Off to the Alps - the journey

As regular correspondents may recall, we have not always had the easiest of car trips to France. First there is the dilemma of what to do with the dog, but this year he went to stay with Alan and Muriel and I knew that when I dropped him off he was unlikely to want to come home when I heard about the projected series of activities all involving a 7 mile walk and pub lunch. 

The next thing is that the camping stuff has to be assembled, sometimes it can be hard to find everything because we have 3 sheds and an attic but this year everything was there.

After this there is the fitting of the roof racks and the pod onto the roof, this is hard to do if it is raining or you are a bit grumpy or it is dark, but luckily it was warm, light and happy.

The next thing is jamming everything in the car.  But as we were not taking the bouldering mat this year, it all seemed to fit (except the extra water container) .

Then there is the uncertainty of the drive to Dover on 'Black Saturday' the busiest day of the year for the biggest port in the world (I think).  It could take 3 hours or 1.5.  It depends on whether or not the French operators are striking - they often are, or how slow passports control are.  But this year no strikes and no passport control.  It is hard to emphasise what a differnce no passport control makes.  It takes about 3 minutes per car to look insolently at each passenger and try and determine if they look like their picture and there are thousands of cars and only about 5 lanes...  But this year we simply drove through after not encountering one single delay on the motorway.

Then there is the next worry that you have somehow missed your slot (that happened 2 years ago when we both misread the ticket confusing arrival and departure time) or that you have booked the wrong car on (that happened last year) and the bigger car 'may not fit'.  This year, correct time, correct car. 

After all this you must fill in the time between lining up in line 711 and the loading time, but we were able to fill this in with a bit of light quarrelling and so the time passed easily.

Then we were away and the first round of cards were dealt and you feel like you are in France.  I had set the brand new satnav to get us to Reims, where we stayed the first night so we drove off the ferry and were there in 2 hours, in the tiniest hotel room you have ever seen.  But only for 1 night.  Reims is beautiful but a bit too big for a single night so we just walked around a bit feeling the frenchness.

Next day, we headed to Samoens in the Alps along the French motorways where there are hefty tolls but, at least where we were going, not too many cars.  Most people head to the beach with the traffic jams.  The French Motorway Service Station is alovely thing in all but one respect: there are hardly any toilets.  Most people really only stop there to go to the toilet so huge queues develop.  In England there are so many toilets in the service stations that you have to wonder at the size of the pipes required.  Also there is always the risk in France of the squatting toilet....

The first interesting bit of the trip is when you come through the first tunnel through the Jura Mountains.  On the western side they look like lowish hills, but whn you come out the other side, it is a whole new world of steep mountains and waterfalls and dangerous looking motorways cantileverd off the sides.  The rest of the trip is lovely.

then there