Saturday September 18th
Today I got to take some of the best roads on the trip so far, but it didn’t come cheaply. In France you have the choice of the big motorways which are mostly all piage (pay roads) or you can negotiate your way around the houses and not pay. Well Mary was in no mood for that sort of trip on this occasion so they opted for the piage. It was effortless travelling most of time. There was one spot where there was a deviation near Metz because a section of the motorway was closed but it was all very well sign posted. They turned the Tom Tom off so as not to upset and confuse the Tom Tom lady. She doesn’t like it when they don’t do as she says.
Along the road, before we got to Rhiems there was a huge art installation for quite a number of kilometeres. It started with giant coloured spheres, followed by lots of flat circles on the banks. These were followed by pyramids then flat triangles and cubes and then flat squares. These shapes repeated and alternated all along the route. In some ways they could have been have been a bit of a distraction, but in other ways they provided interest and made the time go faster. It was like been in a giant modern art gallery. So the €42 toll charge for the trip could be regarded as entry to a very expensive modern art exhibition.
I was a bit thirsty on this trip as I was able to move along at a much faster speed than usual as there were not the hills to climb and there were not many trucks to get stuck behind. I was feeling really well with no coughs and splutters because it was such a warm sunny day. They stopped once to have lunch and then near the end to fill me up again for tomorrow.
The campsite they had found on the internet was another one that was in a village and in a most unlikely place. The tom tom took them to it even though it didn’t look promising to start with. However some camp signs suddenly appeared. When they arrived the big gates were shut and they wondered if it was closed. However a young lad came out and opened them and let them in. It turned out that there were several horses with young foals running wild in the campsite and they were containing them so they wouldn’t escape out onto the street and into the village.
After waiting for ages they were finally able to book in. It had said there was a washing machine when Mary had looked online but there is not one, so no washing will be done here. It is all pretty basic and typical France in that there is no separate ladies and men’s ablution block. There was only a male sign on the block and Mary looked for ages to find the ladies but then decided it must be all in one. A confused English woman was also hunting for the ladies and Alan told her it was all in one. Mary noticed that the male sign has now been covered over with a piece of paper and written in English is Ladies and Men.
They left me and the guys and went off walking in the village and came back with lots of goodies. They had found a French Patisserie so had nice treats. Seems they also found steak as they cooked up a good meal on my stove and then went to bed fairly early as it was cooling down.
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