This is the entire weekend in one update – one which I thought would be relatively uneventful compared to the rest of the trip but I was proved very wrong….

I woke up fairly early on Friday determined to make an early start to the journey to Paris. Even though it’s the same country, it is one of the longest journeys of the whole trip as France is such a big country. I used to think of Paris as being at the heart of the country but really it is quite far north, even though it is still a few hours drive from Calais as I discovered on a day trip once. Hopefully that gives you an idea of the scale of the journey today if you’re not familiar with the size of the country.

I started by just travelling the 9km into Bordeaux city centre. I didn’t make this a long visit as I wanted to be on my way. I didn’t know much about Bordeaux before – except for its wine fame – and in fact I thought it was a standard town/city with the real action in the countryside around it (i.e. the vineyards) – so I was pleasantly surprised to find a modern, cosmopolitan city on a large, major river, with a modern, renovated walk along the riverside. The sun was shining which made for a nice brief stay in this major South of France city. Very nice, but enough romanticising about a relaxing life in wine country and off to Paris.

I quickly joined the Autoroute, very close to the city and straight away looked at the sat nav. I have done this every time I joined a motorway to see how far until the next turning. Most of the days of this trip had involved either one or two 200-300km motorway journeys. Not this one. There was an epic 575km until I had to do anything other than drive straight ahead and occasionally stop to pay tolls. This could get very boring. Ah, but it didn’t. Fate stepped in and made things very interesting….

100km into the journey and DISASTER struck. After about 8000km of driving across this great continent, on the A10, over 400km south of Paris, my diesel-powered companion finally started giving up the ghost. It was quickly dying, on the motorway. Thankfully I was close to a service station, got in there and parked up.

If your car has ever broken down in your home country, you’ll know that it can be stressful enough, but what about in a foreign country, where the language is…. Well, foreign? This was going to be a challenge, that’s for sure.

My car was hired, so of course the car hire company provides a simple breakdown service – call us 24/7 and we’ll help you get it sorted. Ah, but there was a snag.

I called them, got through to an English-speaking person and explained the problem. All good so far, until they asked where I was. Once I’d explained the location, they explained a new problem. It went along the lines of “You are on a private motorway. It is privately run. You have to call 112 [yes, 112, the emergency number!] to get a tow truck and let it take you to a garage. Then – and only then, you need to call us back. We will then pay the garage and then send you a taxi to take you to our nearest branch to pick up a replacement.”

Ok, so *I* had to call the national emergency number, try to speak French, wait for the tow truck, try to speak French with the mechanic, let them do their thing, call the hire company back from the garage, then wait for the taxi, then go in the taxi, try to speak French again, then pick up the replacement car, then get back on my way. Apparently, none of this could be done at the same time. I wasn’t allowed to find out where the garage was and let them know so they could have the taxi waiting. Not the best system in my opinion, but this website isn’t Watch-chien with Monsieur Nicholàs Campbell so I will get on with the story.

I must say that all the French people from the breakdown service and the garage did their absolute best to both understand and help me (as far as I could tell). I am also quite pleased that I managed to have quite a lot of conversation in French – reaching far and wide for bits of lingo picked up over the years and at school – but things started moving (not my car though).

So, now I know that on certain sections of motorway the company that runs the road provides its own breakdown service which normally you as the driver would have to pay for – it’s about €140-€160 just for a tow to the garage, I think.

After conversations with various people at the service station, I got taken to the nearest official garage although we picked up a whole family and their car from the motorway on the way. They were a really nice family, I could tell this because the oldest daughter – I think she was about 6, showed me how to get the sugar out of this strange coffee machine once we got to the garage – and also waited until I finished my coffee and insisted on taking the cup and sugar wrapper away to the bin. She then started speaking to me in French.

When I told her I could not understand as I was English (in her language), she said something very funny, unfortunately in French. She could have said one of a number of things such as “Why don’t you speak French?” or “But you are speaking French now!” Whatever it was, it made everyone laugh in that way that parents do at their children when they say something really grown up and amusing. She could have even possibly said something incredibly profound: very simply, “Why aren’t you French?” to which I would have had no reply anyway. Whatever she said, if she goes into customer service when she grows up I’m sure she will win any customer round as she was incredibly helpful to someone she knew was having the same problem as her family. So thanks.

