THE LAST DITCH An Englishman returned after twenty years abroad blogs about liberty in Britain

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Home again. Travel Mode OFF

IMG_6248My journey got off to a bad start when a group of us were given the wrong directions to our section of the car deck on our ship. Speranza was right at the front of deck 4 and my late arrival held people up. How embarrassing,

The drive from Plymouth to London  can be summed up by this screenshot of Speranza's trip computer. Over five hours to cover less than 250 miles is a disgrace. My average speed was 40 by the time I made it to the M4, after encountering endless delays. It was stop/start driving all the time on the A roads from Plymouth and the M5. I managed to improve my average on the M4, despite a fair amount of stop/start and many miles of average speed monitored road works (with not a single worker visible at any point). 

The final run back home on UK soil is often the worst part of my continental jaunts, because our roads are so depressingly bad and overloaded by comparison with those of our continental neighbours. We used to have the excuse that we paid less tax than them. That's simply no longer true. Is it because their engineering skills or industriousness are superior? Perhaps so in Germany, but their roads aren't as good as France's. In my view it's entirely because of the ideological capture of our public services.

Whereas we pay public servants to be just that – servants – they decline these days to serve us. Rather than do a good job of public infrastructure works and their maintenance – a sort of blue collar, essential job in the national enterprise – they prefer to be our HR Department. They cajole, they threaten and above all they try to shape our thoughts and behaviours into conformity with their own.

They're neither rewarded for pleasing us nor fired for failing us. Their employment arrangements are Soviet in that sense. Unfortunately if you want the Soviet apparatchiks' opportunities for idleness, irresponsibility and superior benefits to the productive proles, you also need the Soviet discipline of the gulag and the firing squad – and ours don't have that. 

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That said,  Speranza is back in her parking spot having brought me safely home. I thoroughly enjoyed my little adventure – even some of the unforeseen parts. I learned a lot about myself and at least one of my friends and I will certainly always remember where I was when I learned I am going to be a granddad! My final Track My Tour map (from which the above is a screen shot) is here. 

Without the late Mrs P. to edit me, I worry that I may over-share. If so, I am sorry, I hope that, despite that, you enjoyed riding along in imagination. Thank you.


All at sea

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If it were not for my worrying about Speranza’s wellbeing I might have enjoyed my Santander hotel. The bed was comfy, the shower was so good I’m thinking of having my own restyled to match it and the air conditioning eventually worked.

They also provided a nice breakfast though such service as there was, was as surly in English as it was elaborately polite in Spanish. For a tourism-driven economy, I can’t help feeling that Spain hasn’t yet raised the art of the insincere welcome to French standards.

I delayed checkout to the last moment as the ferry port was less than a mile away and I didn’t want to toast in the sun too long. I arrived two hours before the last check-in and sat patiently in the bright sun with the roof down, apart from a break for lunch in the cheap and cheery port café.

2024-06-13_121218A good 30% of waiting vehicles were madly uneconomical and anti-environmental RVs and caravans. I just don’t understand why anyone would travel in a flashy gypsy van when the art of the hotelier is so widely (if variedly) practised in these parts. I’m pretty sure they’d get quite a few four star nights at least for the annual capital depreciation and excess fuel costs of their fugly, view-obstructing trucks.

You may think I have no moral ground to stand on with my 4.2 litre V8 but Speranza is a delicate fairy among such dinosaurs and most Ferraris never make it to landfill so her embodied energy (an important element of the lifetime consumption of any artefact) will likely never be wasted. Also her fuel consumption, at about 24mpg, is the same as my first car, which had a 1.5 litre BMC B-series engine and could barely do 60mph downhill with a following wind. Science has made advances in this field. That first car is still running however. My late father managed to restore it enough to make it into a lasting classic and it's in the hands of a Dutch collector and still running. So that embodied energy was never wasted either!

IMG_6210I’m embarrassed to admit that it was only during the boarding process that I realised the ferry docks not in Portsmouth, but in Plymouth. So tomorrow’s journey on ill-maintained British roads will be about twice as long as I thought. Entirely my mistake. It means I’ll get to drive on the only British road I had anything to do with building, when I was briefly seconded as a boy lawyer to one of Mrs Thatcher's development corporations intent on urban regeneration. It’s had plenty of time to degenerate to Britain's pathetic standards since then. If only our deep state apparatchiks were as interested in shaping our infrastructure as they are in shaping our thoughts, eh?

