If this was a movie it would’ve started with a camera following the back of my car, zoomed on the exhaust and then panning out to the vast landscape of Southern France. But it isn’t, so in this post I will do my best to depict the adrenaline filled journey to Cannes. My first day on the road concluded in the picturesque city of Lyon, where I had just about enough energy left to take a little touristy walk around its Old Town neighbourhood. I had covered circa of 600 miles that day, so a typical French Bistro, was what I chose to indulge in a questionable local sausage. Not sure I’ll re-visit, but worth the experience. The glass of red was good though, as expected.
I woke up fresh, ready to hit the road. As I walked out of the apartment where I stayed, guess what, right opposite my car a Boulangerie! My eyes lit up and I headed straight in to buy my first obligatory croissant of the trip. On the way out of Lyon, the Megane felt a bit rough, wasn’t idling properly. Not sure what was happening, but as soon as I opened its taps on the motorway, we were back in business. Good old French temper.
What followed next was possibly my most memorable experience of the trip. As soon as I came off the Autoroute towards the planned diversion, I knew it was the reason I decided to go on this trip. Richard Hammond once said there is a few ingredients to a perfect drive. It’s the combination of scenery, road surface, turns/twists, obviously the car you’re driving. It’s a complicated matter but you know when you’ve managed to mix those elements! And I did. I would never be able to express what I felt but it was heaven. You are so stunned by the views, that it’s debatable whether you should drive fast or slow down to admire the mesmerising views.
Lavender valleys. Yes, endless landscape of lavender, perfectly aligned. I had to stop and just pinch myself at what my eyes were seeing. It’s not just the eyes, it’s all the senses we have. And it kept getting better with each mile covered. The cherry on top was route D2. This is where the Megane, showed what is was made for. You forget about rattling plastics, oh forgot to mention the non-working air-con in 30 degrees heat, all this didn’t matter when you drop a couple of cogs and enjoy the moment. You feel like you are on a rally stage, traffic was pretty much non-existent, something everyone in Britain craves for. I’m getting the goosebumps as I’m typing. One thought that comes to mind is, usually very popular driving roads turn out to be utterly disappointing. An example is Stelvio Pass in Italy, it is a bucket-list driving road and in fact I had it on the agenda for this year. However, I keep reading or hearing negative experiences from fellow enthusiasts, who found it overly busy and too narrow to fully enjoy. I can assure you, D2 or Route de Gentelly – its official name, is nothing but driving heaven. What’s more, it leads you (kind of) to one of the prettiest places, at least in Europe – Cannes. The Crown Jewel of French Riviera. Controversial for its ostentatious visitors, flashy cars and expensive hotels/restaurants. It is a place, I couldn’t imagine visiting but I managed to extract the positive energy and I can tick it off the list of places to visit once in a lifetime. Yes, don’t think I would go back, as I like to explore new destinations but it didn’t fail to deliver that sense of occasion we all live for.
Join me for my next post when I’ll be sharing my feelings for northern Italy, where they like to sweet-talk you at the petrol station, distracting you from the ridiculous fuel prices and taking cash at the pump. Yes, nothing suspicious, right!?
Chao.
PetrolAddiction 