Day 27-37 - Driving Through France

We spent ten days driving through France. Here are some observations from this trip:


Driving

In the cities, a propensity for one way streets can make things difficult to get around. I struggle to see the point of so many one way streets, including my favourite in Nice, when after taking nearly two hours to get my car, the street I was driving down turned from a two way street into a one way street without announcement.

The French motorways come in to forms: toll roads and free motorways when there is no free alternative to driving on the motorway. Our first day we spent 16 Euro getting from Nice to Aix-de-Provence , which is about the equivalent of driving to Ballarat from Melbourne. After this, we managed to avoid tolls for the rest of the trip.

Driving on the roads between towns can be interesting. Trucks have their own, much lower, speed limits in France and cannot leave the right hand lane. On a motorway, this usually leaves trucks and other slow coaches in the right hand lane, people roughly doing the speed limit (which is 130kmh on motorways) in the middle lane, and guys in very fast cars going very fast in the lane closest to the centre median.

The smaller roads are generally 90kmh, and while some try to go faster, this is not always possible if only one lane goes each way. Sometimes you can get stuck behind a truck doing 70kmh for quite some time before a passing lane gives one the opportunity to pass it.

The French are also strongly committed to the roundabout. While they can be exasperating, they often give the driver the opportunity to either reverse a wrong turn, or check which direction they should be going in.

Parking

Associated with driving is parking. Quite simply, large French cities don’t want you to park in their city. We went around Avignon a few times, Pau for almost an hour and drove through Bordeaux (where we had planned to stay) because we couldn’t find a spot to stop and look for accommodation. In the end, we amended our plans to avoid big cities like Nantes and Amiens and stay in smaller places instead.

Food

The best discovery of the driving excursion was a little town called Castelnaudary, which we had planned to stay in on the first Sunday evening, driving from Avignon. Castelnaudary is the self-appointed capital of a dish called Cassoulet, which is a peasant dish from South East France.

They cook white beans in pork and sausage fat , then cook the sausage and pork and duck (France’s favourite poultry, much more prevalent on menus than chicken) in the beans, then put it in the oven covered with breadcrumbs and shaved pork crackling. It is quite simply one of the better dishes I have ever had.

Overall the food in France is good, but menus don’t vary an awful lot. They like lamb, beef (cooked or uncooked), pork and duck. And contrary to some reports, the food is not too expensive.

Anyway, let’s look at each of the places we stayed:

Nice

A lovely resort town on the Mediterranean. As we went to Nice from Ventimiglia, we stopped in Monte Carlo, and suddenly the train was like a sardine tin. Nearly everyone who got on in Monaco got off in Nice. We didn’t see an awful lot of Nice, except for when I was trying to find a way out of Nice, but it seemed a very pleasant place.

Funny story – the rental car company needed a credit card. I went back to the hotel to get my one. Then they needed 200 Euro credit on it for the guarantee. I had like $110 in my non-holiday bank account. Fortunately my dear Mother had just transferred some money into my bank account, otherwise we may have been stuck in Nice for another three days without booked accommodation. All was well that ended well.

Avignon

Hope of the papacy in the 14th Century, we toured around the old Papal Palace at dusk. It has an old defensive wall around the old city and a charming main street with a carousel. It was here that I discovered the world’s worst beer – Leffe.

Funny story – on the Sunday morning we did our washing in the local coin laundry. In case a man of Algerian heritage smoking and drinking. He was friendly, and tried to continue a conversation with us for about an hour, although neither of us could speak his language, nor he ours. The only he said in French we could recognise was “Sarkozy – Merd!” As our clothes stubbornly refused to sufficiently dry, his seedy mates joined him. When our clothes finally dried, we left in about 0.0008 seconds.

Castelnaudary

Home of the Cassoulet. The town has a small lake, and the carnival was in town. We shared a goat’s cheese salad that was magnificent before I had Cassoulet and Rose had some chicken which was equally good. If we ever get a holiday house in the South of France, it’ll probably be very close to Castelnaudary.

Funny story – early next morning a local market decided to spring up, around my parked car. We barely made it out.

Lourdes

We visited Lourdes on our way to Pau. There were three churches on the spot of the apparitions, one on top of the other, and we managed to get some water in a small vial. There was a long line for people to bathe in it, and many people afflicted with some sort of disability moving around.

Funny story – all the crappers (not urinals) in the Men’s toilets at Lourdes are crouchers.

Pau

I know I’ve been criticised for being overly critical of various places, but I say this with no hesitation – Pau is a dump. Don’t go there. The only good thing about Pau is I watched the replay of St Kilda beating Collingwood there.