The voyage was uneventful enough. I spent the evening reading and watching Netflix. The onboard wifi was expensive and adequate, thought slower than I'm used to these days. The big disappointment was the sleeper seat, which did not recline and was uncomfortable. I had to draw on my experience of rail commuting and business flying to get some sleep. To my surprise I got an uninterrupted eight hours, though I woke feeling a little achey. 

All I have to deal with now is the drive from Devon. My Track My Tour map has been updated here


Onward to the voyage home

Breakfast in Bilbao was a noisy affair. Out on the hotel terrace, enjoying the cool air and views of the river, my ears were assailed by the horns of cars driving up and down the opposite bank with red and white balloons. I know those are the colours of Atletico Bilbao but their last match was the day I set out last month. Whether it was a political protest or a wedding I have no idea. It didn’t seem to attract any policing and passers-by on the street paid it no attention, so I suspect it’s just some tradition I don’t know about. 

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Bilbao from my breakfast terrace

I thoroughly enjoyed the short drive to Santander. The Spanish motorways I've experienced have lower speed limits, but are well-surfaced and more curvy than those of the other countries on the tour. My roof was down the whole way. The sunshine was pleasant and the temperature was perfect. The drive inside the city to find the hotel however, was unpleasant down narrow teeming streets. A key one was closed for road works and my sat nav kept bringing me back to the amused chaps working there, who may have learned quite a bit of less polite English vocabulary as a result. Eventually I found a place to pull in and work out a different route, targeting the public car park, which the Santander hotel informed me at the last moment was where I should park. 

I’m not really sure why I booked an hotel in Santander anyway. My ferry doesn’t leave until 4pm tomorrow and the port is a short enough drive from Bilbao. I checked and I could have extended my stay in the very nice hotel there, but I would be charged for the Santander hotel anyway so decided it was too late to change.

I wished I'd let them keep their money when I finally reached the place. I might have guessed from the tone of the imperfectly informative last minute (after it was too late to cancel without 100% penalty) email, which finally confessed that the hotel has no parking of its own. The sneery words "should you have chosen to come to Santander by car" should have warned me I wouldn't feel at home. Do they think their guests have teleports?

Santander Hotel Information
I fixed their Booking.com info for them

I am scrupulous about secure parking on my road trips. It's not that I care more about Speranza's safety than my own, but I don't care very much less. The grim public car park they'd suggested had one space free. When I neatly slotted Speranza into it, there was no way for me to get out – even if I were Hollywood-slender. This was a place for SEATs their owners care less about than their least favourite T-shirts. I had no choice but to reverse out and circle again. I got lucky and another car pulled out. By reversing in and parking millimetres from the passenger side of the neighbouring LHD car, I managed to leave just enough room to open Speranza's long door and squeeze out. The LHD car on my driver's side had gone in forward, so whatever problems he will have getting in are of his own making.

The hotel's snooty email had warned me there were two entrances. It hadn't told me that only one of them had a sign on it. Actually, that's not quite true. The entrance I arrived at did have a sign on it - for a completely different business. After wandering up and down the square for a while, asking nice Spaniards for directions (none of them had heard of it), I called the hotel and someone emerged to lead me in. I rubbed her up the wrong way by pointing out the misleading signage. She told me that there was "no problem" and that they'd sent me a helpful email, which I clearly hadn't read. Judgemental commentary on the intelligence, or diligence, of a paying customer is pretty poor marketing, even in these less polite times. 

It's an hotel with ideas above its station, run strictly by stern ladies of a certain age. No checking if the room was ready– just a curt "check in is at 3pm, can we hold your bag for you?" Babička would have gone to town on them, but I elected for peace and quiet. Even I was tempted to go babistic when, after lunch at a nearby restaurant, I was finally admitted to my room. It has a view of other rooms with no views. The curtains were drawn to prevent heat from the atrium making it even more unpleasant and it took a while for turning on the air-conditioning to make a difference.

Booking.com rates it as "fabulous" and among the "top picks for solo travellers". The room is clean, the bathroom is excellent, the wifi works and I don't have to deal with the harridan until I check out tomorrow so I'll forgive myself the error. Gentle reader if you like public transport or your mum was a bit fierce with you when you were growing up, you might like the Soho Boutique Palacio de Pombo. As for me, I hate public transport and my mum is lovely. 

