Burgundy & Provence 🇫🇷 Summer 2026 🇫🇷

Dear Matt,

Your Burgundy & Provence Cycling Cruise — A Visual Journey Awaits

Get ready to experience the stunning landscapes, charming villages, and world-class vineyards of Burgundy & Provence.

This photo itinerary offers a glimpse of the unforgettable rides, cultural highlights, and luxurious moments that await you on this incredible cycling cruise.

Embark Day – Burgundy & Provence

For those who wish to skip our optional Paris PreTour (which includes your chance to witness the final two hours of the 2026 Tour de France from a VIP seat at the Champs-Élysées finish line), an included embark shuttle from Lyon’s LYS International Airport is a few hours closer to embark than Paris.

Those who opt for our Paris PreTour will arrive at our Burgundy embark following a 200mph TGV train ride from Paris. More about our exciting Paris & Tour de France combo is provided later in this itinerary.

Either way, embark will occur beside a park at the center of Lyon, where test rides will occur following our mechanic-hosted bike assembly.

After we’ve been welcomed aboard and moved into our staterooms, we’ll settle down for a welcoming presentation before a sunset dinner cruise. Tonight our luxury cruise ship will move upriver through locks to reach Chalon-sur-Saône.

Day 2 – Our following day’s ride passes through legendary vineyards and wine villages to reach Beaune, where doctors will love the included tour of the medieval “hospital.”

Beaune, the epicenter of Burgundy, is where tastings and auctions held in caves beneath the town set the price you’ll pay if you want to serve a premier cru at your next dinner party.

On our tour of a famous chateau and its cave you’ll learn the proper way to swirl, sip, and spit. In a Burgundian tradition dating back 23 centuries, graduates of this course will receive an honorary sommelier's tastevin.

Mileage choices to Beaune are a flat 19, canal ’n’ rail-trail 28, or challenging 39. The optional afternoon ride is a fast 19-mile return to the river. After cleaning up, our Chalon-sur-Saône dock is adjacent to the city’s pedestrian center with its cathedral and picture-perfect Place St. Vincent.

As we sit down to our second gourmet dinner (paired wines included) in the ship’s panoramic dining room, we’ll untie to start a week-long voyage spanning France’s Saône and Rhône Rivers.

Day 3 – Today our morning rides will explore the seven fabled villages of Beaujolais. Because these villages are perched on the side of the Cote (a winemaker’s term for a range of hills dressed with vines), most of us will be happy to explore and taste wines in two or three of the villages closer to the Saône.

Strong teams will climb into the forested mountains, and stop to take each other’s photos at a couple of signed cols.

After covering a mild 25, moderate 31 or challenging 42 miles, you’ll find the ship where it was re-positioned to serve lunch.

This afternoon many will race the ship 32 easy miles to Lyon, where it will pause for the afternoon and evening.

Although our Burgundy & Provence cruise includes three gourmet meals per day, we suspect a couple of dozen serious foodies will enjoy an epicurean evening in Lyon—the celebrated capital of French Cuisine.

For those of you wondering if Burgundy is too hilly

Following three days on the Saône, in the early hours of day four we’ll enter the Rhône. To design this tour, Jan and I scouted thousands of miles of French roads. Using a cruise ship allowed us to be ultra-choosy. On this tour you’ll cycle the finest and most interesting segments of the Saône/Rhône. While you rest up for the following day our ship will cruise past stretches that are relatively ordinary. (To accomplish this feat with an inn-to-inn cycling tour, we’d need flying hotels.)

Day 4 – This is another day when the ship moves four hours downriver after breakfast, parks for 90 minutes to serve us lunch, and then cruises downriver another two hours before stopping to retrieve afternoon riders. On days like this you can ride in the morning, in the afternoon, both or neither.

While on most bike tours your non-cycling option is to spend a dismal day crammed in the back of a van—if you decide to skip a ride on this tour, your choice is either a relaxing scenic cruise or a reclining, picture-window seat in Sergio’s big touring coach, which shows up at the gangplank each day to transport non-riders to inland attractions.

Our ride through the Rhône Valley and Cotes du Rhone vineyards features the recently completed ViaRhona bike trail. On a day when the strongest riders will want to take it easy before tomorrow’s ascent of Ventoux, all will enjoy dozens of effortless miles on this smooth trail.

Those who can’t imagine a day without any climbs will take a short AM detour to Malleval, an amazing medieval village of stone houses. Those who choose to ascend a bit farther will cycle across the soaring stone arches of the Pélussin Viaduct—a rail-trail version of Ponte-du-Garde.

In the pair of miles before lunch, your choice is wine, chocolate, or both. After passing the Cotes du Rhone welcoming center, you’ll reach a second tasting room to sample our favorites at Valrhona's world-famous Cité du Chocolat.

If 32 to 45 pre-lunch miles aren’t enough, you’ll be able to race the ship 25 miles downriver to La Voulte. Earlier dinner tonight.

Day 5 – On the next day of our Burgundy & Provence cycling cruise, we wake in the shadow of Mont Ventoux, where breakfast includes a mountain-delayed sunrise. Of the three routes to Ventoux’s summit, all 17 TdFs to include this challenge have featured the classic climb from the southwest. In deference to this tradition, our long riders’ truck-and-bus convoy will soon depart for a remote ride that starts in the village of Bédoin.

