Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Epilogue

Let's start with some stats:

Total mileage:     2,200 miles

Hotel costs:         £470 (7 nights, some with breakfast)

Petrol:                 £560 (£990 for the Beast!)

Tolls:                  £29 (we didn't use them much)

Food:                 £200-£300 (tricky to tell, my son paid for some).

Things we learnt:

1. France has so many beautiful roads but the French don't seem to have as much of an interest in cars as Brits do, which is ironic considering they still have a car industry. Apart from a Citroën Traction Avante club, we saw very few interesting/exotic cars - it was mostly Dacias and boring French models. Very rare to even see a Porsche...

2. The French are very law-abiding when it comes to speed, sticking to 50mph max on empty country roads. But that may be because...

3. There are a LOT more speed cameras in France, even on roads out in the middle of nowhere and they're not obvious either, unlike our bright yellow ones.

4. Speed bumps! What a PITA....

5. The French Riviera is not a fun place to drive.

6. Petrol is expensive in France - I paid between £1.60 - £2 a litre.

Road trips are not for all, they are about the journey and not the destination which non-car people don't get at all. They are my favourite holiday and made even better to have done it with my son while I still can, before I get too old and he gets into the drudgery of kids and family. We had a great time over the radios, commenting on scenery, other cars, me giving him history lessons, dad jokes - the whole shebang. He is very precious about his car (understandably) and you may notice that in all the parking photos, he is parked on the end of a row with me next to him as a sacrificial lamb in case of a bad driver getting anywhere near. I countered by pointing out to him the few other Mercs we saw that were taxis - did he want to pick up any fares?

It was fun...

I've said it before, so I'll say it again; the star of the show was Zedster:

A parts bin special, hacked together by a computer geek (ish), thrashed around the best roads in Europe for over 2,000 miles in a week, chasing a car with 3 times the power that had been designed and built on a multi-million pound budget? Nothing short of outstanding...

Hopefully, there will be another trip and the Nurburgring has been suggested...although I'm not sure if the Beast could actually complete a lap without needing a slowdown? But I've heard they do allow taxis on there, so that should be all right. 

And if it gets bad, Zedster will be there to give him a tow...

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 8

 North of Dijon to home - 390 miles

With some sadness, we set off on our last day from our farmhouse:

The first 50 miles or so were, by congested SE England standards, a brilliant run as we found the last little patch of green on the map and we had our last hoorah through the trees.

A brief stop for brunch at a small town patisserie:

...before the last excitement of the trip; the old grandstand at Reims:

The Beast did a couple of Le Mans starts for the gaggle of petrolheads filming and we got talking to a guy only a few years older than Jake who turned up in his Ferrari 360 on a dream trip to Italy. His car sounded great, like a V12 but was actually a V8 - not a stock exhaust, we think.

By sheer luck, there was a Lamborghini club there as well, in the grounds behind the stands:

I do love a Countach...

We pulled away (the Beast in a cloud of tyre smoke) and headed for the autoroute and the last 170 miles to Calais. We arrived early and managed to get on a train an hour earlier than booked.

On my last trip, England welcomed me back with a thunderstorm of biblical proportions; this time, it was a 14 mile average speed zone before an accident that closed the motorway - our 1 hour return took us 2 hours!

Map of the route:

Video of the last 2 days:

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 7

 Annecy to north of Dijon, 200 miles

To make the route home more interesting, I wanted to do more of the Jura Mountains. Last time, my run through a bit of it had been brilliant so I'd taken more time over the route this trip.

The D991 up through the Jura Mountains was superb; a smooth mix of tight and gentle bends with minimal traffic. The 50 or so miles we did through here was sublime, me trying to catch up to the Beast and failing but loving every twist and turn.

We then took a great cross-country route up to Dole; bad name, pretty medieval town which we spent some time wandering around (we'd made good time and were well ahead of schedule).

We zig-zagged our way past Dijon, which I had planned to stop in but the heat (30 degC) and the thought of slow town traffic put me off. It was so hot, we stopped at a supermarket and wandered the aisles for 20 minutes just to enjoy their air-con and get some food for our stop tonight, which was a quaint old farmhouse in the middle of absolute nowhere, about 15 miles north of Dijon:

A great day to say goodbye to the wonderful roads we've enjoyed on this trip, with a relatively dull day tomorrow, except for a final twist...

Map of the route:

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 6

 Moutiers to Annecy - c. 200 miles

A day when all the best-made plans went out the window...

We started out from Moutiers (not the prettiest town in the world), heading to a route I did on my last trip, 3 years ago. We drove up to Albertville and then set off up the D925 towards Beaufort, a lovely road bathed in sunshine. I briefly spotted a sign saying 'Ferme' but thought nothing of it...