My Track my Tour map is updated here


Bilbao baby

I rose at a sensible hour; showered, dressed and loaded the car. My remote room left me out of the way of early-morning childcare so Babička's grandchildren were up, fed and dressed by I appeared. Young sir remembered my name from yesterday and politely asked if he could drive Speranza. I led him by the hand and put him in the driver's seat where he looked very much at home while Babička took photos of him turning the wheel and pushing all the buttons. Today's childhoods are so well documented! He is probably photographed more per week than I was to age 18! Unlike his grandmother, he was suitably impressed with Speranza and offered no irritating observations about Man's greatest invention just being for "getting from A to B." I think he and I are destined to be friends. 

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While saying goodbye to his Mum and other grandma, I asked if I could hold his little sister. She looked sensibly cautious as I took her in my arms, but was soon reassured. She rewarded my one-sided conversation (the late Mrs P. abhorred baby talk and insisted our children were spoken to in real words arranged into sentences) with friendly smiles. Given how long human children are dependant, the more big scary-looking guys they have in their friendship group, the better. I personally think they know that and that's why they usually like me. I am a gentle soul, but given my height and weight, I look like I might do serious damage to any threats and children find that subconsciously reassuring. 

Babička took this rather poignant picture of me disappearing off into the distance with Speranza's roof down. It remained down for most of the way to Bilbao, where I am staying tonight, though I did have to put it up due to heavy rain at one point. I just pulled into a truck stop and she did her 14 second party trick of becoming a coupé again. The weather had cleared by today's single refuelling stop though, so the roof was down again on the final sunny approach.


2024-06-11_155119My hotel —  opposite the Guggenheim – has underground parking accessed by lift. She barely fitted in (her rear end is quite wide) but by folding in the wing mirrors I just managed. The lift was so smooth I thought it wasn't working and was frantically pushing the button the whole time. Considerately, the hotel had installed control buttons on both sides so her being RHD wasn't a problem for once. Since I set up telepeage accounts years ago for the French and Spanish motorways, actually it's rarely a problem now. 

As for today's drive, Speranza was in fine form and the air-conditioning was not an issue with her roof down, My first 100km+ were on country roads. It took ages to reach an autoroute but I still averaged a good speed. The country roads gave me a sweet Ferrari moment – an overtake no lesser car could manage. Ten cars had formed a tail behind a slow moving truck on a winding road in Armagnac. None of them could pass, even though they were sitting on the correct side to have visibility for an overtake. I spotted an upcoming straight on the navigation map that was preceded by a right hand bend that gave me the visibility. The way was clear and before any other driver could take the chance, I roared past the entire convoy in one go. I couldn't hear the oh la la's over the V8 roar of course, but I know they were uttered. That moment will account for the trip computer's recorded maximum speed for the day. 

For the rest of the ride I broadly complied with speed limits - keeping up with local traffic. I was in no rush and I liked watching the French and Spanish countryside flash by with the sun on my forehead, the wind in my baseball cap and Speranza's V8 in my ears. I didn't turn my music on at all.

IMG_6185I had hoped to visit the Guggenheim and arrived in plenty of time to do so, but my mum has received a nasty letter from her county council about the fencing of some leased fishing land held in my late dad's trust. So I shall use the hotel's excellent wifi connection to attend to that instead. Ordinary life is intruding it seems, even before life on the road has quite ended.

I shall transition back to my old intermittent fasting breakfast/lunch regime today by having only the one (rather banal) meal I had at today's petrol station.

My Track My Tour map is updated here.

 


Mission accomplished, now for home.

This trip came about because Babička told me her plans to visit Czechia for an arts course and then rendezvous with her daughter in Aquitaine to meet her new granddaughter.IMG_6154

I was looking for a road trip to celebrate passing 100,000 miles in Speranza. This is sadly not something that happens to most Ferraris. They are far too often doomed to live unfulfilled lives as trophies. I resolved when I purchased mine to use her as designed. She's a grand tourer and has done many thousands of miles of grand tours - not least the great American road trip of 2013, which was 14,500 miles through the Lower 48 states. 

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Enzo Ferrari was famously contemptuous of those who bought his cars for any other purpose than racing them. I am no racing driver but I thought il Commendatore’s shade might smile on me if I bought a GT and actually toured her. 

So in this spirit I offered to drive Babička to Prague and beyond. Plans changed when she had to fly to Prague to take care of her sick mother. We agreed to meet and continue from there. Either way, our mission was therefore to introduce Babička (grandmother) to vnučka (granddaughter) by mean of my motorové vozidlo (motor vehicle).  Today was that day.

