Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for your reactivity
and apologies for the late reply to all of this.
We actually live in London and cycle every day to work and pretty much everywhere, which of course is a very different exercise than a cycling tour like this. We still want to avoid cycling out of the city as we consider it would be a waste of time and energy. We will probably take a train to Slough and start from around there.
Once again this is more of a challenge than a pretty holiday cycling tour, we want to cycle to Edinburgh. But the idea is to try and go through the nicest places possible and I'm glad I posted on this forum because it gave me interesting ideas.
Here is the new route we thought about:
https://goo.gl/maps/Goyk1
Google Maps didn't let me finish it, but after Alnwick we'll probably head to Edinburgh via the coastal route (Berwick-upon-Tweed).
I'm quite happy with the result, again if you have suggestions they're much welcome.
And indeed France is a lovely country for cycling. What we want here is to discover new places
Many thanks for your messages
Lola