At the Lac de Roselend, we stopped at the lone hotel on the lake with THE most stunning view:

Remembering the sign I had seen, I asked the waitress and, yes, the road was closed 1km further on! It had collapsed earlier in the year and they still hadn't repaired it. This explained why the rubbish tomtom satnav app my son was using said, "no route available" and explained why his Sygic app kept telling him to turn round and do a 60 mile detour! My very basic (but reliable) CoPilot app just happily let me route - it doesn't do any fancy live updates.

I really wanted to take my son up the 9,000ft Col d'Iseran, which meant taking that 60 mile detour. Fortunately,  turning round on these roads isn't much of a hardship, so we went back to Moutiers and then on up to Bourg St Maurice.

The road up to Val d'Isere was yet another great piece of tarmac and we saw several signs assuring us the Col d'Iseran was ouvert, so up we went, with the views getting scarier as we drove along edge-less roads with sheer drops to oblivion scaring my son into a reasonable pace (and the road was much bumpier than I remembered).

Their was also a heck of a lot of snow, with 6ft high banks along the top of the route (last time, I was here in July and there was hardly any). 

The top of the Col was sunny, cold and...CLOSED!! Yup, the lying French %#&*&*# hadn't bothered changing the signs to say the Col was ferme. It must have been a recent closure because none of the satnavs knew about it either and obviously, there was no explanation.

So, we headed back down (again, not a hardship) and I stopped at the same place I had 3 years ago, taking the same picture:

Definitely more snow a month earlier....spot the difference in Zedster? 

Without enough time to go somewhere very different, we set off for Annecy (going past Moutiers for the 3rd time!) and I found a little wiggly road to get there; the D911 up past the hamlet of Ecole and then the D5 through Gruffy (great name), which gave us our last taste of alpine twistiness before we start the journey home tomorrow.

No map route today as it was all over the place and I think we did around 200 miles, but I can't be sure.

Video of the day:

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 5

 Embrun to Moutiers - 153 miles

Anyone who has read this far is probably getting very bored of my American-style cheesiness and I'm afraid there was more today - sorry about that.

Today was the start of proper alpine hairpins and twisty mountain roads. The day started off cloudy which kept it cool, then a bit of drizzle and then full sun, with the temperature reaching 31 degC.

Beauty and the Beast both had problems today; the Beast continued to boil its gearbox oil so there were a couple of stops for this:

...and I had a problem with Zedster's bash plate. It covers the protruding bellhousing and has always been pretty rubbish; it was very difficult getting rivnuts into the chassis rail under the car when I only have axle stands. They don't get the car up high enough to give you the leverage to use the rivnut tool properly, so they've never been in well. Looks like one bolt vibrated out of one side and the other fell out the chassis rail, rivnut and all, so the plate was hanging on with the 2 bolts on the other side but it had dropped down and was scraping on the road.

I didn't have any spare bolts so the old, faithful gaffer tape was brought out:

This worked a bit but gaffer tape never works well with heat, so the plate kept dropping down a little; I had to push it back up at every stop. I'll try find a garage tomorrow and see if I can scrounge a couple of bolts which will do until I get home.

The rest of the day was glorious, flying along twisty roads with HUGE drops to one side; so huge that you couldn't see the bottom; it felt like you were driving on the rim of a bottomless pit. The views were amazing - proper mountains are so impressive and the top of one pass still had chunks of ice on the side of the road.

Towards the end of the day, we came up behind a trio of German Renault fans (who knew?), two Clios and a wonderful sounding 80s Renault 5 GT turbo. All had roll cages and were certainly not stock - we chased them for the next 10 miles; me just being able to keep up and the Beast chomping at the bit to get past me and fill their mirrors. The road was narrow and twisty as hell; it was brilliant and exhausting fun.

With so many hairpins today, I have almost perfected my rear wheel slide and there were a couple of them I actually drifted round sideways, smoke from the tyres (well, a little). These Avons are so bad that they let go quite easily...

The hotel in Moustiers was a welcome sight - I was knackered.

Map of the route:

Video of the day:

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 4

 Cannes to Embrun - 150 miles

A great day, one in which Beauty did hurt the Beast!

We started off with a slow cruise into central Cannes for breakfast:

...which, amazingly, didn't require a house re-mortgage. We then had a nice walk around the marina, planning our next yacht (there was an old rowing boat we could maybe afford). 

On the way out of Cannes, I went halfway through a red light, slammed on the anchors and almost took out the police motorbike behind me! He wasn't too impressed, told me to take off my headset (you're not allowed to wear them in a car in France) and advised that it is a 90 euro fine for going through a red light. I put on a pathetic look, apologised profusely and he let me go...phew, close thing.

Next up, about 10 miles north of Cannes at Grasse, began the famous Route Napoleon. I was a bit worried about this; would it be rammed with wheezing Clios, motorhomes and trucks? Would it heck - it was bloody amazing. I'm not sure how long it went on for - at least 30 miles - but it was glorious; sweeping bends, a few little twisty sections, majestic views and those little stone blocks that are all there is between you and a 1000ft drop.

