A Proust pilgrimage in Northern France

Dr_Nickcp

Depending on your attitude to vast modernist texts, you may or not know or care that Marcel Proust wrote a vast (and brilliant) novel called 'In Search of Lost Time'. And that in this book he describes both a seaside resort he calls Balbec, based on Cabourg (just east of Caen in Normandy), and a town called Combray, apparently based on a place called Illiers about a 150km south, near Chartres. Slightly oddly, it's now called Illiers-Combray, combining the real and the fictional.

Anyway, I've hatched a plan to cycle from Cabourg to Illiers-Combray in homage to Proust. Leaving aside the literary connections, is this a good idea? I don't know that part of France at all - would it be a good place for a tour or not? I.e. (by my criteria) plenty of campsites, things to see, and enjoyable but not too difficult terrain.

dabber

I haven't cycled in that area of France but I regularly drive down to southwest France via Rouen - Evreux - Dreux - Chartres and it always seems pretty boring, fairly flat and featureless. Of course, I'm driving on autoroutes and main roads so I don't know what it would be like away from them. Also, you wouldn't be directly on that route but my first impression is that if was riding in France (with all its wonderful possibilities) it wouldn't be my first choice.