Lost In France ....Part 1

Hi
On Sunday just past we headed off to France on our yearly visit, we didn't come last last for reasons regular readers will know so its been a while.

We like to visit different parts and so this time its the Dordogne - Sarlat to be precise.

We travelled by DFDS ferry which was offering the best deal at the time of booking. what we hadn't considered was the champions league final the night before.....the ferry was full of returning German football fans. Half dressed in bright yellow and the other half in red. All equally loud and noisy, singing , chanting and at one point doing the conga round the boat luckily it all seemed to be in good humour, which was just as well as I was slight hung over from a wedding the previous night and only getting through with Starbucks and paracetamol....  but back to DFDS - we've never used them before and it was perfectly fine although if I'm honest I prefer P&O if only for the on board shopping ! suffice to say I managed to get Calais without buying anything ....which was a shame, because what we really needed was a Sat Nav with France on !!!
We have said technology, but unfortunately Mr a year in the life had not bought that one with him in error and had the UK & Ireland one with him.

But luck was on our side and we did happen to have in the car the trusty AA big road atlas of France that has got us out of many a sticky situation, in fact this was the updated 2011 version bought on our last trip for reasons I can't recall.....


I am an excellent map reader and as long as I have map in hand we very very rarely get misplaced.
This time was no exception and I managed to navigate us to Paris - which given the amount of times we've done it isn't hard at all to be fair, and there the fun started. Paris is a nightmare to navigate, they have a 'peripherique' which is similar to the M25 but not as easy to actually get on , and in France if you miss your turn that's it, you're done for!
I have a pretty good memory and visually if i've seen something before I usually remember it so with that in mind, the map and pure instincts we tried to circumnavigate Paris on what we hoped was a quiet Sunday afternoon....

Half an hour later, a glorious view of the Tower they call Eiffel (camera was in the boot !!! arrghh ) and a few turn right instructions given whilst praying I was correct, we passed through Paris and out onto the other side.

2 hours later we were at our half way stop over at the Auburge á la Tete de Lard in La Ferté-Imbault which was a lovely traditional hotel in a very small village but more than suited our needs for a stop over in a comfy bed with a bottle of beer out of the mini bar.

Luckily the onward journey was pretty much a straight road and at 10am we set off from our comfy stopover and arrived after much beautiful French scenery at our destination La Palombiere campsite at St Nathaléne just outside Sarlat.

I'll post part 2 tomorrow - must dash there's a pain du chocolate with my name on it .....

K
x