Towards the end of this blatfest, we got caught by 3 bikers who were, to be frank, mental. The first 2 went past me on a blind bend, one of them almost getting clipped by my front wheel. The 3rd guy, obviously deciding he didn't want to die today, got stuck behind me. After a few corners, I let him past - I really didn't want him doing something stupid.

My son was all for going past me and racing them but I put my worried dad hat on and he relented, sulking...

Which was lucky, because it was all too much for the Beast. It seems a known problem with C63s is that their gearbox oil overheats if you push it too hard for too long and the car goes into limp mode until it cools down again. Now limp mode on a C63 is almost enough to still keep up with Zedster - but not quite. So that's a win for Beauty and, who knows, one day I might let my son forget about it.

We stopped at the beautiful Castellane, which has a church perched on a huge chunk of rock that looms over the town:

Just after our drink, we went for petrol in a nearby supermarket and then went into the shop itself. By amazing luck, this was the first supermarket I'd seen with covered parking and because the sky had suddenly turned black and thunder was rolling, we parked up and ran inside. Seconds later, the heavens opened and half a reservoir fell out the sky, along with a large amount of hailstones. It was amazing - even the locals were filming it!

We shopped for 15 minutes and came out to just light drizzle. But I decided to put my roof on because the skies were still dodgy looking. Ten minutes down the road, just after our lunch stop:

... and the rain struck again, not quite as bad but enough to slow us down a lot and take it easy. A shame because the roads continued to be spectacular. 

The rain stopped after about 20 minutes and we drove up a twisty delight of a road, alongside the huge Lac Serre-Poncon (catchy - never heard of it before). Possibly the best photo opp so far:

The last 10 miles were a nice cruise enjoying the view, stopping in Embrun for pizza from a vending machine. Yeah, it was as bad as it sounds...

Our gite was halfway up a mountain, with the most amazing view of the lake and surrounding mountains:

Map of the route:

Video of the day:

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 3

 Millau to Cannes - 310 miles

Phew, a hot, slow and sticky day...

When planning the trip, I always thought a cruise along the French Riviera would be a bucket list ticker. The only problem was negotiating the industrial heartland of southern France and I wasn't quite successful.

The initial 30 miles or so from Millau were glorious; smooth, sweeping roads all to ourselves. However, as we approached Nimes (where 'denim' gets its name), it became more built-up, the traffic got busier and the real world intruded on our trip. The next 200 miles were a series of large towns we had to negotiate, with the occasional 10 mile stretch of fun in between - not the most fun in the world but my son was still enjoying the novelty of a foreign country, as well as revving the Beast on demand from other drivers while we sat in traffic.

Today was also lots of the 2 favourite French road furniture; roundabouts and speedbumps. We must have gone round 33 gazillion roundabouts today; like Milton Keynes on steroids. But the speedbumps are even worse; the French put them everywhere in towns, even on main roads - I can't believe the usually bolshy French haven't brought down the government over them.

I was getting very hot and a short rain burst just before lunch was actually quite welcome - we managed to find a large tree for me to park under and ate our gourmet lunch while the rain did its worst:

I put my roof up for the next 15 minutes or so but the sun soon came out and I was slowly getting cooked, so roof of again - my tan is going to be awesome.

We finally got down to the coast - and almost turned round straight away; a 2 mile traffic queue for what turned out to be a large speedbump! I hate queues of any type but my son's iPhone told him it was over soon. After that, it was a slow amble through an endless stream of promenades, cafes, cars parked everywhere, a pedestrian crossing every 6 feet and a 1000 buzzy mopeds, throttles pinned, weaving through the traffic.

As a driving experience, it wasn't great, although the views over the sea, the cliffs, boats, beaches; all looked very pretty.

My radio battery died for the last 50 miles or so, so I was able to take my doors off and that was much more comfortable in the heat (29 degC). The last 10 miles after Frejus was superb; red cliffs towered over the twisty little road and because it was now 8pm, everyone had gone home, so we had the road to ourselves for a last thrash.

The hotel was a sort of upmarket Butlins but reception was closed and there was no food; evening meal was chocolate pancakes - we were far too knackered to go out looking for food.

Map of the route:

Video of the day:

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 2

 Limoges to Millau, 256 miles

I really hadn't expected much from today, just an excuse to see the Millau Viaduct and to get further south. As such, I'd simply picked roads that went through the green bit on the map - and, Holy Navigations, did I fluke it or what...

The first section from Limoges to Tulle was unbelievable - rolling hills, quaint towns and some of the best roads I've ever been on. Being a Sunday, there was even less traffic than usual and the road surfaces are SO smooth (I guess because there's just so little traffic to damage it?).

