It’s a slow news day today. Just letting you know. But Claude proved his worth today, which was good.
This morning we checked out of Les Bories en Champagne, which was a bit sad. The AirBNB was a bit quirky, but I guess you have to expect that with a building that was likely built before Captain Cook discovered Australia.
But it was such a beautiful and relaxing location. Simpy amazing to behold.
We had packed most of our stuff last night, so today we just needed to get up, shower, get dressed, have breakfast, pack the car and go. We still had leftover baguettes from yesterday so that was breakfast, with butter and strawberry jam. Yum.
We’ve only done about 125km in Claude so far, and today we will be travelling about another 200km or so, so that will be interesting.
We are very happy with Claude so far, though. Very comfortable, very fuel efficient.
Driving a left-hand drive is still a bit weird, but it is getting better all of the time.
We wanted to see more of the countryside, so we made a conscious decision to avoid toll roads when we can.
We drove through some very pretty little villages on our way out of Montlevon, although I’m sure that they will become boring after a while. All of these villages are very quaint but they all have one thing in common – none of them have public toilets.
So if you need a comfort stop, you are hard pressed to find somewhere suitable. That is the thing that the toll roads have though – fuel, food and toilet stops.
The roads and surrounds are so green, and scenic, and pretty.
We were getting peckish around 10.30am, and MBW found a highly rated place called Boulangerie Mousset, Les Miettes de Pain (which I think means “Breadcrumbs”). We found a parking space and went in, only to queue up behind about 20 people ahead of us.
A popular place is usually a good place, in our experience!
And the majority of people simply go in and buy a baguette or three. When in Rome … so we bought a baguette, plus some pastries for smoko.
We fired up Google Maps again and headed off … only to find ourselves at the start of a motorway where you take your ticket. While we had made a conscious decision to select a non toll road earlier in the day, we didn’t do that after stopping to buy smoko … so we found ourselves confronted with the start of the toll road.
Not exactly what we had intended, but …
They have a parking area at the end of the toll gates, so we pulled over and had smoko, and asked someone else there about the process for using the toll booths and for paying at the other end.
Once on the toll road, we set Claude’s phasers to warp speed and we were off – at 130km/h. That is the “A” road speed limit, unless it is raining, so the limit drops down to 110km/h.
The toll roads are a lot of things. Certainly fast, although not particularly scenic.
The speed limits here are quite confusing. They will often have a speed sign with a picture of a car and caravan, so – the assumption is that – the new limit applies only to vans.
Ditto with a speed sign and an arrow – indicating that the new speed is applicable to a side street or an exit ramp.
And then you will see the name of a township or village on a street sign with a red border (like the red circle for speed signs), and the assumption is that means you are expected to slow down to 50km/h for the built up area, although it doesn’t actally state that fact.
It started to rain, and so two things happened – I slowed down to 110km/h as required under the road rules (even though nobody else seemed to do so), and Claude’s automatic windscreen wipers kicked into action.
We arrived into Dijon at a bit before 2.00pm and met our host waiting for us. All of the messages have come through from “Laurence and Guy”, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Their profile photo shows a man and a woman, so we figured that Guy is a lady’s French name.
What I actually didn’t expect was that the gentleman in his 70s who met us, wearing a beret, and who introduced himself as “Ghee” (the correct French pronunciation of Guy, apparently) and he didn’t speak a word of English.
Seriously, why can’t these people just make a little bit more effort to speak the Queen’s English 🙂
Google Translate saved the day, and with much laughter we figured it all out. Unfortunately this apartment is on the second floor of an apartment building with no elevators, so I got my workout hauling our bags up some stairs.
MBW and I went for a short orientation walk, and especially after Les Bories en Champagne, Dijon seems very industrial and dirty and busy. Cars everywhere, so there is no way that we are taking Claude out of his warm parking spot at the back of the apartment to battle the traffic.
We bought some groceries and headed back home for a quiet afternoon rest.
We couldn’t organise a walking tour of Dijon, so we will do something self-guided tomorrow. It’s been a bit rainy this afternoon but is forecast to be fine tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Sunday, then on Monday we head off again towards Annecy (pronounced “Anna-see”, as far as we can tell.
And that’s about it. A quite day but we are well and truly on our way towards the south of France.
