Cruising to Paxos - Three ferries and a satnav (Deceased).

Cruising to Paxos 

or

Three ferries and a satnav (Deceased).

Ferry # 1:  Dover to Dunkerque.

Nottingham to Béthune.

 

In which coin-op  hotels are discovered and a knowledge of navigation found to be of little use.

He wasn’t happy. You could tell from a range of 20 yards. One hand clamping Nokia to ear and the other alternately gesticulating wildly and rubbing the back of his head. The call wasn’t going well and when finished it was apparent that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to hurl the ‘phone through the nearest window.

“Problem?” I enquired, somewhat unwisely.

“Pah!”

 He glared at me with red rimmed eyes, took a huge breath and spun on his heel. However, he had only gone a pace and a half when his better nature came to the fore and completing the 360 he returned.  Even at 11:30 at night in a French car park there were certain civilities to observe and a balding and slightly overweight Englishman clutching a makeup case in one hand and a large hairdryer in the other posed no obvious threat.

He had just driven from Belgium and was hoping to spend the night, as we were, in the Fouquieres-les-Béthune Premiere Classe Hotel   - Restaurante à Proximité (Fermé). This wonderful chain of coin-operated rooms is a haven for tourists, students, lovers (and others in urgent need of a roof over their heads) all over France. When the attendant has gone home it is still possible to obtain a room by using the ATM–like machine on the door. You put in your credit card, follow the on screen instructions and it issues a swipe card that acts as your door key. This he had done. Trudged wearily up the exterior staircase to his room, swiped his card through the lock and let himself in. Unfortunately, in this case the machine had issued the same electronic ID earlier in the evening and on switching on the light a scene not often made public in Belgium was revealed  to our weary traveller - closely followed by a shoe and some choice language. The couple obviously considered that first come should be first served (perhaps I could have phrased that better) and were not disposed to negotiate with the equally indignant intruder. You can see their point of view, though. Hence the need for the irate phone call to head office.

 “For €32 I was not expecting a warm bed and that kind of entertainment …” the traveller remarked, beginning to see the funny side once placated by the issue of a new key by an officially horrified (but privately delighted) attendant.

The leaning tower of pissoir ...? Well, its more fun than Watford Gap!

Anita and I continued with our unpacking, taking anything that was actually needed for the night into our room and clamping the trailer wheel to deter late night revellers. We, too, had had a difficult few hours. Towing the boat from Nottingham to Dover was the worst bit of the journey. Staightforward but nerve wracking and time consuming. We had set off ridiculously early in order to be sure of the ferry, booked early enough to roll a few more miles once we have crossed the Channel. Having the rig guided into spaces on the ferry that seem too small for a surfboard was something we would get used to. But driving through France at dusk with only a few litres of petrol left on a Sunday night was hardly our best move ever and after the third wrong turning in search of either a hotel or a service station tempers were beginning to fray.  Just  a bit. We had agreed that it made sense to take turns driving so, obviously the non-driving party would read the maps. “Yeah, yeah! Whatever!” 

It’s the map reading that causes the arguments. I adopt the super-efficient Eric Carlson rally driving method. Large-scale map open on my knee, finger on the road following progress junction by junction. “In 2 kilometres take the left turn marked A4 “ I rap out smartly. Instantly followed by “No! No! Not yet! This is someone’s drive, for God’s sake!

Anita, in contrast is less anal about the whole map business. Briefly perusing the map of Europe on the back of a “Lonely Planet” guide she remarks that we want to go to Riems, then somewhere towards Lyon, chucks the map on the back seat and, duty done, starts painting her toenails with her feet up on the dashboard. I’m well used to orbiting roundabouts 3 or 4 times if the signposts are not clear, but I do get irritated when we have to pull over, retrieve the map from where ever and try to work out just which wrong turn we have taken and where the hell we’ve got to. I, personally, think that she has been in senior management too long. Used to having an overview of the big picture and delegating the trivial details to a minion. (That’ll be me, then.) To look at it more constructively, we are both getting really good at reversing into field entrances and turning around in narrow lanes. Odd how we seem to get lost whoever happens to be reading the map, though? I put this down to a little known procedure called “map spoiling”. The deliberate inclusion of errors on the map, which are then copyrighted so if someone tries to rip off the Ordinance Survey or Le Guide Michelin they can sue ‘em. That and roads which are too new to be on the map. Must be something like that.. How else can you explain it? I, after all, have a Degree in Navigation – well, a Day Skipper certificate actually but you know what I mean. Perhaps I should invest in sat nav before our next trip. It would be nice to have an authoritative “Next left” that doesn’t take us up the garden path – and painted toenails are rather sexy.

Bethune to Chambery

Concerning history, fate and cultural differences and similarities

The entirety of this route was followed on toll roads. You’d think there would be little opportunity for chaos here. Drive on, pick up a ticket and get your foot down. At the end of the journey leave the toll road, pay up and everyone is happy. Such was my naive belief in the intrinsic logic of the concept – ( and the French are a logical race so who better to implement it than the people who invented the decimal system?) – that I hadn’t given it a thought in my otherwise meticulous planning.