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Vnučka and her nukefam landed at Bergerac airport and were with us by late afternoon. I introduced myself to Vnučka's two year old big brother, of whom I have heard a lot in the last few days. He shook my hand politely and then was off to play with the new toy ride-on Bentley his grandparents had bought him, complete with personal number plate spelling his name. My kind of people!

I took a lot of pleasure watching the two grandmothers meet their new granddaughter and noted the care with which they included their grandson in their attentions so he didn’t feel left out.

I stayed out of the way, folded my laundry, packed and then read The Spectator as the ancient home was taken over for the children. I pondered a little what it will be like to meet my own grandchild later this year. I can’t imagine it will be anything but great. I like children and usually, once they get used to me, they like me back. I’m intimidating on first contact but once they know I’m on their side, I seem also to be reassuring.

Once the children were in their beds the adults ate, drank and chatted. In the morning I must say goodbye to all this and to my travel companion Babička, who was still trying to tell me over dinner that Speranza is just a means of getting from A to B. The poetry of fine engineering is entirely lost on her alas and the loss is entirely hers. She’s still my friend, heretic though she is, and I pity rather than condemn her! 


Monpazier

Today (Sunday) we ventured to the Dordogne to visit a favourite lunch spot of Babička and her late husband. It is a pub associated with an artisan brewery run by two Essex refugees from Brexit (according to the Daily Mail). The brewery is called Biere de la Bastide and the pub is as un-French as could be conceived.

To the accompaniment of the songs of a fully-mulleted Rod Stewart wannabe, I had a blue cheese burger and fries, before setting out to photograph one of France's most beautiful villages, a bastide town called Monpazier built by Edward I (Longshanks). Ted 1er may have been the Hammer of the Scots but it seems he was a benefactor to French architecture.

There's an hotel in the village named in honour of him. He's one of history's most vicious (if effective) monarchs, who defenestrated his son's lover and eviscerated William Wallace among many other acts of violence. I guess it goes to prove that there's someone other than his mum to love every man.

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More of my photographs of the village are here if you are interested. I am particularly happy with this 360º panorama I made of the medieval market square from ten original photos stitched together in Adobe Lightroom.

2024-06-09_170121The other highlight of my day was taking Speranza for a much-needed wash at an automated facility near where I am staying.

As is inevitable in a high-wage regulated employment market, where virtually no-one can be fired for underperformance, the French are becoming specialists in automation.

The task was performed by a robot haute pression sans contact with detergents and high powered jets.

I just had to park, stand clear, select my program and pay by credit card.

It did an excellent job done without dodgy brushes touching her precious paintwork.

I scrounged a couple of euros from Babička to pay for a vacuum cleaner that wouldn't accept my credit card and the job was done. She was ready once more respectably to represent her illustrious brand – consistently ranked the world's strongest – on our journey home. 

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At ease in Aquitaine

IMG_6138It is remarkable how cool it is (in the literal as well as the figurative sense) inside the 17th Century French home where I am fortunate to be a guest. Outside it’s been unpleasantly warm at times. Inside it’s crisply cool. The walls are made of thick stone and the floors are tiled. One cannot achieve the same efficient result in modern buildings without expensive air conditioning. If they could time travel, our ancestors might wonder why, with all our other advances, our technologists can't replicate the insulating properties of stone. It would save a lot of energy.

The only downside is that it blocks wifi and cellular signals. As there's a penthouse element to my London apartment, the concrete slab of the roof  divides my two floors and has the same effect in relation to wifi. I suggested they invest in some of the adapters I use to make my electrical mains function as an ethernet and create additional wifi zones. That wouldn't solve their problem with cellular signals, but my phone is set to use wifi calling at home and they could do the same. There's a sweet spot where their Skylink network is powerful where they have their home office set up, so I have had a good connection when I need one.

I had a restful first full day here, performing some duties in Second Life®, catching up on episodes of the TV show I was watching back home before the trip began, reading in and by the pool and generally chilling. I feel very relaxed and happy. Babička has attended to our nutritional needs and it's been wonderful to have home cooking. It will take a while to readjust to my diet of Marks & Spencer ready meals when I get home!

The two grandmothers are each excited in their own ways (two more different characters could scarcely be conceived) about meeting their new granddaughter and of course the grandson they already have in common. Babička's daughter and her family arrived in London from the Middle East on Saturday. They are staying in her home there and will fly here on Monday. There's a barbecue planned for Monday evening, which I am looking forward to.

