France 2010 - St Etienne, Tour de France, Central Massif

...Had a restless sleep in Chatillon-sur-Siene due to the thundering great lorries, driving through the town centre every half hour.  Also at some point during the night, the fountain was turned off, so silence fell and made the lorry rumbling even worse.

It was still lovely to wake up and look out across the town square and see the various shops opening and people going about their morning business.  We left the hotel and bought some pastries in a lovely patisserie opposite the hotel, sat and ate them by the fountain. We then got going on our journey south...

Again, like the previous day, we jumped onto the auto route and put some miles down through Dijon and Lyon  We decided to then head towards St Etienne.  I think this town in particular caught our attention because we have an album by St Etienne sat on the shelf at home which is really good.  I suggest you give it a listen.  Anyway when we actually passed through St Etienne we were rather disappointed and realised the town with such a pretty name was actually not the prettiest to look at.  We passed through quite quickly and onto our next detour from the auto route.

In the afternoon Pug decided that we would make our way to Mende for our next stop.  Unfortunately we were to later realise this was a big mistake and we should have perhaps done a little more planning and notice of the news before leaving.

We were happily driving through the beautiful country side and villages of the Central Massiff when we were stopped by police blocking the road ahead.  At first we thought it must be an accident but when we got to speak to the policeman he informed us that they had closed the road ahead for at least 2 hours because of the tour de France.

All we could do was pull the car over and wait.  After that it just got worse because once the road opened all we could to was follow the whole entourage of cars and campers slowly down into Mende where of course there was no where to stay as all the cyclists along with their F&F were staying there overnight.  In all it took about 4-5 hours to eventually get through the town.  Once out the other side of Mende the time was getting late, about 9pm by now, and I was getting thoroughly tired and ratty.  It looked like this time we would be sleeping in the car.

I was in the back of the car watching DVD’s trying to pass all this time and Pug was casually driving away when he turned a bend and suddenly there was an incredible drop at the side of the road.  He didn’t immediately mention this, but Dyl of course couldn’t keep quite and had to pipe up with “Mummy you had better not look out the window.”  Of course I had to look and the drop outside the window of the car took my breath away.  I quickly looked away with my heart in my mouth.  I tried not to look out the window or pay any attention to what was outside.  Eventually we got to the bottom of the gorge and found ourselves in a little village.  As before Pug gallantly got out and went to try and find some accommodation for the night.  The first couple of hotels were full but he did manage to find us a small room in a hotel down a little back street. 

I was so relieved that we had somewhere to stay.  It had been a long day.  We were very tired.  Had some food. (Yes it was Italian again. Easy for the kids) then went to bed.