Driving Insanity and More

It all began on Saturday at 1300 hrs. Our driver picked us up at the house to drive us to Merignac, Bordeaux Aeroport, to pick up our rental car for the drive to Paris the next day.

Being a young man (comparatively), and French, (and dont forget that he is familiar with the roads, having grown up in the area) we did some 'low-flying' on the way there. It is a good thing I couldn't see the speedo, sitting in the front passenger's seat, a place I wouldn't normally choose to sit, but because our driver's Franglais is about the same as mine, and Waz isnt a conversationalist at the best of times with those he doesn't know, there I sat, and Waz took note of the speed being reached, without comment.
French drivers, in our experience, dont follow the recommended speed. No police around but plenty of speed cameras and it is comical to watch the driver's speed drop for the cameras and then off they go again at breakneck speed! WOW!

We arrived safely at Merignac, had to wait a couple of hours before picking up the car, because we only want to pay for ONE day, and know that we wont be dropping the vehicle off in Paris at an early time.
We walked around the slightly futuristic terminal building, found the Hertz desk eventually and signed on with all the insurance we could buy (going into Paris, who knew what lay ahead) and found the car. In the rain, of course. Not impressed with the very basic little (1200cc?) Opel car which needed a 6th gear on the 130kph Autoroutes.

Waz sitting in the capacious Terminal 2, at Merignac, Bordeaux.

 Looking from outside, in, but seeing only reflections.

 The control tower behind the concourse for drop-off, on the 2nd level.

 Rental cars near, and parking far. Of course it was raining.

 So you think you are in Wine Country??? THIS is Bordeaux Baggage Claim.

 Of course they would plant grape vines in between the various terminals. These all had rose bushes at the ends of the rows.

Off we drove in this little car in torrential rain, all the way back home. Trucks on the highway spraying the car with so much dirty water that the car looked like we had been off-road driving, even before we left home the next day. We invoked the Weather Goddess for some fine weather for our Sunday drive north. I think she listened!

Back home, we set about preparing the house for our house sitters, who will be there until our return. They arrived in time for dinner. They are friends of the previous owner and know how the house works. Great!

All packed up with everything in the car the night before, we crept out of the house at 5.45am, and on the road at 5 mins to 6am. We bought a book of laminated maps of France last week, and Waz had worked out the best route in the days prior to our leaving. He had it all set up on our GPS, prior to starting the car. No GPS came with the car! This vehicle is pretty bare bones.

I'm not a fan of driving in the dark or we would have left at midnight.
We had started a long (ended up being 12 hrs) journey in 2016 from Rennes, Bretagne (Brittany), to St Jean de Losne in Bourgogne (Burgundy),at 4am I think. Not again. Not only did we miss out on seeing the countryside, but we were on unfamiliar roads and it was more stressful driving.

Thank goodness for the cover of darkness however, as we did a couple of roadside stops for a pee,  and then it was skirting Limoges, just an hour after kick-off, and onto the N 20 AutoRoute.

Only refrigerated trucks are allowed on the highways in France on a Sunday, and they were few and far between. Traffic didnt get anywhere near busy until we hit the large centers, and even then, it wasn't bad. In plenty of places we were the only vehicle on the road as far as the eye could see in both directions. Bliss! Certainly made for a pleasant trip and we could slow down somewhat. Some of the Auto-routes are 110kph, but the A10 was 130kph. Waz clocked me doing 125kph in the little car. This is when I needed that 6th gear:) This photo is 1kph lower. I did hit the 130kph a couple of times, but the car sounded as if it was about to 'take-off'.

Lots of hills....some very loooong hills going up and down some very Looooonggg hills going down. The average grade was 7%, which is quite steep in the scheme of things...7/10, that is.
It's very hard to see how steep this hill is, unfortunately, but suffice to say it was significant or he wouldn't have taken the photo.

 As we entered the Loire Valley, these windmills became more prevalent. This is the view we usually see from the TGV on our way to and from Paris on our 'normal' train journey.

We stopped for petrol and breakfast just south of Orleans on the A10, a mistake that cost us 6.10 euros in Tolls. One wrong turn and it cost us!

Two very hot lattes from the AutoRoute gas station and mini-market/gourmet food store and bathrooms, which were very clean!  We took the lattes out to the car and stood there eating our prepared food for breakfast. We might otherwise have paid 3 euros for an American sized muffin, or 2 euros for a small croissant that we would normally pay less than 1 euro for elsewhere.
Hard boiled eggs, cubes of Emmental cheese, some petite viennoiserie (little pain choc. croissants and pain raisin) and some strawberries and a pear (for me). Fortified for the next leg of the journey, on we went.

We decided to exit that highway and take a much needed break in the lovely city of Orleans on the fast running Loire River.
I have only ever skirted this pretty city, so this was a perfect opportunity while the sun was shining, to spend an hour walking the city streets.
We parked half a Km from where we wanted to be, and on the main road out of town back to the N20.
Waz managed this photo as we were crossing the Loire. We didnt actually find the church whose steeples those are, but we did find some other things to photograph!

