Driving in France is no Fun!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Bayeux, Normandy, France
After a French breakfast at the hotel of bread, cheese, fresh squeezed orange juice and fruit, I nervously began driving out of Calais. I managed to find a truck that seemed to be going the same way as we were and so I followed it for a good distance. This was particularly useful around the round-a-bouts. We eventually found the motorway and headed toward Paris. I knew there was going to be some tolls but what I was unprepared for was the variety of ways each one expected to be paid... some were only to collect a ticket and then pay as you leave the motorway according to the distance travelled. There was a man at that toll collection. The next one had no ticket and I had no idea which gate to go through, so I followed a lady whose card kept popping back out at her and I had to reverse out of the toll gate and go through another that asked me for cash of 4 euros and 80 cents. I had a handful of change and the cars behind had to wait while I counted out the money phew... to make everything worse, the toll gates are really narrow and this car we have has 100 sensors and they scream every time you are in proximity to anything around the car. So while I'm having to undo my seatbelt to either pay, get tickets, throw cash in or use my credit card (on two tolls) with the sensors shrieking in my ear, I then had to deal with the seatbelt alarm which would tweet at me until I managed to get it clicked in on the wrong side. I was quite frazzled by the time we reached Bayeux and it's tiny streets.

We found a park and our B&B, dropped our luggage and went for a wander into town . We found the museum for the Bayeux Tapestry. This 70 metre, 1000+ year old tapestry tells the story of William the Conqueror. It is amazing, well I liked it anyway. Graeme sort of huffed and puffed around me... :) Nothing opens for dinner in France until 6:30 or 7pm so we came back to our room and waited for the restaurants to open. We made our way to a lovely pizza place and I'll attach photos. We were really hungry as we had only had a light breakfast and nothing else for the rest of the day. We have just wandered back to the room, fought off the three little dogs that are guarding the front gate and are now ensconced in our warm room, which incidentally has dried off the last of our washing. Off on our Band of Brothers tour in the morning!!!
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Comments

Jan
2016-03-16

You are a very brave lady doing that driving. Pizza looks good. Glad you are having a marvellous time. Jan E

Ted
2016-03-17

Ooohhhh boy. I'd have been stressed too!

Good job.

2025-02-07

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