Bordeaux Libourne

We did stop in Bordeaux, and have some coffee. I had a B&B in mind, but when we finally found it, no one opened the door when Rose knocked. After touring around for about an hour, we finally decided to split this joint and keep driving, until we arrived at a smaller town called Libourne. We stayed at a lovely old hotel run but two older women who dressed comfortably (wink), and it was a wonderful experience. The room, which was really quite cheap, reminded us both of the rooms at the Windsor in Melbourne.

Funny story – we had dinner at an American themed diner, where we ordered massive burgers and milkshakes with more cream than shake. I think Rose is still eating her burger.

St Leonard de Noblat

A small town just through Limoges, we arrived and stayed at the only hotel in town, which was fortunately quite nice. We walked through the old cemetery; the carnival followed us here as well. I spent 15 Euro winning Rose some cups. For dinner we ate in the hotel restaurant, where we had Duck’s leg in pastry, which was delicious and perfectly cooked.

Funny story – On the way to Limgoes, we stopped in Angeloume and bought some Brie. When we got to the hotel a few hours later, it smelled funny, like it had gone bad, so we threw it out. Later in the evening for dessert we shared some cheeses. The Brie smelled exactly the same. Turns out Rose threw out 4 Euros (a lot) worth of perfectly good cheese. Brie smells that way in France.

Poitiers

A bigger town with a large cathedral and a tiny Statue of Liberty, more one way streets you can poke a stick at, and a hotel in the middle of town with a car park. We sent postcards from there, and reacquainted ourselves with Italian food for the first time since leaving Italy. A very nice place indeed.

Funny story – we decided to go bowling, and we sped off in the rough direction of the bowling alley. On what I assumed was a 90kmh road, I got pulled over by the cops. I was doing 94kmh in a 70kmh zone.

The fine was 90 Euro exactly. The policeman asked from where I was, and I informed him. He then asked for my driver’s licence, and I produced the International one I had purchased for the very purpose of driving through France (and later Ireland) before we left. The policeman told me it was no good here. At this moment I started wondering what the inside of a French lock-up cell was like.

He asked me if I had a driver’s licence in Australia, and I did. It was also in the car, in my wallet, which was in my big bag. I went to open it, but remembered that the key was back in the hotel room.

I only had 50 Euro notes on me as well, so out of the blue, he took pity on me and gave me a warning. I drove off to look for the bowling alley and settle my nerves.

We couldn’t find it, but eventually did. Looking for a car parking space, I took a wrong turn and was suddenly back on the road, about to go past the cops again. Rose thinks we should go bowling more often.

Rennes

Rennes is another bigger city, and parking was again difficult. We had a picnic style lunch planned for along the way, but the road between Poitiers and Rennes was almost all motorways, so we had to have lunch in a nice park in a truck stop.

We stayed in a nice, new hotel that punched above its weight, and went to the movies in the evening, seeing the only movie we could in English, a movie called “New York, I Love You”.

Funny story – They didn’t sell any snacks at the Cinema. No popcorn, no drinks, nothing.

Bayeux

Bayeux is in Normandy, and seems to be the centre of tourism related to D Day. It is also the home of the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which at 70 metres long, tells the story of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England and accession to the throne of the King of England.

After that, we drove down to Omaha Beach and the US War Cemetery there. The visitor’s centre is one of the better done war museums, and the cemetery itself is carefully planned and laid out. A cool wind came in from the coast, across the beaches stormed in June 1944.

Funny story – there is an Omaha Beach Golf Course, because if there wasn’t, the Nazis would win.

Dieppe

Kind of like a northern Nice, this is the resort town on the north coast of France, with its beach devoid of sand but overflowing with small stones and pebbles, and its stalls and games. Parking was again a struggle but inventive, as people just took up any space they could. We played mini-golf which Rose duly won (about time, she had lost bowling) and had dinner at the Casino.

Funny story – the Casino has two roulette tables, one blackjack table and one poker table. And some pokies.

Giverny/St Marcel

Giverny is the home of Monet’s Garden, and a gallery of impressionist paintings from his genre. It took some finding, as we drove to the wrong town to get there and had to drive back. The garden is maintained meticulously, even down to a guy dredging the lack with a net to get the algae out. We bought a Monet print in Giverny, but had very little money after that and a big lunch, so we went down market in a nearby industrial town, St Marcel.

Funny story – Monet’s Garden is basically owned by a large rooster with a sore throat.

The day after Giverney we were due in Paris, so that is where this road trip ends.