If you’d like to take your place among the legends and heroes who’ve ridden our sport’s most celebrated climb, Santana will again support ascents of Ventoux, where over 150 cyclists attending Santana’s earlier versions of this cruise have successfully “summited.”

If 57 miles over Ventoux seems excessive, another worthy choice for our first morning in Provence is a 41-mile ride by way of Pont du Gard. Because all of today’s rides end in Avignon, a wondrous town filled with shopping and history, the shortest 12- and 18-mile rides can get you there before the ship, which will remain parked near Avignon’s center through the evening.

Are you aware of the 70-year period when Rome and Italy were deemed unsafe for the head of Western Christianity? During those decades, seven successive Popes (each one of them born in France) shunned the Vatican and ruled from Avignon. There they used the church’s wealth to create an immense and amazing palace. In the centuries following the Church’s 1378 return to Rome, the French faithful protected and maintained the palace while praying for the papal return.

The Catholic hierarchy has not only rejected the idea of returning the papacy to France, they’ve never again elected a French-born Pope! Late this afternoon we’ll meet downtown to tour the magnificent Palais des Papes.

Day 6 – Today our bus and truck convoy will climb to the highest of the Luberon hill towns. On this “mostly downhill” day, even the shortest 26-mile route explores the villages of Gordes (with its stone houses and bories), Rousillon (with its Sedona-red landscape), Lacoste, Oppède, and Ménerbes (where Peter Mayle was inspired to write My Year in Provence).

In addition, most riders will find the strength to cross into the valley where the monks of Sénanque Abbey tend famous fields of lavender. Stronger riders will push on to conquer a particularly scenic summit (easier than Ventoux) featured in multiple Tours de France.

Day 7 – For the sixth and seventh evenings of our cycling cruise the ship will remain docked at the center of Arles, the Rhone River’s southernmost city. Arles is where Vincent van Gogh spent many tumultuous months painting his most famous works. After becoming quarrelsome and cutting off a portion of his ear, he spent a year of institutionalization in the nearby town of St. Remy. Our 7th day of riding highlights the vistas and history of Van Gogh’s Provence. By Tuesday, when everyone should be ready for 35 miles, our final loop’s first stop comes at the 750-foot summit of the day’s only challenging climb. Recently completed as a showcase for van Gogh’s art, the subterranean Carrières des Lumières is a uniquely modern way to experience art as it is projected onto the naturally white walls of a massive aluminum quarry.

After you have had your fill of this immersive experience, the ride descends through the village of St. Remy to visit the famous asylum where a kindly Doctor encouraged his patient’s artistic evolution. Outside the asylum, Santana will again hire artists to guide tours retracing the footsteps of a genius. Stopping in places where Van Gogh planted his easel, they’ll show us how the master, having reached the pinnacle of his artistic career, feverishly re-interpreted the real world.

A short distance from the asylum is one of France’s top archeological sites. Unearthed a few years after van Gogh’s departure is a portion of a vast city that was buried in a mudflow for nearly 1500 years. A major outpost of ancient Greece, the collection of stone buildings of Glanum was enlarged by the Romans to become their regional capital. Still an active dig, the ancient city, centuries older than Paris, is slowly coming to light after being lost for ages.

To understand this Pompeii-like time capsule, we’ve hired historic interpreters. From Glanum, we’ll enjoy a beautifully flat ride on a quiet back road loop back to nearby Arles. Slightly smaller than Avignon, Arles is centuries older—and perhaps more interesting.

Late this afternoon you'll pack your bicycle and luggage before enjoying an elegant farewell dinner hosted by the ship’s captain and crew.

Day 8 – Disembark Day

Our tour includes early-AM shuttles to Marseilles’ MRS International Airport (an especially friendly terminal where dozens of our boxed tandems have been accepted without charge!) or the nearby train station with TGV service.

Optional Tour de France Paris PreTour Package

An optional PreTour package includes 2026’s Tour de France finish-line weekend in Paris. With this option you’ll be able to cycle the barricaded finishing circuit of the TdF on Sunday morning (after the police close it to traffic and before the late-afternoon arrival of the pro peloton).

Although watching the final 8 laps from the curb is free, Santana’s long association with ASO (the owners of Le Tour de France) will again allow us to obtain a cache of passes normally reserved for the Le Tour’s top sponsors.

Within this curb-front VIP pavilion (nothing between you and the riders) we’ll enjoy gourmet treats, fine wine, and reserved VIP seating at the finish line. Either way, the biggest party in Paris includes the late afternoon appearance of the pro peloton that will ride 8 laps of the same circuit you cycled this morning before they sprint to the final finish of their weeks-long contest.

Santana’s TdF PreTour package includes a 3- or 4-night stay in a 4-star hotel (a short stroll from Arc de Triomphe), TGV transfer from Paris to our Cruise Embark, and luggage truck transport of our PreTour group’s blanketed bikes and large luggage. Those who opt for this inexpensive and efficient program can arrive via Paris CDG Airport where we’ll have someone to meet flights (exact times will be in the airfare update).

Ship & Stateroom Info Tomorrow!

Dates & Pricing on Wednesday!

Your personal invitation to Reserve a Stateroom will arrive on Thursday at 10am Pacific!

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for all the updates on our cycling cruise here:

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