The Fiat marches on...
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2012
1
8
10
Trip End
Apr 07, 2012
Where I stayed
Clos de Combottes, Epagny, France
Dijon, Burgundy, France
Friday, April 6, 2012
<Bob> It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it but lack of sleep can become almost all-consuming after a while. Every bit of you aches and as the day wears on whatever need you have (eat, drink, sit down etc.) rapidly becomes all you can think about. I managed about 3 hours last night so double the record of the last 3 days but not really enough.
We agreed therefore that the autoroute was the way forwards today - dull but relatively quick. Sergio was feeling thirsty so we fed him with some fresh oil and then set off into a mercifully dry Grenoble.
<Wendy> Getting out of Grenoble was easy - just follow everyone else. We found our way quickly to the autoroute and sat in the slow lane bimbling along. Bob announced that it was a more comfortable drive if he didn't look in the rear view mirror as you see the traffic rapidly coming up on you and pulling out at the last minute. When it was my turn, i found this was sage advice.
<Bob> Little Sergio was proving better on the autoroute than we had dared hoped. The sweet spot seems to be an indicated 85kph at which point you thrum along nicely, can cope with most of the hills, and don't get in everyone's way too much. After an hour or so we were closing rapidly on Lyon, which was a surprise to all.
<Wendy> I didn't feel that we were that slow as i was looking at nice big numbers on our only dial and therefore it had to be fast - we were doing over 80 after all. I took a pic of us reaching the 20000 km mark on the clock... no idea if that's the first time or numerous times this little car has displayed that but well over 1000km have already been put on by us in the last few days.
To keep things more interesting, i decided to recount the podcast i listened to recently of Christian the Lion and Bob was quite interested (http://youtu.be/7cqouVL0AiQ) as it's a lovely true story. This whiled away some time and when it was my turn to drive, Bob recounted the full plot of Star Wars Episode IV as i've never seen it. Now i know about bun head, golden bot, chewy the hairy one etc.
<Bob> I actually really enjoyed Wendy's story telling so I was a bit nervous about returning the favour but Star Wars is pretty easy to describe. Plus, by telling it pretty much in real-time we were nearly in Dijon by the time I had finished :-). My turn to take over and we decided to head into Dijon itself and have a couple of hours wandering around before finding our hotel on the outskirts in the village of Epagny.
<Wendy> Dijon is lovely and definitely another one of those places to return to. Plus it had the handbag to die for but sadly it stayed there at a cool 219 euros. Oh well. We did however find a fab homeware shop full of stuff you don't need but want it all regardless. Good job we only have a tiny car but i did buy some stuff saying i could find a home for it under the seats...
Navigating out of Dijon was somewhat harder than getting into it. We have both learnt that i cannot read a complicated map but Bob appears to be able to guess correctly so i drive and he guesses.
<Bob> Actually that's not far from the truth... French road signage is, to be blunt, crap at the best of times and especially bad when roadworks and contra flows are thrown in as they were here. The maps show road numbers but the road signs don't mention them. The signs talk about towns that aren't on the maps. The maps mention the occasional road names but the name plaques are so tiny you can't see them from the car so in the end I had three different maps on my lap and resorted to working out where we were from the rough angles and straightness of the roads. Amazingly this worked and via a slightly roundabout route we found ourselves heading to Epagny on the D903 at max speed and a large truck up our arse...
<Wendy> Quite used to seeing full truck grill in rear view mirror so this didn't phase me. Eventually he gave up and over took us, as did 3 others following him. We carried on driving and it became apparent that our hotel for this evening was a bit remote. Lots of country lanes later and we eventually found ourselves in the French equivalent of Stepford. No idea if there are wives here as doing a tour on foot of the village didn't throw up any sign of life (fine graveyard though and lots of immaculate houses) Happening place then...
<Bob> Having trusted in Tripadvisor this did come as a bit of a shock to me but the guy at the hotel was really friendly, the room nice, the wi-fi fast and the parking plentiful (we being the only guests from what we could tell). Within 30 minutes though more people started arriving, each one stopping to double-take before taking a picture of our little car. The restaurant turned out to be superb too.
<Wendy> Tomorrow we are off to Rheims and our last overnight stop (hopefully)
Night night all.
Comments
Hope you slept well Bob!