These are the tales of a petrolhead travelling in Europe.
Leaving Barcelona early, i wanted to get out of the city and on some main roads before the rest of Spain woke up. We drove out of the hotel car park and into old Barcelona back streets at 0530, getting out of the city was a breeze and this plan worked a treat with us being in France before sun up.
France’s motorways were busier than Spain’s but with a limit of 130km/h in the dry meant you could make time quickly. These limits make Australias 110km/ h (NT excepted) look a bit silly, considering the distances and lack of population we have.
We blasted through to Montpellier, which is one of those places that sounds impossibly exotic and sophisticated to me. It was also a colour for the Range Rover Classic which probably helps it appeal for me :)
I didn’t get to see it though, as this was the point we speared off onto some French rural roads. Very picturesque, tree lined roads through the vineyards. The roads started to climb higher, up into the Rhone Alps. Saw plenty of bikers, always a good sign. I was slightly more cautious than in Spain, more traffic and thinking that French police might not be as tolerant as the the Spanish.
Nothing wrong with the roads here either.
Good to see that people all round the world appreciate a good bit of RWD JDM fun.
I like these.
We would be staying in Lyon for the next few days. Here are some random snaps from there:
For many the 2CV would be the quintessential French car, but for me it is the Cinq.
The main reason I had wanted to visit Lyon was to eat in it’s famous Bouchon’s, these small family run restaurants are all over the city. If you are a fan of nose to tail eating you will not be disappointed.
Apart from eating and feeling like an extra in Ronin, there isn’t a huge amount to do in Lyon and two days was more than enough. Also the cliche about the French being rude and arrogant? Unfortunately for the most part we found this to be pretty accurate. There were some very lovely and helpful people but they were a bit few and far between. After the warm and welcoming people of Spain, it was a bit of a shock to the system.
To try to work off all the food, we did plenty of walking and step workouts.
Time to get going. Germany beckons!