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...
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