Day 2 The road from Donmar to Colmar

 We are one man down and it is always a drain on moral when you lose (although we hope temporarily) one of the instigators of this great adventure.

We left out AirBnB at 09:00 having had had tea/ coffee and a croissant each. We all sadly miss Nigel and Bumble but early indications are that Nigel will get the car back home and the problem will be sorted. A long haul across Europe will be necessary to catch up but is perfectly possible and all fingers are crossed, and crossed again that this will be the case.

In the meantime the team needs to crack on. You snooze, you lose in this game and maintaining momentum on such a momentus expedition is vital.  

Last night in the town of Donmar we found it almost impossible to find an open restaurent, everything apart from pizza joints were closed. We eventually found a small cafe where we got something to eat and some surprisingly good beer and white wine. The beer was 14% and after 3 glasses Sophie was defintely suffering the consequences. No more needs to be said but ‘let’s go a see the river’ which turned out to be a railway and some Star wars impressions come to mind!

 

 

We departed at 09:00 for a 400km drive across country to the medival town of Colmar in Alsace. We are on our way to Switzerland. We plot our routes using an old fashioned map and Waze (no tolls and no motorways). The result is a cross country route taking on all sorts of random and rather charming towns and villages. It amazes me the number of wind turbines as you cross France, but even more the number that are completely inactive.The wind was blowing but the turbines weren't turning. Someone seriously needs to solve the issue of electrical storage and soon. there's no point in having hundreds of turbines doing nothing when the wind blows.

 

We drove though charming but flat land finally arriving at Bar sur Aube where we stopped for a cup of coffee and stretched our legs down by the river. Its amazing how little life there is in these little towns but we did find a coffee shop, a garage to refuel and moved on. After all we are simly a few hiundred kilometres into this mammoth venture.  

 

 

The land is flat, fertile and full of small rural communities. We drive on steadily the Rolls or Vauxhall leading and the Lagonda playing tail end Charlie. As with all long distance rallies it settles into a steady and workable rhythm and it works..

There were, and long may this continue, no mechaical issues and only towards the end of the day as we approached Colmar did the landscape change becoming much more wooded and hilly. We nad driven 400km and knew we were leaving France and approaching Switzerland which of course is tomorrow's story.