Four days on the road
Aug. 7th, 2010 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustOf which the first (as you know, Bobs) brought us down through Engand and across to Dunkerque. This is abut 300 miles, and the daily average we needed to achieve to reach our destination at the end of Saturday: the plan was to cover the longer distances early and fast on motorways, and enjoy the scenic portions at our leisure. Oh, well...
Thursday was mostly motorway driving: east into Belgium, the south through Luxembourg and back into France.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler joked that we did at least set foot on every country we passed through : we lunched at a Belgian motorway service station, where the 'help yourself' salad buffet was priced by weight, and paused again in Luxembourg, where the shop offered an intriguing insight into which goods were desirable 'duty free', with massive drums of cigarettes and 5 kilo jars of Nutella.
Back in France, we joined the Moselle valley, and then spent the best part of an hour in a traffic queue on the autoroute. We never did find out what had caused it, but suspect that it was a tailback from the road we didn't take. Certainly once past the junction, traffic flowed freely again, but by now we'd had enough, and left the main road at Nancy to follow the minor road along beside the river and the canal - all green and cool and restful. This last half hour was the pleasantest of the day's journey, though we'd have enjoyed it more had we not been looking out anxiously for a hotel.
Eventually we found one in the little town of Charmes - and charmed we were. I'd happily make a return visit to explore the area further. There could be another post, about the hotel...
So we hadn't reduced our necessary average milage, but at least we hadn't increased it - which is just as well, becausedurham_rambler's plan for Friday involved some intricate mountain driving. The fast road along the Moselle valley through the Vosges was as scenic as you could wish, but we turned off it onto the winding road up the Ballon d'Alsace, the tallest of a group of round hills called 'les Ballons'. It was well signposted for cyclists, with encouraging signs telling them how far they had to go and how high up they were, and we passed a large number of them toiling up it. We shared the summit with cyclists, clouds, cows and several tourist souvenir shops / cafés, where we refreshed ourselves with coffee and shared a wedge of damn fine blueberry pie.
Then down the other side, and onto the Swiss motorway system. We were resigned to paying for a vignette, the motorway driving permit / tax certificate. So perhaps it was the the heat that made me fractious when we drove under the complex awning erected over the border, and discovered that no, the staff who came to each car could not take card payments, and that no,
you couldn't simply drive up to the office, the office was over here and the parking was over there... Given that the vignette costs a non-trivial sum in a currency which is not that of the neighbouring countries, and that you buy one only once in each calendar year, I'm surprised that card payment isn't the default. Oh, well, never mind...
I was particularly impressed by the tunnels. I suppose I'd assumed that we'd find motorway tunnels through tricky bits of mountains, and we did, but not as many as we found going through and round towns. Basle was outstanding, with multiple motorway junctions in tunnels and at one point a tunnel across the Rhine - that is, over the Rhine, with windows so you could see out. We drove on past Zurich and spent the night at the Ibis Hotel in Chur, going into the old town for fondue for dinner.
Another 300 mile day, then, and one more to go. But when we set off from Chur on Saturday morning, it was straight up into the mountains, and this time it was serious, we were crossing the Alps. At least we wouldn't have to worry about stopping in time to find a hotel. Still, we were aware of time passing, and although the drive was beautiful, it was frustrating not to be able to pause to admire the little villages dominated by magnificent bell towers, the sense of colour which was positively Romanian.
There were still cyclists, but now there were also motorcyclists, and I'd like to place it on the record that we didn't kill any of them (more by luck than judgement). Everything I ever knew about Italian drivers is still true. It was a lovely but a tiring drive, and after stopping at Lidl (the only supermarket we passed) for emergency supplies, we arrived at the Villa Saraceno as the sun was setting.
And that was almost a week ago - a week in which absence of wi-fi has prevented me posting this, and abundance of things to do, and good company to do them with, has prevented me drafting any further posts. I'm now on metered internet in a hotel in the small mountain town of Male, near the Swiss border, and anything else will have to wait!
Thursday was mostly motorway driving: east into Belgium, the south through Luxembourg and back into France.
durham_rambler joked that we did at least set foot on every country we passed through : we lunched at a Belgian motorway service station, where the 'help yourself' salad buffet was priced by weight, and paused again in Luxembourg, where the shop offered an intriguing insight into which goods were desirable 'duty free', with massive drums of cigarettes and 5 kilo jars of Nutella.Back in France, we joined the Moselle valley, and then spent the best part of an hour in a traffic queue on the autoroute. We never did find out what had caused it, but suspect that it was a tailback from the road we didn't take. Certainly once past the junction, traffic flowed freely again, but by now we'd had enough, and left the main road at Nancy to follow the minor road along beside the river and the canal - all green and cool and restful. This last half hour was the pleasantest of the day's journey, though we'd have enjoyed it more had we not been looking out anxiously for a hotel.
Eventually we found one in the little town of Charmes - and charmed we were. I'd happily make a return visit to explore the area further. There could be another post, about the hotel...
So we hadn't reduced our necessary average milage, but at least we hadn't increased it - which is just as well, because
durham_rambler's plan for Friday involved some intricate mountain driving. The fast road along the Moselle valley through the Vosges was as scenic as you could wish, but we turned off it onto the winding road up the Ballon d'Alsace, the tallest of a group of round hills called 'les Ballons'. It was well signposted for cyclists, with encouraging signs telling them how far they had to go and how high up they were, and we passed a large number of them toiling up it. We shared the summit with cyclists, clouds, cows and several tourist souvenir shops / cafés, where we refreshed ourselves with coffee and shared a wedge of damn fine blueberry pie.Then down the other side, and onto the Swiss motorway system. We were resigned to paying for a vignette, the motorway driving permit / tax certificate. So perhaps it was the the heat that made me fractious when we drove under the complex awning erected over the border, and discovered that no, the staff who came to each car could not take card payments, and that no,
you couldn't simply drive up to the office, the office was over here and the parking was over there... Given that the vignette costs a non-trivial sum in a currency which is not that of the neighbouring countries, and that you buy one only once in each calendar year, I'm surprised that card payment isn't the default. Oh, well, never mind...
I was particularly impressed by the tunnels. I suppose I'd assumed that we'd find motorway tunnels through tricky bits of mountains, and we did, but not as many as we found going through and round towns. Basle was outstanding, with multiple motorway junctions in tunnels and at one point a tunnel across the Rhine - that is, over the Rhine, with windows so you could see out. We drove on past Zurich and spent the night at the Ibis Hotel in Chur, going into the old town for fondue for dinner.
Another 300 mile day, then, and one more to go. But when we set off from Chur on Saturday morning, it was straight up into the mountains, and this time it was serious, we were crossing the Alps. At least we wouldn't have to worry about stopping in time to find a hotel. Still, we were aware of time passing, and although the drive was beautiful, it was frustrating not to be able to pause to admire the little villages dominated by magnificent bell towers, the sense of colour which was positively Romanian.
There were still cyclists, but now there were also motorcyclists, and I'd like to place it on the record that we didn't kill any of them (more by luck than judgement). Everything I ever knew about Italian drivers is still true. It was a lovely but a tiring drive, and after stopping at Lidl (the only supermarket we passed) for emergency supplies, we arrived at the Villa Saraceno as the sun was setting.
And that was almost a week ago - a week in which absence of wi-fi has prevented me posting this, and abundance of things to do, and good company to do them with, has prevented me drafting any further posts. I'm now on metered internet in a hotel in the small mountain town of Male, near the Swiss border, and anything else will have to wait!
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