            Hammering down the A 26 through WW I  country was quite a moving experience for me. Even when the names of places, so long part of my family history, were only seen on motorway signs. Arras - where granddad copped one with his name on it. Cambrai - haunted by cousin Albert, VC. I fancied I could smell the cordite and castor oil yet. The car had the same horsepower (130hp) and was travelling at almost the same speed as his beloved Nieuport Scout, this despite towing the boat which, by some strange circumstance weighed approximately the same as his plane. The reverie didn’t last long. The 21^st century was making a comeback.

The first thing we did wrong was to assume that all French autoroute rest areas were service areas. Wrong, quite wrong. Some, indeed, had a level of catering that made Watford Gap look like a sink hole of gastronomic ineptitude. This is what one would expect. After all we are in France, ain’t we? Others, however, were perhaps  intended for the burgeoning French caravanning market. Not only could you not fill the tank with petrol or get a cup of coffee they didn’t even have toilets. Not officially, that is. You drove off the autoroute, paid the toll and then rolled wide eyed and cross legged into what in the UK would pass for Heritage Woodland - except around every bend was a secluded bay with sleeping HGVs or barbecuing campers. After orienteering our way out of one of these we managed to get back on the autoroute but somehow with out passing a ticket machine. All very well until we reached the next Péage.

( Apologies in advance for the relatively foul language that follows, included and highlighted in blue for reasons of academic verisimilitude, no more, and a mere shadow of the original, high-flown Anglo-Saxon actually employed. Any descendants of the Norman usurper are welcome to eat their hearts out in jealous and impotent rage. )

Anita takes her turn at the wheel.

“Tony?”

“Hmm?”

“Which lane shall I go in?”

“Hmm?” (I was too busy map reading to see where we were going.)

“Which bloody lane!   Quick!”

“Err. Umm. Just follow the other cars. No need to get into a panic…..Oh, Shame! This lane’s for season tickets or something. Didn’t you see the sign?”

“Too damn late now…”

“Can’t you just back it up a bit…?

“I am NOT reversing this boat on a motorway. Not with a sodding great lorry breathing down my neck!”

In these circumstances it is inevitable that the toll booth is of the automated, un-manned variety. A small speaker handily placed 3 feet above your passenger window makes Gallic Darth Vader noises at you which you just might be able to understand – if it wasn’t for the fierce gunning of diesel engines behind you. (The lorry driver has spotted the GB plates and is jack-knifing his artic across several lanes in a desperate attempt to get away. Puffs of blue tyre smoke are beginning to appear back up the autoroute as other heavies lock their back wheels. The word is spreading.) 

“I definitely think you picked the wrong lane here!”

“So I picked the wrong lane, did I?”

A gleam appeared in my wife’s eye. It  matched the gleam from her gritted teeth. I didn’t like the look of that. Someone was going to suffer. I couldn’t imagine why it should be me but … you could never tell….

“ ‘Allo!”

Saved by la belle. A smiling young woman with the slim grace of a ballerina had danced across from her booth. Never had a fluorescent security vest looked so becoming.

“What a beautiful boat.” (..perfect English..) “ have you come far?”

“Well, we drove down from Nottingham to Dover yesterday morning and today…”

“No,no, M’sieur. I mean….”

“Bethune.” said my wife. “..venu de Bethune, juste.”

Have you noticed that trick that women have of bonding sympathetically with each other with hardly a word spoken?

“Ah, weh.” said La Belle, laughing.

In those few words the two of them understood each other perfectly and I had achieved the status  ‘harmless idiot’.

A €20 note was extracted from my wallet. My change was counted aloud into my paw (in English), the fingers gently bent over the coins so they would not be lost before home time. A new ticket was procured, waved under my nose as the exact manner of its use was explained to me, La Belle looking earnestly up into my face all the while and pressing down on my arm for emphasis. Then the all important ticket was given … to my wife.   

Naturellement.

A long drive from Bethune, the "Campanile" at Chambery. Steak frites, a glass of red and 8 hours kip.....

 Chambery to Foggia

                             In which my timely and useful advice is unaccountably scorned and we discover “Park and Ride” Foggia-style.

After the map reading debacle we found it convenient to scrap the idea of sharing the driving. Anita, having had previous experience of the mess that other people can get you in to, is happiest about life when she is in control of things. Especially things with 2 litre engines. It’s not that she doesn’t trust my driving…er, well, actually it is. Precisely that.  I could, perhaps, forgive her feeling a certain discomfort when I’m driving the car with my usual panache through heavy traffic. One has to make progress on a long journey and this sometimes means exiting the comfort zones of those with, shall we say, less sharp reflexes. I might well be nervous, myself, if called upon to act as co-driver to a top class professional on the RAC rally, so I quite understand, but she is quite the worst back seat driver I have ever met in my life. I pride myself on my road craft. I have, let us not forget, received training on the police skid pan in my younger days and have only had a few dozen minor road accidents in all these years. Well, so long as you don’t count rolling a Skoda Estelle on a perfectly dry bend. (Well, what else would you do with a Skoda Estelle?) But having Anita in the passenger seat is a nightmare.

