Decision made, we launched ourselves away from Maisons Laffitte on the Sunday morning feeling it would be a good day to get some miles under our belts and set the target for Millau – just over 400 of those from our start point.
First I tried to work out how to fool SatNag into a route which did not involved hauling us through all the Paris burbs to the Peripherique and back out again while still hyperventilating from the horrendous driving which is endemic to that godawful road.
So I programmed for Versailles, somewhere we would have visited given time and no pressure. Then as we got close I reprogrammed for Millau. Quickly I realised that wasn’t working – we missed a turning onto a major road in the direction of, you’ve guessed it, Paris, and then tried to regroup. B toured an industrial area while the SatNag actually gave up and actually refused to find another route while I looked at the map again – its so complicated all round Paris that you need a degree in navigation to figure out how to get anywhere. Finally I spotted a town on the route which would work, put it in and we circled round a bit and finally escaped the clutches of Paris after an hour of trying. Phew!
We spent the rest of the day hurtling down various motorways through the centre of France, again passing through the Massif Central and Puy de Dome volcano area which we had originally intended to spend some time exploring. We kept Millau as the target – partly to get the miles done and partly because we wanted to avoid the bridge toll and so having made the detour to go into the town it made sense to stay there.
We made it – arriving at about 7pm with 404 miles on the clock, and some highlights and notations of a good spot to get off the motorway and re-fuel at a local supermarket without a massif (!) detour. We picked the cheapest site we could find – 10 euros including wifi and still on the river bank – cooked a couple of steak haches on the electric grill pan, washed up and collapsed into bed. More tomorrow!
Actually next day was “only” about another 270 miles to get to Antibes. Another mix of tolls and toll avoidance depending on the practicality of the resulting route and tending to upset the SatNag again from time to time though no tantrum as major as the Paris one, and she did get us to the campsite which was in the middle of another industrial area and populated by the nastiest mozzies we have encountered since the comprehensive mugging we go near a river in Portugal. All repellents failed to have any perceivable effect and I was top of the menu for the next 3 days and consequently looked like I had a major disease by the time we left. Mozzies are up there with wasps – totally pointless and irritating entities which need to be totally wiped out. So there.
We stayed just long enough to ensure we could get to our meeting with the rich yacht owner on Kymi, do the meeting and then leave again. The Cote d’Azur undoubtedly has its attractions, and the backdrop of mountains and views from them are the best part for me. However, we found Antibes busy, grubby, tired looking, and overrated. Its not really our sort of place. The campsite was in the middle of nowhere with just busy roads all round and nowhere to walk to apart from a small supermarket and a pizza take out (nice pizza mind you).
We followed the main road from there on Kymi to nearby Biot – one of those little hill towns you see all over the region. That was pretty and I had a fab bowl of moules there before B said we should be rushing back to the site to try to miss the first of a series of storms which have been a major feature of this trip – we had already driven past one as we skirted Montpellier en route, and there were plenty more to come!