Tag: accommodation

We are all booked for the Alps

Posted on by elliebees in Alps, Challenges, News, Planning

So we are all booked for our Alpine challenge. Transport, ferries and accommodation all sorted.

A massive thanks to Hannah for sorting out our transport options. Flo was being a pain and wanted a lot of space in the van, as she has refused to go down hill in the Alps and wants to be transported in style.

Once we had our transport options sorted, we could book the ferry crossings. Its going to be a early start from Bristol (or really late depending on how you look at it) and our total travel time is going to 16 – 17 hours down to our starting point in the French Alps .

There are plenty of companies that offer Alpine cycling tours but since we are self funded keeping costs down is important to us. By designing the challenge and booking the separate elements ourselves and taking our own support we have probably saved about 40 – 50% on an organised tour.

Check out the other posts about planning our Alpine challenge.

More planning for our tour of the Alps

Posted on by elliebees in Alps, News, Planning

So with our 6 cycling stages roughly planned, it was time to sort out, transport and accommodation.

Our current plan is to drive from Bristol down to Dover to catch a ferry over to France. The best way seems to be to hire a van for the bikes and a people carrier or minibus for, well for the people.

Small issue. Brexit. Currently no one can tell us if we can take a hire vehicle over to France this summer. So we have put the transport issue to one side for now.

Accommodation was a slightly easier task. Online hotel booking tools are so much help with this. Hannah and Eloise sat down on Sunday and booked almost all our overnight stays. There was a bit of juggling involved when a place couldn’t be found in exactly the right town. It was important to check what difference it would make to our planned routes. It might only be 3 miles from the town we want to stay, but its no good if its 3 miles off route.

The biggest issue we found was trying to find accommodation in L’Alpe d’Huez. It is one of the bigger places we wanted to stay. It wasn’t until we received a helpful email from one of the chalets we had contacted about availability that we found out that it is Alpe d’Huzes Dutch Charity week . This a major Dutch charity event that happens every year, competitors either compete as individuals or in teams with the aim of cycling up the 21 Bends at least 6 times in one day.

We are now currently planning a bit of a re-route so that we don’t need to stay in L’Alpe d’Huez overnight.