That's our little black car behind those barriers, and in front of those interesting houses. Tough finding a place to park, frankly, as the sun was shining (for the most part) and cyclists, roller bladers and runners, families and many others were out along the banks of the river enjoying activities. Never seen so many people running, outside of Auckland NZ, to be honest.

 We wondered where these folks had started their journey. The flotation devices are made of something very light.. They were wearing very long fins, with them. The river looked to be in flood still, and the water was not pretty. Later on, we found two canoeists in the same place. They had so much kit with them that they must have been camping further up the river somewhere for the weekend.

 There is more river on the other side of that little island, to the left.

 Public Loo with clematis climbing over it. Clematis are for sale in all the supermarkets, right now.

 It appears that the whole of the waterfront is in for something new. It will be lovely when finished. We rather wondered why they didnt finish a 1/4 of it first, so people could access it, then continue on, but no, they had to rip up the WHOLE thing first. lol.

 An apartment facing the Loire. I think this must be expensive real estate.

 What a fabulous Art Deco building!

 These maisons fronting the Loire River in Orleans. The plane trees will be gorgeous in full foliage.

 We walked further to find that this is actually the bell tower of a church...in behind that façade.

 The water was rushing under this bridge.

 You can imagine the speed of the water!

 One block back from the waterfront we found this gorgeous Arcade.

 on both sides of the road. The Tram rails go all the way to the end, and across the bridge in the last photos.

 What joy to find the Halles open and working, even after lunch on Sunday. Most will be closed by noon.

  A shop window on the way to the Halles.

 Lines at most of the vendors.

 Bother! We would love to take some of this fresh pasta home.

 The salmon is fresh North Atlantic wild caught, and tastes fabulous.  It wasn't that so much as the Nigerian Tiger Prawns that caught my attention...

 At 64.90 Eu pkg they are pricey, but how pretty are they!

 I had to be forceably removed from the market with the exhortation that we had somewhere to go, and if I wished to walk further, I had better get going! True!
New and Old opposite each other.

 I said the sun came out? It did! and it was hot. We peeled our layers off and it was 18C when we returned to the car. It got hotter!

We were still only one block from the Loire.

 What stunning detail on this very old building. We noticed that many of the very old buildings looked degraded, more than many places we have been. On the other hand, some have been so renewed as to not look 'normal', a bit like a facelift when the plastic surgeon had one too many drinks at lunch!

 Another lovely tower. This one had a name, but Waz is sleeping and I dont want to wake him for his memory of it.

 At the far end of the road of Arcades. I am guessing that statue (an educated guess, this being Orleans) is of Jeanne d'Arc, (Joan of Arc) who is much celebrated here.

 Down a side street on the way back to the car...it is now afternoon. See that sun? It is also now HOT!

 Ok...We think the owners of the store down below, must live above. We found bunnies and...

 Cats in the same apartment! lol

 The old and the new, again.

 The last of the blossoms. Some places (as we drove north) were still waiting for theirs, while others were in full leaf. The perfume from this pink blossom was heady and glorious.

 The blooms on this tree were huge! Gorgeous!

 The old church has been renovated to include parts of the very old. Sometimes this is good, but the decoration on the old part we so degraded, it made me very sad. I couldn't find out how old this was.

 It is the fun and quirky details to make us smile. Street of the Goat that Dances:)

 Last photo as we sat waiting at the lights opposite this bridge, further down the Loire River.

Back on the N20 and we were northbound once more.
Vast open spaces, crops, the same brown/green/yellow canvas on Mother Earth, to admire as we drove through the Eure et Loir and into Isle de France Departments. Paris is in Isle de France, so we knew we weren't too far away...we thought.
Paris is a HUGE city, and the outskirts were slow going, through 'normal' streets with traffic lights that were part of the N20, and the motorbikes weaving their way through the traffic were terrifying. As seasoned motorcyclists, both of us, we couldn't believe what some of them were doing to get ahead of the traffic. Total suicide!
The suburbs seemed to go on forever, before we joined the city traffic.

