plan turned out to be travelling home in two days, with a day in Geneva in between. Our task for today: travel more than 500 miles to get to Calais in time for our 6 o’clock-ish ferry home.So no lie-in this morning; we were up at 08:00 and packing, then down for breakfast.
The waitress seemed surprised to have breakfast guests, and initially there were no croissants; but those arrived later. We wandered around the courtyard and ground floor of La Colombière a little, photographing things like the fountain in the yard, the empty dining room, and the huge jigsaws (something we enjoy doing ourselves) mounted on the walls.
Don had bought a “Venezia” T-shirt in Venice, and wanted to buy one of the La Colombière T-shirts that were on display, so we asked about them while settling the bill. The waitress looked doubtful, but when away to check; but it was Sunday morning, she couldn’t find any, and there was no-one around who might know. Instead, by way of consolation, she brought back a number of La Colombière souvenir pens and key rings, which she gave us for free, smiling her apologies. (But now, there's yet another thing we'll have to go back for!)
We loaded everything back into the car, got in, and checked the mileage: effectively, 2190 miles so far (in fact, the trip-metre had reset itself at 2,000 km). Unfortunately, we had no detailed map of Geneva, and made a guess as to the best way out of town. We’d got the rough direction right, but (it turned out) had headed too far west. The result was what could have been a pleasant drive in the countryside, but for two factors: we got tangled up in a bicycle race (so all traffic had to go dead slow), and were getting increasingly apprehensive that we were getting lost. Again? Oh well, we’re used to it. But this time, we had a long journey ahead with a ferry to catch.
Eventually we had the bright idea to consult the Rough Guide, and it had a small but excellent map of how to get into and out of the city. Having found the right road (the motorway past the airport that gave us so much trouble trying to get an airport hotel on Friday night!), it was motorways all the way. And we had to get a move on: the detour had added 20 miles and almost an hour to our trip (including getting tangled with the cyclists going and coming!).
Western Europe, at least, has a handy naming system for motorways: they’re all “A” routes (German Autostrasse, Italian Autostrada, French Autoroute). In France and Italy, a number of them levy tolls. We’d mostly avoided the toll roads on the outward journey, but our trip home through France would be quite expensive. And they have speed limits—sometimes 120 kph, sometimes 130 kph, sometimes (in wet weather) reduced to as little as 50 kph.
It was wet weather. But we were running late, and didn’t have time for niceties. Don put his foot down and we joined other motorists (admittedly a minority) who were doing 110 to 130 miles per hour instead of kilometres per hour. But those French motorways are excellent quality; a relatively cautious driver most of the tome, at no time did he feel concern over the conditions. Nor did Margaret; she didn’t realise quite how fast we were going, partly because the excellent roads made it seem slower, and partly because Don didn’t tell her till afterwards.
Net result: France went past in a blur; there are no photos along
the way; we covered 511 miles in 7½ hours; we made the Ferry just in time; and our car had completed 2721 miles of holiday journey … We bade a sad farewell to Calais and Europe; and an hour and a half later, a fond how-d’ye-do to England and the Castle atop the White Cliffs of Dover (somewhat masked by the salt stains on the windows).511 miles in 7½ hours; and only 77 miles from Dover to home in Acton. So why did it take almost two hours? No matter; we got home somewhat tired and very happy with our continental holiday, all 2955 miles of it (not counting any distances that we walked or used public transport!). All that remained was to unpack, finger the souvenirs, and put the magneti on the fridge: like so: …
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Our Europe fridge magnet collection!
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