I will head off to Bilbao, my penultimate stop on the way home, on Tuesday morning. I am hoping for clear skies so I can drive with the roof down all the way, rendering the lack of air-conditioning irrelevant. Even if that's not possible, I'll be happier knowing there's no companion in discomfort because of it. I did my best to fix it, having spent about €1,500 in Lorraine on an AC service kit, but still Speranza is my car and I have felt guilty. Also the poor lady has not been able to make herself heard over the wind noise, so I have missed much of her wisdom that might otherwise have elevated my being.

There was a spectacular thunderstorm at night and I left my door out onto the yard open to enjoy the display.


The Last Big Run

We had a five to six hour run ahead of us from Barjac to Penne d'Agenais in 30º heat – mostly on autoroutes. By now we know the drill for driving without air con. Babička has even found a way I didn't know was possible to open the tiny rear window behind her (Speranza is a 2+2 if the +2 are hobbits) while keeping the main window up. The problem was not the driving but the stops. The roads (and so the aires) were packed and shady parking spaces were at a premium. We were on a three stop strategy and came back each time to a little furnace. 

We'd hoped to find some nice little village to stop at for lunch, but Babička is not a digital native. She could find restaurants but she couldn't figure out their proximity to a motorway junction. In the end we settled for an Autogrill at an aire and it wasn't too bad at all.

The final 60km was on country roads where Babička kept reminding me her late husband had managed to clock up €800 of speeding fines on a single day. The speed limits vary from 30-80kph, the signage is poor and the whole route is sous surveillance. Time will tell if I did any better. It wasn't easy and – to be honest – by this stage I didn't care. I was anxious to get Babička to her destination safely and to have a few days rest before my return journey.IMG_6130Her daughter's in-law's place is a beautiful old farmhouse dating back as far as the 17th Century, complete with all its land. The in-laws rent the fields out to locals and enjoy watching the farming around them.

After dropping our bags, we headed to town for Babička to shop for dinner and for me to refuel Speranza. I made another young Frenchman happy when he asked permission to photograph her. I asked for his phone and let him sit in the drivers seat to be photographed. I  hope some young French lady is suitably impressed when he flashes the photos. It's a myth that Ferraris are "chick magnets" – the glances one gets are all from heterosexual males so it's more an expensive form of gaydar. It's the FPC (Ferrari Purchase Capability) that is the magnet – and that attracts entirely the wrong sort of woman.

While I waited outside the butchers shop, an older Frenchman came over to talk cars with me. He was an Aston Martin driver and happy to learn I'd originally set out to buy a Vanquish but didn't fit into it, which is how I ended up with first a Maserati and then a Ferrari. One of the things I like about Speranza is the way she starts so many conversations with like-minded people. No Guardian-reader is ever going to come over for a chat! She has built-in anti-Bolshevik defences.

IMG_6130After dinner outside accompanied in my case by some Cheshire-brewed ale, I retired to my motel-style bedroom with Speranza immediately outside my hobbit-sized door. I'd hoovered out all traces of Babička's rather messy occupancy and plan to wash Speranza's exterior before I leave for Spain and – ultimately – my ferry home next Tuesday. Babička has all kinds of plans for outings in the meantime and while there are vehicles a-plenty here, until her daughter and son-in-law arrive I am the only licensed and insured driver . Despite that, I am hoping to give most of them a miss and enjoy French rural life at leisure rarely afforded to the area's hard-working folk.

My Track My Tour map is updated here.


A pause

The Track My Tour app map is updated here. No waypoints will be added today as I'm having a break. 

My Ferrari guys in London think the mecaniciens de Lorraine serviced the air-conditioning just fine, but that there's a more basic problem. It blasted cold air when I took delivery but stopped working again very quickly. They infer that there's a refrigerant (freon) leak. The service kit may therefore not have been necessary at all, but another part of Speranza is now new so the money's not wasted. They'll fix the leak when I put her in for her annual service next month, They say it's not a roadside repair because it may take a few days to work out where the leak is by putting coloured liquids into the system and waiting to see where they emerge. So we shall continue to run warm.

Hobbit sized doorFor me, it's not a problem. If I were alone, I would put the roof down anyway so blasting along with the windows down is a pleasant way to enjoy the heat of the South of France. I feel a bit guilty about my poor friend Babička though. She's accustomed to her luxuries, disappointed with the lack of sightseeing stops and is not enjoying the trip as much as I would wish. It's a disappointment to share a passion with a friend but find the reaction is "meh" at best.