 “Mind that cyclist!”

“Watch out for the guy in front. He’s wearing a hat.”   (Huh?)

“I don’t believe you just pulled out then!”

“The lorry! The lorry! Aaagh!”

It’s the way she hangs on to the grab handle over the passenger door with both hands that really winds me up. Especially in built up areas.

I, on the other hand, am perfectly calm when driven by others and will happily admire the view. (Unfortunately, with Anita driving, the view is all too often obscured by the vehicle in front. I regularly finish a journey as passenger with cramp in my braking foot.)  Be that as it may, I am prepared to forgo the pleasure of driving for the gratification of knowing exactly where I am going. Who needs SatNav when you have a first class navigator like me on board?  However, I do have one fault, if fault it be. I have a compulsion to educate. To share generously the benefit of what little I know with others. Before starting the trip neither of us had towed so much as a string of tin cans and a “Just married!” sign let alone a 6m trailer so I had naturally boned up on the subject a little on the RAC website. As we barrelled down the autostrada between the alps and Modena, the road surface was less than ideal with  roadworks to negotiate and numerous heavy lorries coming at us from all angles scattering road cones like litter in a school yard. It was the Contraflow from Hell. Ah, yes! I thought. This is just the moment when Anita might appreciate a little input to ease her load.

“Anita.”

“What?…….My God, did you see that idiot…! Sorry. What did you want? You can’t need the toilet again for Christ’s sake!”

“No, dear. Did you know that if the trailer starts snaking with all this turbulence and stuff, you shouldn’t brake or try to steer to compensate?”

“Snaking..?”

“Yes. When the trailer starts to weave from side to side….”

“That’s stupid. Why would you want to do that?”

“It’s not that you actually want it to happen…”

“I know I don’t want it to happen. The question is why the hell do you want it to happen?”

“I don’t want it to happen, it’s just that…”

“Well, I won’t do it, then! Honestly, isn’t there enough grief on the roads without weaving  backwards and forwards like a lunatic?”

“No! (sigh) I mean, if the trailer starts to weave..”

(Through gritted teeth) “LOOK! Would you PLEASE stop emphasising every other SYLLABLE like that! Is the trailer weaving? Do you want me to stop for some reason….?”

“No! It’s just that..”

“….then …..just …SHUT UP and let me ..DRIVE!”

So the journey continues. An object lesson in marital harmony and cooperation.

All the way to Foggia.

Have you ever been to Foggia?

We hadn’t. 

In the guide book it looks to be a pleasant little town with a convenient ring road. Ideal for easy access with a trailer and perhaps with one of those cosy Italian provincial hotels. You know. The sort with Mama’s home cooking. Like a real live “Dolmio” advert. Unfortunately some people see it differently. A much travelled friend of ours, having to stay overnight, asked a passing policemen if he could suggest a safe place to park his Alfa. The policeman looked up and down the street, thought for a minute and then with a quick shrug of the shoulders said, “Nowhere!”

Mention Foggia to any northern Italian and they will say “Oooh! You don’t want to go there!” and look surprised that you would even contemplate such a crazy notion. However, I sympathise with the people of Foggia. I know how easy it is for a town to get an undeserved reputation. (I live in Nottingham, remember.)  It was getting dark as we rolled slowly towards the town centre looking for the hotel we’d seen advertised at the last petrol stop. The wide, empty streets of the commercial area were somehow heavy with menace. The narrow, crowded streets of the centre were worse! I’ve never seen so many motorini in one place before and every street corner was packed solid with humanity.  In an attempt to get off the one-way system that had us circulating around the town centre like a bridesmaid at a wedding reception, we took a wrong turn and became stuck up a dark and narrow dead end street lined with parked cars. The thicket of wing mirrors that reached out behind us as far as the eye could see all seemed to be attached to powerful saloon cars. The sort of car owned by well heeled citizens or middle aged Mafiosi. Either way it didn’t look as if the owners would be too keen on the loss of said mirrors even with compensation in the form of GoFaster stripes that matched the boat colour. We were beginning to attract attention. Shadowy figures emerged from alleys and doorways, appraised the situation and sank slowly back again. Figures who didn’t look as if they actually owned one of the vehicles but might well know a man who did. Quite intimately, in fact. It was time for drastic measures. Thank Goodness we had chosen a light, easily manoeuvred  boat and trailer..  We simply unhitched, trundled the boat back like a wheel barrow , wished the ladies in red satin blouses and fishnet tights “Buona notte!” Hitched everything back up and legged it, hoping for a less interesting hotel down the pike!

(More to Follow....)