, go down a kilometer-long hill into a farming area and it’s there on the rightt, so large that it can’t be missed even with the imposing hills around it and the mountains in the distance demanding attention.

The RCI was sprawling with several Alpine-style buildings nestled against a forest. Our one-bedroom accommodation was perfect for me, my wife Lynda and my daughter Keely. Lynda and I took the bedroom which had a patio that popped out into the forest where untold numbers of birds chirped away. Keely used the pull-out bed in the couch for sleeping. Our digs were cosy and delightful.

And so the days drifted by quietly but happily as we cycled the valley north of our RCI, rode east on a road that twisted and turned through a score of villages, and, several times, took a train to Lindau, a stunning town on the shores of busy but beautiful Lake Constance. Whenever we went to Lindau, we found time to explore its winding streets, to investigate its fine shops and to indulge in a meal at a café overlooking the harbour and with the Alpsglistening on the far shores. Then we’d head out from Lindau, joining thousands of other cyclists as we rode large stretches of the shoreline, even going into Switzerland.

One day, we put aside our bikes and took an eight-hour bus tour from the RCI. Our driver/host handled his machine with great skill on the narrow roads through the hilly south of Germany as he told us about the history of one splendid valley after another. The most memorable stop was at Neuschwanstein Castle, the 19thcentury Bavarian structure built by King Ludwik II and which is the model for the Disney castle. We joined hundreds of other bug-eyed tourists as we explored this well-kept but bizarre edifice envisioned by an individual who was known, not surprisingly, as “Mad Ludwig.”

When the week was over, we were ready to go. Yet, at the same time, we were a little sad to leave. Oberstaufen is a delightful community in a beautiful setting with an RCI that’s a model of efficiency and comfort, and a neighbouring region that offers a variety of delights, from castles to a glorious European lake that demands days of exploring. With some luck, we’ll return.

RCIHighlights: The community, close to the trains, the scenery (this photo is of the RCI resort)

Didn’t like: The hills, but they weren’t that bad (Lynda just doesn’t like to sweat!)

Organized Tours: Yes and they were fabulous and worth more than the low price

Would we go to this resort again: Yes, and surprisingly it always seems available. There is lots to see and do and even more if you had a car.

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France – Perpignan & Canet en Rousille – RCI by Bicycle

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

By D’Arcy Kavanagh

When my wife Lynda and I arrived in Perpignan by train from Paris, it seemed we had entered another country. Yes, we heard French but there was also a dialect that was more than challenging to outsiders. Then there was the presence of Catalan flags that reflected the area’s diverse past. And there were palm trees lining boulevard after boulevard. And then there were the red and white stone buildings. Plus a heavy heat that brought a flush from the slightest of activities.

We stayed a couple of days, using our bikes to explore the narrow, fascinating back streets of this ancient city that’s famed for its rugby fanaticism, for being a favourite destination of surrealist artist Salvador Dali and for being a frequent part of the Tour de France bicycle race that captivates not only the French but hundreds of millions around the world. Of yes, we also sampled some of the diverse fare offered by the city’s many wonderful cafes.

Then we rode southeast about 15 kilometres to Canet en Rousillon where our RCI was. The sprawling resort was indeed impressive with its colour-coded buildings, its pool, its restaurant, its snack bar and its small grocery store. Maybe best of all, it offered easy access to the old town, to the new one that stretches along the sandy coastline and to a walking-distance shopping mall. 

Over the next week, we learned how much this remarkable part of France has to offer. One day, we rode through one southwest coastal town after another – often on bike paths – as we headed toward Spain, barely 50 km away. We took rest stops by the sandy beach, had lunch in a café overlooking the amazingly blue Mediterranean, and snapped endless photos of the coastline and the Pyrenees mountain range that lingered just to the north.

Another day, we put aside our bikes and took a tour from the resort to Carcassonne which has a spectacular old walled town that was used for the filming of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner. When we crossed the drawbridge, it was like walking back several centuries. It didn’t take much imagination to sense what it must have been like to have lived in this fortress community. A wonderland for kids and adults.

The days went by in a blur. We used the amenities of our first-class resort, poked about the old town, shopped in the new town’s myriad of fashionable shops, spent time on the beach, investigated marina after marina, munched on fresh croissants in quaint little parks and chatted with locals whose politeness served as an example of how to treat visitors.

Then it was time to push on. As we packed our bikes aboard the train for the next leg of our journey to Nice on the east coast, I remember thinking we had done so much, but were leaving with so much left to experience. We could have spent more time exploring Perpignan. We could have taken another resort-organized trip to Barcelona. We could have checked out more ancient buildings. We could have done a little more inland riding to some of the small communities that have their own special stories, and we could have visited more with the folks lucky enough to live in this area. But that’s the mark of a good place to visit – you want to return.

Highlights:Excellent access to endless sandy beaches, resort-organized trips to Carcassonne/Barcelona, intriguing coastal communities.

Didn’t like: No complaints

Organized Tours: Carcassonne, Barcelona.

Would we return to the resort: Absolutely.

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France – Mandelieu – RCI by Bicycle

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

By Lynda Kavanagh, aka The “WOW” Gal

Cannes is a wild and crazy place and especially if you are there during the Cannes Film Festival. We had been to Cannes several times and really didn’t want to stay in the heart of the city so we were quite excited to see an RCI that was in a neighbouring community Mandelieu. It is only 8km outside of Cannes but the communities blend together so you really don’t know where you leave Cannes and when you enter Mandelieu.

This was a great RCI, very professionally run, clean and secure. The people at the front desk spoke enough English so that I could communicate with them. It is about a 15 story apartment with either a mountain view or an ocean view. The ocean view was of the Marina so mostly all you saw were parked boats, we were luck to get the mountain view and it was spectacular.

