Wish You Were Here: A Santa Cruz couple cycles through France

The wildflowers of Provence and the Loire Valley filled this cycling trip with color and delight. Here's what these travelers learned along the way.

Bay Area News Group readers have globetrotted around the world over these last months — and then shared their adventures and travel tips on everything from Alaskan glaciers to the wilds of Pitcairn Island, founded by mutineers from the infamous HMS Bounty.

Now we’re hearing from a Santa Cruz duo who bicycled through Provence. Read on for details, then find more travel inspiration at www.mercurynews.com/tag/wish-you-were-here/.

Wish You Were Here

FRANCE: Last spring, Santa Cruz residents Kathy and Bob Ferraro and two other couples traveled to the Loire Valley and Provence to cycle tour. “Spring in France was lovely with wildflowers blooming in the fields,” Kathy says. “Our favorites were the fields of mustard in the Loire Valley (pictured above) and the red poppies in Provence.”

TRAVEL TIPS: “We hired a cycle touring company, Love Velo, who booked our hotels, created cycling routes for us and hauled our luggage from one hotel to another. They also provided bikes, including ebikes for those of us who wanted them. What I liked about the ebikes is that it allowed us to arrive at our destination for the day with enough energy to explore each town along the way. Much better then arriving exhausted and miss out on all these towns had to offer.

“Traveling this time of year is wonderful, if you can take the time — fewer tourists, and the weather is not hot like the summer in France. That said, we always had our rain jackets handy, although we didn’t have to use them too often.”