To Home - West Sussex, England
Last night’s Hostelleire was actually a tad scruffy around the edges but the kitchen was great. It was a fine way to finish the trip with some great French cooking, good wine and a couple of glasses of champagne. Breakfast was pretty splendid too and we were out the hotel and on the road at 10:00. We had a Eurotunnel crossing booked for 14:50 but we are always early.
So we followed sat-nav lady through Epernay towards Reims, picked up the new carpet smooth section of the A4, paid a 40 cent toll and then picked up the A26 and the signs for Calais. Once again the French autoroute was wonderful, cruising at 80 mph, very light traffic, a few road works but traffic is so light we just reduce speed but carry on through, not even the hint of a jam. Another positive spin off to the light traffic is the service areas are also quiet, no queues for the pumps; we saw some huge queues in Germany a couple of days ago. So all in all I am once again a huge fan of motoring in France, we had travelled pretty much 400 French motorway miles from Phalsburg to Calais over two days and not been close to a jam.
We rocked up at the Tunnel Sous La Manche at just past 13:00, were offered a place on the 13:50 crossing, an hour earlier than my booking. We crawled through customs and passport control and then drove haltingly onto the train. Twelve days ago when we left Blighty I had a close call when the car very nearly didn’t start when it came to drive off the train, there was no reason at all to suspect it might happen again but I was still massively relieved to reach Folkestone, the car started and we drove off without a hitch (but some relief!). Sun was shining, the M20, M25 and M23 were closer to German traffic volumes than French but we were home within two hours. We left our hotel in France at 10:00 and were at home 15:00 on the dot having covered 291 miles.
After removing the copious amount of luggage we had managed to cram in plus the odds and ends we acquired along the way I gave the car a very good clean and it now resembles more the multiple concours winning car it is rather than a car that has covered 969 miles over the last four days from Lake Garda to home. It really is a stunningly beautiful, incredibly capable bit of kit.
Mileage at the end of day: 58,774
Distance covered: 191 French miles, 100 of your English miles, 466 KM total
Three hours on the French side, two hours on our side
Highlight of the day: Completing our journey without incident
Lowlight of the day: Struggling.....slightly grumpy French petrol cashier didn’t smile as much as she might.
Petrol: getting expensive – French Super at 1.73 EUR per litre; cost 110 EUR. Then almost ran dry and filled up at home, cost £119!!
Last night’s Hostelleire was actually a tad scruffy around the edges but the kitchen was great. It was a fine way to finish the trip with some great French cooking, good wine and a couple of glasses of champagne. Breakfast was pretty splendid too and we were out the hotel and on the road at 10:00. We had a Eurotunnel crossing booked for 14:50 but we are always early.
So we followed sat-nav lady through Epernay towards Reims, picked up the new carpet smooth section of the A4, paid a 40 cent toll and then picked up the A26 and the signs for Calais. Once again the French autoroute was wonderful, cruising at 80 mph, very light traffic, a few road works but traffic is so light we just reduce speed but carry on through, not even the hint of a jam. Another positive spin off to the light traffic is the service areas are also quiet, no queues for the pumps; we saw some huge queues in Germany a couple of days ago. So all in all I am once again a huge fan of motoring in France, we had travelled pretty much 400 French motorway miles from Phalsburg to Calais over two days and not been close to a jam.
We rocked up at the Tunnel Sous La Manche at just past 13:00, were offered a place on the 13:50 crossing, an hour earlier than my booking. We crawled through customs and passport control and then drove haltingly onto the train. Twelve days ago when we left Blighty I had a close call when the car very nearly didn’t start when it came to drive off the train, there was no reason at all to suspect it might happen again but I was still massively relieved to reach Folkestone, the car started and we drove off without a hitch (but some relief!). Sun was shining, the M20, M25 and M23 were closer to German traffic volumes than French but we were home within two hours. We left our hotel in France at 10:00 and were at home 15:00 on the dot having covered 291 miles.
After removing the copious amount of luggage we had managed to cram in plus the odds and ends we acquired along the way I gave the car a very good clean and it now resembles more the multiple concours winning car it is rather than a car that has covered 969 miles over the last four days from Lake Garda to home. It really is a stunningly beautiful, incredibly capable bit of kit.
Mileage at the end of day: 58,774
Distance covered: 191 French miles, 100 of your English miles, 466 KM total
Three hours on the French side, two hours on our side
Highlight of the day: Completing our journey without incident
Lowlight of the day: Struggling.....slightly grumpy French petrol cashier didn’t smile as much as she might.
Petrol: getting expensive – French Super at 1.73 EUR per litre; cost 110 EUR. Then almost ran dry and filled up at home, cost £119!!