It was so hot, I tried taking my doors off but at anything over 55 or so, the wind blew my cap and headset off and I couldn't use the radio, which I've been doing a lot of this trip, so they had to go back on. I managed to half-open my windows which helped a bit.

Most of the time, my son was behind me because his satnav was playing up but the Beast is literally that; it may be 2.5 tonnes but 6.3L more than makes up for that and I can't even vaguely keep up with him, except in the tightest of corners. Any straight more than 50m long and he pulls away like a train. And the sound - it's like following a really annoyed tiger; it literally growls all the time. It truly is the most awesome production car I've seen/heard. I'll do some video at the end of the trip from inside the car and you'll hear what I mean,

But don't get me wrong - I was having an awesome drive, just a bit slower. Picking off the occasional Clio, Zedster was lovely to hurl round the curves and only when I had to slow for a town did I realise how hot I was.

Once again, the little towns were beautiful; lots of medieval stuff and we drove through one, looking for a parking space but I've worked out where the French all go on a Sunday; lunch! Driving down little cobbled streets, a local stupidly signalled my son to rev the Beast; I think the building damage will be fixable.

Tulle was a pretty place for a coffee stop; set in a narrow valley with a river in the middle and typical French townhouses either side - lovely.

And then the D1120 from Tulle to Aurillac and Rodez was amazing again; sweeps and bends and omigod brilliance. At our lunch stop in some cute little town:

...we checked out an estate agent; €60,000 for a 2-bed house with garden. Lucky they weren't open...my son would have been in there.

The last stretch down to Millau had a nice little alpine-like twisty section, where I almost managed to keep up with the Beast.

The Millau Viaduct is very impressive (don't try go over it; you have to pay, can't see the view from it and can't stop, I'm told):

The short drive to just south of Millau and our hotel in the motorway services (very few hotels in this area) was uneventful, with 30 seconds of rain as we pulled up.

Dinner was a sandwich (weren't very hungry) and about 5 litres of water - never has a shower been so refreshing.

Map of todays route:

Video of the day:

Beauty and the Beast Tour, 2023 - Day 1

 Home to Limoges, 480 miles

So, top tip - don't fret over weather forecasts before a trip. Looking at France the night before, it looked like a large boat with pairs of animals was going to be needed, not a car. Thunder and lightning (very, very frightening - Galileo....sorry) everywhere, warning triangles...jees. I packed an extra waterproof and coat and loaded my drill and bits, in case I needed to replace a wiper again (see this post). In the event, nothing was further from the truth...

Alarm failed to go off at 5am, as planned - luckily my son's did and he woke me; great start. Traditional (OK, done it once before) photo of my odometer so I can see how many miles I do:

Short 65 mile hop to the Eurotunnel and our 7.20am train:

First annoyance of the trip; I'd forgotten my Liber-T widget, which meant at every toll peage,  I had to undo my seat belts, clamber over my passenger seat and stretch my phone over to pay, then the reverse to get away - a tad embarrassing. Fortunately, we somehow only managed to need to do 3 of them, so not too bad. More of a panic was me forgetting where I'd put my passport - a real senior moment until I realised I had a whole bag of stuff on my passenger seat with my passport in that. Bloody he'll, didn't need that...

The sun was burning hot at Calais but I had my coat ready...we slogged down the autoroute until Rouen where the Beast proceeded to deafen everyone in the 2 mile long tunnel. After Rouen, we swapped to some N-roads to avoid going anywhere near Le Mans and had a great run in sweltering sun (my gear knob became almost too hot to touch). 

I cannot understand why people complain about this part of France - come off the autoroute and its beautiful; long, flowing roads, the occasional chateau and water tower to break up the monotony, little cute towns with squares and tabacs and, BEST of all, hardly ANY traffic. The French just don't know how lucky they are to have so much space - my son was amazed and wants to move to France just so he has space to drive. Surrey is going to seem like a go-kart track after this.

A brief stop for lunch:

...and then a cake stop in a town called Uck (or something like that):

Sorry, forgot to get a cake picture; a local yoof in a knackered old Merc 190 skidded to a halt next to us when he saw the Beast and spent the next 10 minutes slathering over it - wasn't in the least interested in Zedster. We got a lot of that...although this will also be a common sight over the next few days:

We finally hit a patch of rain that lasted 15 minutes before the sun broke out again and after an enjoyable thrash via Chatres and Blois, we reached Chateauroux which looked amazing - as we flashed past. Would have been nice to have time to stop but it was getting late and we were knackered, so we took the Autoroute for the last 60 miles to Limoges (where it did finally rain for the last 30 miles or so).

Parked up at the hotel, with a covered space for Zedster - luxury!

Dinner at a nearby restaurant and an early night planned - tomorrow is the Millau Viaduct...

Map of todays route: