On the road to the Dordogne

This week, we're on the road to visit Jean & John Steele, Moira's Mum and partner. Jean and John live near Bergerac in the South-west of France. So we are literally crossing the country diagonally from the NE to the SW corner. France is big. It was about 720km and it took us about 7.5 hours despite driving at 130km/hr (the speed limit) for most of time!

Many years ago I drove from Paris to Toulon on the Med, but I don't remember it being that much of a drive. I expect that in my 20's, I was thrilled at the reckless speed on the autoroutes. I can't say that I feel the same in my 40's. But unfortunately driving slower than about 110 km/hr, seems to be more dangerous than just keeping up with the general flow of traffic. At slower speeds you tend to get caught up in the slow lane with all the huge trucks - of which there are hundreds!! Getting out of the slow lane at a low speed is almost impossible as you don't have enough acceleration to get into the fast lane & past a truck without a Frenchman rapidly arriving behind you with their lights flashing and gesticulating wildly. I gather that they are not saying "welcome to France!"

Sorry, the photos are extremely limited today. We had a long way to go and although we had the sweet tones of Penelope ("our Peugeuot's GPS Navigation System) guiding us all the way - we needed to concentrate. The quickest way to get to Bergerac was using the French autoroute and toll way system. It's an expensive way to travel but extremely efficient with good quality roads and seamless connections from one to the other. Penelope only got lost once, right at the end of our journey when we took a new autoroute that had not been loaded into her mapping software. Fair enough! She got thoroughly confused and quite grumpy with us, beeping angrily and insisting that we immediately did a "U" Turn. Not such a good idea on a 3 lane freeway with cars on both sides of the road doing > 130km/hr!! I think she forgave us when we rejoined a road she knew.

And so we nearly got to Jean & John's. They live in a medieval town called Saint Georges du Montclard about 9 km out of the Bergerac city. We arrived in the township on dusk but because J&J don't have a street number just a name for their house, Penelope couldn't help us any further. John came to our rescue, picking us up from the village centre and escorting us back to their converted "cow barn" cottage. More about this tomorrow.

Now the photo below. There will be a few more of these photos, as I expect that this next week will be filled with some serious eating and drinking. But this photo is for Graeme's mum, Wilma. Wilma has been insisting that we try the French patissiere shaped like a snail and called "Escargot". We spied one of these treats along the route today. And so...Wilma.. we can report, as the photo will attest, that Graeme has now consumed your favourite pastry.