Breakfast of coffee, croissants and crusty bread served with a preserve of apricot and a preserve of plum. Definitely not jam, as they were served in small white dishes. Jam comes in jars, hence the commonly heard phrase jam jar. The butter also was presented (not placed) on the table in its dish and a little silver salver type lid which requires extended pinky like dexterity to remove. The breakfast room was in accord with the decor of the chateau....grand paintings, chandelier type lighting, and the wedding photographs of Monsieur et Madame. It looks like the chateau de la chapelle des bois is also their family home. The verdict is that this a is 5 star rating and a real find. No TV in the rooms! Fantastic. The village of Fleurie is 4 kms from the D road which itself is off the main A6 - the autoroute to the south. Therefore unless you know it is there, it would be completely missed. Thus, there are no kiss me quick hats, sticks of rock or fat sun burned bastards from Birmingham. Although the diary says it is Saturday, I cannot help but recall that every day feels like Sunday in rural France. Grant was hauled into a wine shop by his conscience and was only able to escape by the judicious cash exchange for three bottles. This proves how the unconscious mind drives behaviours bypassing rationality and cold calculation. There was just no way Grant would have been able to resist. With the bikes safely back on the car, we set off southwards through the little town of Belleville, passing the bike shop, where in 2012, a repair was required following a snapped spoke. Back on the A6 and going to Provence via Grenoble in the Alps, we are greeted by a little bit of English weather, a rain shower! Mind you, it is 20 degrees outside still. I guess weather is no respecter of our status as Brits abroad, if it sh*ts on your head in Blackpool, it may p*ss on you in Beaujolais. Toll booths on A roads are a real joy. Queuing up to pay enhances that holiday feeling; the anticipation followed by the ennui of actual monetary exchange results in soul enhancing experiences which are only topped by colonic irrigations administered by grudge fuelled and ham fisted dockers. We are missing a trick in the UK. Not enough of us are miserable weather beaten and drenched. So, to dampen the perennial optimism of your average motorway driver in England, put in a toll booth every 50 miles staffed by minimum waged rural Frenchmen (who have form in this regard). That way our journeys would be enhanced by giving money to poor french people sitting in un air conditioned toll booths. This feeds both our visceral disdain for poor people and immigrants. Britain First would lap it up, except they would complain of our jobs being taken by the Bloody French. They would complain even if our jobs involved cleaning the congealed excremental fat from u bends with our tongues. As if in direct response to this miserabilis, the sun has come out as we queue at a peage (toll booth) at Lyon. By lunchtime we reach the Alps, driving through Grenoble and on alpine twisters and tunnels with the high mountains scraping the cloud laden skies to the east. Stopped at a small roadside lay by to replenish. Bloody tourists are everywhere. Mostly French, a smattering of Belgians, no Italians (or Rwandans for that matter), a couple from the welsh part of Wales and some Germans reliving past visitations and excursions into foreign territory. The lay by has a snack van or the restaurant to chose from. Needless to say the snack vans menu has been overlooked by tripadvisor, whose only review might say no. The French reputation for haute cuisine does not extend to mobile snack vans staffed by a cook who looks like his qualifications are in car maintenance rather than catering if the stains in his apron are anything to go by. We forego wine at lunchtime, we dont want to overdo it just yet. Back on the road, the bloody tourists are clogging up the passage south. Cars full of fat dads, insane mums, baggage, bikes and, no doubt, sniveling bored kids form a caravanserai twisting its way slowly through the valley on towards their own personal hell/holiday. The lower orders en masse are a sight to strike fear and loathing into the heart of every high born Englishman on a Grand Tour. It has been said that your continental type is a snappy dresser. Not on holiday he isnt. His wife has abandoned all semblance of discernment, taste, judgement and, no doubt, chastity. Haute couture, as the haute cuisine in the snack van, has beat a retreat. However we must be thankful for small mercies, we have our own superiority to comfort us. We chase down the tree sloped valley floor, sharing it with a railway line that crosses our path on bridge and level crossings, with 100 miles to go. The odd Cornish type shower dampens the road but not our spirits. On passing a sign saying Bison Fute - Samedi Noir we soon discover what that means experientally rather having to translate. A Bison Fute is a wise driver who finds a way to avoid a traffic jam (bouchon). Samedi Noir is Black Saturday, the first day of the Grand Depart, the first day of the French holidays when everyone packs their bags, bikes and bored kids, stuffs them into a hot people carrier and then heads, generally, south. The wise driver knows how to avoid getting caught up in all of this. The first day, black Saturday, is 1st August. Today. We are not bisons futes. The bloody tourists are all on the grand depart, going south. Bastards. Tiz like the old A30 crossing Goss Moor in the old days before the bypass. Methinks the French cant be arsed to build bypasses, and so we drive, crawl, stand, wait, cry, drift, crowd, sardine like through the valley. Slowly. The wise driver would have flown to Avignon and then hired a car. Grant is driven to muse on traffic flow as if it were data packets on the internet, while also being tempted to turn around and join another bouchon elsewhere. Grants cunning plan was put into action, and so turn around we did. There are positives in being stationary in a traffic jam. You are generally safe from suicide bombers, you are not on fire, and it doesnt itch like herpes. So far so good. However no beer is being drunk, scantily clad dancing girls are absent and death by a thousand cuts appears as an attractive option. No matter. We have joined the grand depart on black Saturday, hoping it will not turn into suicidal Sunday. On a positive note, this turn around to an east west road to Caromb finds us traffic free through another wide valley, leaving the south bound lemmings to their fate. Beer beckons. On arrival in Caromb, there is chilled Rose in the fridge.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 18:15:52 +0000
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