No time to take photos....I had to have eyes in the back and sides of my head, and Waz had his eye on the direction we were going, and busy reading the signs. The stress of the drive isnt in the traffic, because even though there is a lot of it and it appears a bit crazy, it isnt moving at great speed. We crawled along for what seemed like hours, often coming to a complete standstill for minutes at a time. The stress is in keeping your eye on the traffic AND trying to figure out which lane to be in, and where THAT lane peels off to. There were a few almost mishaps as people changed lanes hurredly and at the last moment to cut across to the lane of their destination, often across 4 lanes! aiee! I saw more than one Fiat 500 do this, and wondered if it was in their DNA! lol.
The other stress, but this time, was having a full bladder, and not only not wanting to get out of the traffic, but not being able to do so. Waz spied a gas station...we had to return the car with a full tank, of course, and this advertised BP. Do a quickie turn onto the far right hand lane across two lanes...thanks for letting me through, folks! and into the turn-off to the gas station. OH NO! Cant access it from there, so around the corner to the right we go and Nada! cant get in there either!! Closed to traffic!  WHATTTT??? Crazy place is having a market day, and there is a Grand Rond Point (a large roundabout freeforall) at this same place. Not only do you now have huge vans parked everywhere, so that there is little room to pass without scraping something, you have a dozen vehicles all wanting to go in the same direction, and oh dear! now the light has changed, and I am sitting in the middle of the intersection...just as I had seen so many before me doing...but nobody wanted to let me in , and people sat on their horns to get me out of the way...but where was I going to go? Not an inch anywhere! F**K! BREATHE!!!!
Ok...breath taken, no we want to go right! WAAATTTT?? You want me to go down there? But there are 7 other vehicles (I say vehicles, coz they are light trucks and vans, motorcycles and other things that one cant describe) all wanting to get onto that SINGLE LANE on-ramp down to the highway.
Phew! Dont hyperventilate!
I cut a motorcyclist off and I heard him yell unmentionables at me...tough! C'est Paris, buddy! and I joined the queue for the on-ramp along with all the others now jockeying for what little space there was between vehicles. I seriously expected to be side-swiped! Just as well we took out comprehensive insurance for this one day journey. $20 for no deductible, thanks! Well worth it.

BTW...it was now 23C outside. We needed to peel some clothing off, but couldn't stop to do so. Thank goodness the car had air conditioning!

See where that motorcyclist is with his bright green helmet? That is where we are all trying to go.
Those market day vans were poking out into the Rond point (literally Round Point), and not leaving a whole lot of room for the traffic. Everything tightened up between vehicles after I took this photo. We were at a standstill, and waiting for that green light to the right of the motorcyclist. Off we went...creeping along and around each other. I kept a smile on my face the whole way through, even though my bladder was a bursting point by now. I had intended relieving myself at the gas station.

Further down the highway, mostly in slow traffic and often no movement at all, we found another gas station and this one had a toilette. Oh boy, did it have a toilette! After locking the car while Waz filled up with gas, I ventured into the facility. Hmm...The floor was literally awash. You dont want to imagine the smell, and there were no lights in the stalls. There was a good two inch gap under the door, and if I was smart, I could use the light to look down and find the edge of the toilet, and aim straight! lol. I had to roll up the trouser legs to avoid drenching them in muck, and the bowl itself...well, ok, I wont go there.

I could wash my hands with soap, however! lol. Waz ventured in next, even after I warned him, but we didnt know when our next loo stop might be.

Suitably relieved, full of gas (the car, that is!) and ready for the rest of the journey. We crossed numerous bridges on the highway which is known as the Peripherique. It is the Ring Road that goes all the way around Paris. What we didnt know was that the Paris Marathon was being run today! It wouldn't have made our choice any different, I have to admit, because we still had to get to Paris some time and some how. This rail strike is a pain in the ass. If they haven't reached a suitable or any settlement by May when we return, that arrival date is also on their strike schedule. Bah! I hope that doesn't mean we will have a reverse drive down to Bordeaux, after a long journey from NZ.

Finding the drop off point for our rental car proved to be a bit of a mission, at Charles de Gaulle Airport. There are no clear signs, and in fact, they are clearly lacking in any form. We went around the ring twice. Once to suss out where to go and the second time to hopefully find the place we spied on the first go around.
We had had enough of sitting in this most uncomfortable vehicle, by now, and anxious to get off the road.
Finding the sign for car returns, we followed the small signs, and eventually found Hertz, four floors up in a spiral in the parking garage. Of course all the portals (those spaces you have to drive through) are narrow and we often fear for our wing mirrors on the way through.
Hertz were very efficient, however, and we were off and out of there in a flash.

I am going to send the striking SNCF Rail and Air France folks the bill for our car rental, the extra day in the hotel, and the meals we have to purchase in the meantime. Not happy with them.  You cant hold the country to ransom like this, and I hope like hell that President Macron holds his ground on the issues on the table.

Back in our favored hotel, we took a much needed nap, and woke in time for dinner which we ate at the hotel for a change. The hotel is too hot. I did ask, this morning, if they could lower the temperature. We had turned the heat in our room off per usual, and opened the window, but the attitude of the staff is this..." Well, we are still in the 'Heating Period' of the  year, and so you can turn your room heat off and open the window if you like." I told them we had done that, and his response was that nothing could be done about it. Sigh!

Ok, Im going to join Waz in a nap. This is a welcome break for us, before all the craziness that is to come.
Stay tuned, folks. See you on the other side.