After morning coffee – no breakfast for us intermittent fasters – among the cheery, carb-loading French residents (we're the only foreigners here) of our B&B, I deposited Babička at the Eschaton –Anselm Kiefer Fondation five minutes away. Our B&B is very near to it, so I got the booking right this time. In fact Babička really seems to like the place, which is a relief. It's the last accommodation I will arrange for her, as our next stop is her family's home.

I put my laundry into a washing machine. "Pah!! Here we 'ave the sun" said madame, when I asked if there was a dryer. In fact she hung it out to dry herself and delivered it to my door neatly folded. She and her husband run the place alone and their industry is remarkable.

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I collected Babička from her event and we had lunch in the nearby village. It rained and everyone else in the courtyard was moved indoors but Babička took charge, moved chairs and table so we could stay outside just out of the rain. The staff looked bemused but went along with it. As she described the exhibition to me, I wondered out loud how much her genius artist was worth. She thought it likely he was worthy, but poor. A moment's research disclosed he is one of the wealthiest Germans with a net worth, at the last estimate, in excess of €100 million.

After lunch, we retired to our "mas" (a Provencal word for manor, apparently). Babička wanted to swim. I went to my room for a snooze. I've loved all the driving but I was pretty tired. I woke, refreshed, just in time for dinner. It had been an agreeable day.


Garda to Cannes

Our apartment near Lake Garda was a good idea in concept. Clean and modern with secure parking and minutes from the lakeside restaurants, bars and cafés. Two bedrooms to accommodate both travellers and a nice living area. However there was confusion and hassle about checking in, the WiFi connected to devices but not apparently to the internet and the air conditioning appears to have been installed by my mecaniciens from Lorraine! It blew convincingly but delivered nothing of value – rather like a politician. I knew I was likely to end today as a hot mess but I’d hoped not to begin it so!

Babicka was once more unhappy with the accommodation; this time because she couldn't see Lake Garda. I'd rather have crashed after our stressful journey,but I wanted her to enjoy the trip too. Rather stung by a barb about the journey not being just about the motoring for her, I drove her to a lakeside restaurant where we mostly had a lovely evening. It lasted longer than I, in my exhaustion, would have liked and in consequence she held up most of the conversation single-mouthedly.

After another little tussle this morning over whether it was worth further delay and cost to try to get Speranza's air-conditioning fixed en route, we set off bright and early. The drive was (apart from noise from open windows at speed) wonderful. We had a great run with only a few road works to slow us down. We made two stops in Italy; one comfort break/fuel stop and another to refuel ourselves. We made great speed and arrived mid-afternoon.

This met our objective of having time to relax before heading out to our evening meal at the best (in my opinion) restaurant in the world.

I really was a hot mess on checking in; not so much from the journey, which I found fairly comfortable, but from carrying luggage in from the car park in South of France heat. I took the first room key offered (it was fine) and left Babicka making a fuss about her room. She likes things her way and usually gets what she wants but I find the resulting contretemps a bit embarrassing – especially when she insists on taking up cudgels unasked on my behalf. So I was happy to leave her to it. 

Alone for a while, I set my room's air conditioning to the max and took a cold shower. Then (having booked an Uber to the restaurant so we could both have a drink) I sat reading for a while before dressing for dinner in the few moderately formal clothes I have with me. 

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The Maison de Bacon lived up to very expectation. Even the highly-critical Babicka, who will tell anyone, anywhere doing any job how they can do it better (and is quite often right) had very little criticism to offer. I wrote a review of it in 2016 and it's still  true, even if the Sordello family who owned it for 7o years, having built it up from a fish stall on the beach, have since sold out. The new owners have not changed a winning formula. They even still offer the cheese platter (most unusual in French fish restaurants) which the Sordellos introduced after I asked for cheese when I was on the Atkins diet twenty-odd years ago! 

We had a wonderful evening and I retired to my bed to write this full of martini, fish and fine white Burgundy. I told our waiter we were there to celebrate the news that Miss P the Elder was expecting in the place where, 19 years ago, my late wife and I had met her from a French language course in Nice to celebrate her 18th birthday.

My TrackMyTour map is updated here. Tomorrow, on to Barjac, where Babicka has a sought-after ticket to visit La Ribaute and where, while she does so, I shall do some laundry and then relax in the yurt which is to be my home for two nights,