Road Trip South

May 23, 2022 was a Monday and in Kent, it was raining. After all the news about queues and delays, we were expecting to be in Dover for a while. None of it; no queues and no delays, we turned up, hopped on the train and 30 mins later were driving on the right hand side of the road toward Soisson, just to the north of Reims (centre of Champagne). We saw not a single vine, but found our AirBnB (very nice for €40) after our first contre-temps with Google Maps. Our friends Steven and Helen were heading south to Sicily at the same time, so we had arranged to meet each evening on our way to our first ‘waypoint’; Valbonne, near Nice, where my brother, sister in-law and family live.

We had decided to use RN (non motorways) as much as possible. This strategy, while interesting for a while, is very slow and with 4,000km (2,500 miles) to Portugal, we bit the bullet, paid the tolls and ate the miles. As we moved into Burgundy (Bourgogne), vines were in abundance in the hills. Bourgogne is famous for Chardonnay, and Aligote and Pinot Noir for red wine drinkers.

This is a stunningly beautiful part of France with rolling hills, lovely villages, ancient chateaux and some of the best food in the world. We had booked the 13th century Chateau d’Ige for dinner B&B. Dinner was exceptional. Chateau is beautiful and weather was perfect …

On March 1, 1815, Napoleon decided that exile in Elba was not for him, so he got on a boat, arrived in Golf-Juan (Cannes) and marched an ever increasing group of loyal followers up through the foothills of the Alps to Grenoble (on his way to Paris) by way of what is now known as the Route de Napoleon, which we followed in the opposite direction to Nice. By June, 18 of 1815, Napoleon had bumped into Wellington and the Prussians at Waterloo. Not a good meeting for Napoleon who ended up in St Helena, where he ended his days. Anyway, the road was beautiful, windy and scattered with with French Imperial Eagles. We arrived Valbonne early evening for a 3 day stay with sister-in-law; Bev and nieces Sienna and Constantine (Norwegian princesses, in case you were not aware). Mike, my brother was delivering a semi-functioning (even after $7M refit) boat from Amsterdam to Nice, so was not there.

We were soon on our way again towards Spain, which has so much more to offer than beaches and puffy north european flesh turning scarlet on over-crowded beaches. There are more olive trees in Spain than you can imagine and miles of empty space and some beautiful hilltop retreats where you can retreat from the plains in Spain where the rain doesnt actually fall (mainly).

Segura de la Sierra is spectacular. It has a bull ring at the top of a mountain which is no longer in use (last fight in 2010, but reminders of rituals past are in abundance; El Cordobes, El Doctor, El Capea and many more…

After 3750km and 10 days on the road, we arrived in Lagos, Portugal (with a lovely stop in Calahonda on the way, hosted by Bernhard who re-christened Toby as Turbo). The weather is is sunny, the temp here is mid 20s (centigrade). Now time to get the boat ready; we have house guests this week and boat guests in July.

No peace for the wicked.