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:
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