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Taking the Zed on a French road adventure...


atchi123

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Thats quite a drive in the time you have :scare:

 

Well, its quite a car too B):p

 

That's quite right ir_fuel B)

 

Besides, I've been in training! ;) I just knew that the weekly 500 mile round trip to the plant in Sunderland, which I've been doing for the last 6 months would finally come in handy for something! :wacko::p

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If you pass Abbeville on Monday or Croix-en-Ternois on Tuesday pop in to see some good driving french style.

 

PS its a long trip on Thurs-Friday so you may want to check the timing. It is likely you can do it but will not see much on the way.

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Pablo's mum owns a hotel in Chamonix and a restaurant in La Thuile in Italy, so we are there all the time!

 

Do be careful with regards to being timed on the toll booths, we have seen it many times.

 

Be warned if they catch you on the motorway you will be escorted off the road to the next village to withdraw cash! They will not let you go even if you plead that you have no money they will take you to a cash point.

 

Speed cameras are front facing - warn you a little before and blind you when you flash!

 

if you leave the country without paying a speeding fine, they will not allow you back in before you have paid! so there is no getting away with it!

 

Make sure you have your driving license, we once parked and got a parking fine from a police officer, we didn't have our driving license on us so they fined us!

 

Be extra cautious doing the mont blanc tunnel run, watch your speed! there are an awful a lot of mudslides there too, we came home last week and the tunnel had been closed for ages!

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they will not allow you back in before you have paid! so there is no getting away with it!

 

Who wants to get BACK into France???? :blush:

 

Well if your in Spain it's very difficult to avoid , if you want to get back to Blighty :teeth:

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they will not allow you back in before you have paid! so there is no getting away with it!

 

Who wants to get BACK into France???? :blush:

 

Well if your in Spain it's very difficult to avoid , if you want to get back to Blighty :teeth:

 

Ferry from Bilbao?

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they will not allow you back in before you have paid! so there is no getting away with it!

 

Who wants to get BACK into France???? :blush:

 

Well if your in Spain it's very difficult to avoid , if you want to get back to Blighty :teeth:

 

Ferry from Bilbao?

 

defeats the idea of a road trip though... :teeth: done that ferry crossing quite a few times , it's a bitch if the weather is bad in the Bay of Biscay :headhurt:

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they will not allow you back in before you have paid! so there is no getting away with it!

 

Who wants to get BACK into France???? :blush:

 

Well if your in Spain it's very difficult to avoid , if you want to get back to Blighty :teeth:

 

Ferry from Bilbao?

 

defeats the idea of a road trip though... :teeth: done that ferry crossing quite a few times , it's a bitch if the weather is bad in the Bay of Biscay :headhurt:

 

Drive one way, get pi**ed on the ferry the other? ;)

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Who wants to buy a custard car.....? :yahoo:

 

they will not allow you back in before you have paid! so there is no getting away with it!

 

Who wants to get BACK into France???? :blush:

 

Haven't you got a satelitte dish to poke? :p

 

 

:lol:

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Well I got back from my trip around France late on Tuesday evening and boy, what a trip it was! :yahoo:

 

In the 6 days we were away, we covered nearly 2,100 miles in 43 hours (there's a photo of the trip computer at the end to mark the mass achievement!).

 

Although it was very intense, particuarly as we didn't drive at all for nearly 2 days of the 6, I would do it again and again without hesitation. It was an absolutely amazing trip and I can't stress enough that you should all do it some day if you get the chance.

 

We started off on Thursday where we left home in Northampton and drove down to meet our ferry in Dover. We arrived in Calais around late afternoon and then headed down to a hotel that we had booked just south of Orleans.

 

On Friday the driving really started, the long old slog down towards the Millau viaduct was broken up when we stopped off in Volvic as per Tim's recommendation (and I managed to get that picture you wanted! :p ). Some really nice scenery then followed as we drove through the Auvergne volcanic region towads the viaduct, which was in itself "immense"! Once we had crossed it, we then headed towards the Cote D'Azur and eventually nestled in Cannes, where we spotted a few fruity motors, noticeably a Hummer H1 and a couple of rather bright Murcielagos B)

 

On Saturday we drove along the coastal road firstly into Nice, where once again there were some fantastic views of the coast once the road started to wind up into the hills, and then through Monaco towards Menton and into Italy. We returned to spend the afternoon in Monte Carlo, which had to be one of the highlights of the trip! We parked the car up to begin with, and greeting us from our emergence of the underground car park was a sight for sore eyes! I had never seen anything like the cars parked in front of the Monte Carlo casino....Ferrari 599, Ferrari 430, Ferrari 360, Lamborghini Murcielago, Lamborghini Gallado, Bentley Continental GT, Bentley Continental Flying Spur, Aston Martin Vanquish S, Aston Martin DB9, Porsche Cayenne Turbo, Porsche 997 Turbo and a couple of rather plain Mercs......an SLR and a CLK DTM :scare:

 

We walked a lap of the GP circuit and then the tempation was too much, so we went back to pick up the car to do a proper lap! However, this was not before we had had a quick flutter in the casino and won 100 euros! :yahoo:

 

Unfortunately I didn't break any records on the lap due to the heavy presence of the local Gendarme, however it was a dream come true to take the zed through the famous tunnel!

 

Sunday was the main driving day! Grasse to Grenoble on the N85 "Route Napoleon". No wonder this road has the reputation it has, it was 200 miles of pure driving pleasure, especially the 30km stretch south of Digne-les-Bains, which I could drive over and over again! :teeth: The zed was so perfect for this type of road, all that torque made mince meat of the steep climbs following the tight hairpins up the mountain sides, and my new DS2500 pads might have saved my life a few times too when coming down the other side! :teeth:

 

Unfortunately there is not too much to speak of the last two days, other than a trip to Disneyland (which was actually pretty awesome :blush:)and the upsetting drive back home!

 

I've uploaded a couple of vids and some pics for you all to see by clicking on the links below.

 

http://s170.photobucket.com/albums/u264/letank87/

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