Rouen accommodations tour de France stop

Ugh! You and everybody else, probably. Most of the gites I've looked at around Rouen are rural ones in the middle of nowhere (no place to walk, eat, etc). Rail lines are sparse on the right bank with not too many stations. The chance of getting the two close together are pretty slim. How crowed they'd be at Tour time, I have no idea, but in other parts of the country everything is thronged - - even the small towns. Which puts you into the light rail category. Which consists of a 'Y' shaped tram system on the left bank which is essentially within the bend in the Seine. Which is generally bland to industrial sucko. There's a couple or three cheapo ETap hotels in the area - - the ETAP Petit Quevilly is the only one with a place to eat nearby and it's a couple of hundred yards of a boring walk through a residential area to the tram station. The area around it is marginally interesting. (I have nothing against ETAPs and stay in them frequently. I don't have any problems with the area except that it's blah.) I think it might be better to bite the bullet and stay in town. There's a Kyriad (Hotel Kyriad Rouen Centre) right on the river that probably will hit you for just under $200/night - - any other time it would be half that. It's a ten-minute walk from the cathedral. There's a Mercure right by the cathedral, I don't know how much it would cost.

Hi, Joan. Well, my place to offer doesn't meet Ed's criteria, but it's only 10 minutes from Rouen and is a horse stable for local horse owners. I haven't yet been there but came across it researching my own Rouen visit. Absolutely beautiful, lovely ambiance and great prices. I'm sure they could give you ideas on how to access public transport from the edge of town. http://www.jonquets.com/ This sounds weird, but it just occurred to me: I wonder if you could rent bicycles nearby and park outside town (or even leave your car at a B&B such as this one and just cycle in to the location of the race you want to be.....?) Good luck.

Karen's come up with a great place that beats my cheesy ideas - - the problem is there are no trains out that way. Since you'll have a car, what you could do is drive into tne tram line on the north side of the river (which I'd blown off) and ride from there. The northeastern terminus of the system is the Boulingrin stop and there's a big parking lots right across the road. I keep giving references to the cathedral since that's the center of the city. However, I strongly suspect that the tour route will run along the Quai Jacques Anquetil (left bank right across from the island) and the other batch of quais that change names every two blocks. If that's the case, you'd stay on the tram to the Joffre Mutualite stop and walk a block to the quais. If the trams are clobbered (I've no opinion), you'd have to walk a bit less than a mile. If the parking lot is clobbered (again, no opinion) you're in a pickle. Since Rouen is a stage start/stop, it's probably going to have traffic coming out its ears. I'd have a gps and a list of addresses for parking garages and pray like the devil. If that's a concern, you're back to my ideas. The Kyriad is a five minute walk from the left bank quais - - it has no parking, but there are garages a couple of blocks to the east (you might as well note these in regard to the preceeding paragraph). The ETAPs all have parking. My first choice is a two-mile walk to the quai, the other two are about a mile and a half away. Only the first one is near the tram line.

In case you've never experience the delight of staying in an ETAP: I stay in them all the time on solo trips since they're cheap and spotless, albeit small, plastic, and utterly charmless. My minder will stay in them, but if it happens more often than once every couple of weeks . . . there ain't no smiling face at breakfast. I'm not a fan of reservations anywhere ever. This time I would have made one last month.