18th May Driving through France

The Europeans are definitely a breed to themselves. Why would you start honking your horn at 3.30am and have someone honk back? A bit of a cacophony in the early hours! Then at 6am we had doors slamming and loud conversations. So my phone alarm at 6.30am (set to jungle noises - was that you Peter changing the sound? 😅) was quite pleasant despite the early hour. 

Much to our surprise it seems that the entire hotel were up early as there was a bit of a queue for our self service style breakfast. A selection of cereals, yogurt, breads, hot drinks and juice. We snaffled a few extra bits for our lunch (always well prepared with my plastic bags) - well we have to get our money's worth. We sat near what can be viewed as a typical French man, wearing his beret and blue shirt. I think he did it for effect as who wears a hat for breakfast? 🤔

Anyway, on the road by 7.30am we initially had a fairly straightforward drive. Then we were slowed down by constant red traffic lights going through Orleans as we managed to miss the turning to the motorway to avoid the town route 😬. Then we had to dodge a weaving driver who was a bit distracted by his windscreen wipers going at full kilter despite it being dry and sunny. We also had an old car rally added to the mix! Then to add to it all we had a variety of matrix warning signs of problems on the motorway. The popular one today being 'obstacle on the road' causing all manner of guesses as to what it could be. Ladder? Bike? Dead boar? (Seen a few of those). One obstacle was a load of shoes that we had to slalom round on our entry to Calais port.

Once north of Orleans we had a quick pit stop and driver change. Ian took over as co-driver in charge of navigation and I drove. We must be a bit of a sight in our little Fiat 500 with me wearing a sunhat, when we have the roof open and Ian with a lap full of maps, a phone and food as he looks for the best route and looks up diesel prices at home (do we fuel up before getting the ferry? Yes - as it's cheaper over here, despite being about 40 cents a litre more expensive than Spain).

We ended up taking the Paris peripherique so had a good view of the Eiffel Tower (my co-driver wasn't very efficient on taking a photo so none to see). It wasn't too bad even though Ian had some reservations about the route. The traffic kept moving and we were on time to get an earlier crossing than the one we booked. 

Unfortunately we then checked P&O twitter page to find out that there were 2 hour delays at Calais. However, despite the warning we got through with time to make a baguette pate sandwich whilst queuing for passport control. Our crossing was changed to an earlier one and we parked up to wait for boarding to start, along with hoards of primary school trips and a German coach load dressed as kings, dragons and soldiers. Quite a bustling ferry and a huge queue for a coffee. We waited for an hour before it went down to a sensible wait  to get a latte.

On board waiting for coffee.

We must be back in England - Operation Stack in progress 😀

We're looking forward to now having a bit more time at Amy's before dinner out tonight over at Pauline and Tim's. Always good to catch up with them so a lovely end to our manic few days of driving over 800 miles back to Aylesford. Tomorrow will then be a day of washing and a hair cut in preparation for our Norfolk Broads adventure.