To get there from the Nice airport, you simply ride the beach road to Cannes, keep going until you hit the Cannes golf course. (Not the start of the golf course, it will be at the west end of the golf course). There is a turn to the right just before a small bridge over a canal inlet. You are then only about 2 km from the resort.

This resort had an Olympic size swimming pool. The next apartment complex had a small store that offered bakery, coffee and newspapers. We made our coffee in the apartment but D’Arcy went daily for fresh baking and our newspapers. (He reads the French Papers and I read the Herald Tribune).

Across the street there is a large shopping mall with a huge Casino (supermarket). I mean huge. This is the largest we have ever seen. There is also a Casino restaurant that is a great place for good, inexpensive food, in a buffet type format. (We ran into this concept when we were in Paris and found that sometimes it was easier and less expensive to eat in this type of restaurant than to cook in the apartment. That said the apartment had a microwave and stovetop.

canneThis photo is of the hillside.

Mandelieu is very deceiving. We originally thought it was small until we went for a bike ride and, to our surprise, the community is very large. It is great to explore, but the traffic is heavy and you are primarily on the roads if you move away from the beach road. I found that the shopping was not that great, primarily the beach shops and a few other retail stores.

There were lots of places to have wine and/or a meal. Our first day we went down to the beach and had lunch and met some people who were from Australia, had an apartment in Mandelieu as well as one in London. They also had a sailboat that they could live on.

D’Arcy and I were jealous that they could afford that “vagabond” lifestyle. I’d love to be able to do that – 3 months at a time in different parts of the world.

You could easily spend a week here, going into Cannes or even back to Antibes (back east towards the airport), or you could go west and ride the mountains. There is a train station about 4km from the resort. One day it was rainy so we trained it to Grasse to purchase perfume.

Grasse is also deceiving in its size, go to the old town and be prepared to do lots of exploring.

Highlights: The mountain view of the resort, the beach, the golf course (it was always empty, we wish we’d have brought our clubs),  lots of places to eat or just enjoy the wine.

Didn’t like: No complaints

Organized Tours: No

Would we return to the resort: For sure

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France – Villefranche sur Mer – RCI by Bicycle

Monday, July 13th, 2009

By Lynda Kavanagh, aka The “WOW” Gal

June 2009

Villefranche is part of the French Riviera and very close to the Italian border. To get there we flew into Nice, great airport for bikes. Sidebar: They now have a Left Luggage and will keep your bike bags (we have sacs not plastic bags) and if you are going to be there for a long period (we were there for three weeks) they dropped the price from 8Euros to 5Euros a day.

So we put our bikes together and headed east, past Nice on dedicated bike paths and the Prmenade de Anglais. (Absolutely spectacular view of the Cote d’Azur – this means Ocean of Blue – and I’ve never seen that colour of ocean before.

Villefranche is up a nasty hill on the east end of Nice, right by the ferry port. The traffic is heavy but, they know how to drive around you. Once you get to the top of the hill, then you go down into Villefrance. (Yes such is the life of a cyclist, you go up, then you go down, then you go up again).

Villefrance is a bit deceiving as it is built on three different levels, we had a bit of a hard time finding our RCI, Quai Amiral Ponchardier as it was on the lowest level of Villefrance (yes down more hills).

The management of this Maeva apartment were two big burly fellows but as nice as you could ever want, but the apartment was extremely small and had those strange beds (we’ve seen them before at European RCI’s, where you have a couch/bed and a drawer underneath that you pull out and there is another mattress there. My Mom says they are a form of  “Trundle bed” and when she was a young gal they had them in Canada.

villefranceI could live with the smallness of the apartment and the weird bed because the view was spectacular. It was across from the main Villefranche beach and the inlet of water was only 10 feet from our window. Every day we had our coffee and croissants and watched as the big ocean liners dock to let people off to go to the beach. They were working on the beach during the time we were there so that was a bit noisy but once completed it will enhance the area.

We cycled into Monico and Nice, but the hills were a bit of a deterrent, especially after a bit of wine and a nice meal. So we stayed in our area to eat and drink and that was okay as there were lots of restaurants to pick from and some Petite’ Casinos (supermarkets). Whatever your budget was you would be able to find a meal. Of course, as Canadians we are used to eating early, but none of the restaurants would serve food before 8. So we had wine looking out our great window view until it was supper time.

Our original plan was to train it to Menton and Ventamillia as the train station was close buy, but there was a train strike. We were lucky to not have gone the day we planned as that’s the day the strike happened and it went on for four days. That definitely had an impact on the number of day trips we could take.

One day we were going to try to find the Perfume factory in Ese’, which is towards Monico. After about 10km straight up a mountain, I quit. D’Arcy cycled another 10km and still didn’t reach it so we decided to forget about this one and go to the factory in Grasse, which is above another mountain by Nice. We had cycled that before so I knew that I could do it – after all it was only 25km up!!!

Highlights: The view, the beach, the Rose’ wine, the ride to Monico

Didin’t like: The hills to get to and from there, the nightclub.

Organized Tours: No

Would we go to this resort again: No. Too small and it was right next to a night club that did not stop the music or the noise until 3pm. I could have handled the smallness if I could have gotten a good nights sleep. I think if the train strike would not have been on, we would have more options but because the hills were so strenuous, it was a deterrent to leave our little area.

Tour de France: Oh by the way, the 2009 Tour did this area, the Ese area, Nice, and Grasse- so that tells you how mountainous this part is. (But I felt special to ride the road that Lance rode)

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