It was then closing time at the garage, so I had to wait outside with all my worldly possessions until the taxi showed up about 20 minutes later. The driver spoke some English and we had a bit of a chat and managed to swap some new vocab on the way. He was trying to learn English and I was trying to pick up some Francais as well.

It was over an hour’s drive to the bureau, on the west coast of the country. The meter showed well over €100 and this was going to be charged twice to, I assume, the hire company, as the return journey was going to be charged for as well. Still, I wasn’t paying. I was more concerned about the journey I still had to make.

The new car is a minor downsize to an Opel Meriva – that’s fine as there won’t be a passenger for this last weekend and I could do with a bit more fuel economy after the amount spent on diesel over the last fortnight.

The fun part of swapping the car was seeing their stunned reaction to the unusually high difference (understatement) between the start kilometerage and return kilometerage. It doesn’t feel right typing that – I should be writing mileage – but when in Rome… (or western France)…

By the way, I had looked after the car (checked the oil / fluids / tyres regularly etc). I guess I’d had a pretty good run up to that point!

Anyway, I got into the new car and that mini-adventure was over. I was back on the road, but with an hour’s journey just to get back to the motorway I was originally on.

But, once I was back on the main A10, I was a bit aggravated but started thinking about the whole trip and what I’d accomplished – and realised that the car incident was just a little problem towards the end of this epic journey – in the home country of the car.

So, a five-hour problem out of an action-packed two weeks is really not that bad. Easy to say now, but the stuff with the car won’t be the memory of the trip that will stay with me. Still, it gave me something to write about!

So, once I was back on the main road, the whole episode of the car breakdown was fading into the rear view mirror (literally as well).

I was soon back on a high from my great trip around a great part of the world.

And the other bonus – although the car hire place was out of my way to the west, it was north-west, so when I got back to the motorway, I was 100km further north than when I left it.

So, after the remaining 350km-ish of fairly uneventful driving, I arrived at the hotel in Paris at about 11pm. Not the day I had planned but still pleased that I’d managed to sort it all out and do most of it in a language I’m far from fluent in.

Saturday saw the first of two days visiting the centre of Paris. I did the usual sightseeing – I’ll let the pictures do the talking – but three things of note:

• I’ve been staying near Le Grande Arche in the NW of Paris – the large white square arch which is also an office block at the sides. I went there first on both days of the weekend (the Metro line starts here) and I’d forgotten what a great building it is as well as what a great view you get from there. It’s a clear straight line downhill to the Arc De Triomphe, some 4km away – it’s worth sitting on the steps at the bottom of ‘the big arch’ just to see that great man-made panorama and right in the centre, one of the major monuments. Behind it of course is the Champs-Elysees, running downhill to the Place De La Concorde and the Louvre. Great planning and makes for some great sights.
• The waiter in the restaurant near the Eiffel Tower, who was the spitting image of the late great Luciano Pavarotti, seemed to speak every language thrown at him – fluently – and reminds me of what I was thinking about near the start of the trip that we are so lucky in the UK to speak a language that most people can speak, but we take that for granted so much. He even assumed – correctly – that I would want a latte instead of the espresso he was offering to his French customers. It didn’t stop there: even the dozen or so people who approached me for money were bilingual at least. It makes me think even more that it would be good to learn another language – properly.
• 80% of the shops are shut for about three weeks in August. They all go on holiday themselves, or renovate, or whatever. They must do well during the rest of the year. I don’t see British retailers going on holiday en masse – they need the business, particularly with the current credit crunch.

I spent quite a bit of time in the Jardin Du Luxembourg – a park/garden, with a big fountain thingy in the middle but plenty of space around the outside to rest. It’s nice if you just want to relax – I almost dozed off there in the warm afternoon sun.

They have turned the walkways by the Seine into a beach for the last month or so – they have done this for the last few years – and it really helps to bring out the feel of a fun, friendly capital city summer.

Sunday (today as I type) was pretty similar in that I spent some time walking around, seeing the sights. I went to another park – this one had an amazing waterfall inside a cave. The whole park is on a massive hill so there is plenty of rock for the water to, well, fall down.   Went and stood under the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t intend going up it, but that sort of place is great for soaking up the atmosphere.

So, I am back at the hotel now, just about to get a late dinner and then it’s the last day tomorrow, hopefully with one more country to visit.

KM TRAVELLED FRIDAY: 571 km  TOTAL: 8399 km