20 April

After quite a miserable night of a runny nose and sneezing, and therefore getting little sleep, I nevertheless was up and prepared for breakfast at 8. Again, because of the language gap, there were long pauses between intense bouts of conversation.
I finished at 8:30 and did all my packing, then finished my preparations, and after two trips to the car, left. The weather was overcast and it had rained but I hoped it would hold off today. That hope lasted about ten minutes, which was when the first sprinkles of rain came. They continued throughout the day.
I set course to Orleans, but as I didn’t want to travel the motorways, it was going to take me five hours. That was okay, but of course just after I set off I realised that being Sunday, no information centres would be open (unlike Australia, where all would be, yet we get told we are behind everyone else). I considered options and thought that a chain place may be best, to experience it and also because I could get in without a problem.
The drive was through interesting country. The soil went from a deep brown rich loam through to a heavy black soil and then back to light brown (but no chalk). The most common feature was the thickness and lushness of the grass.
One place I went by on the way was Le Mans. Okay, I thought, I’ll have a look there on the way through. Memo to self: check to see what local events are on in towns I pass through. There were literally hundreds of thousands at Le Mans and most were on motorbikes, and they all left at the same time as I came through. Those who left later all overtook me, usually either over double lines, between me and a passing car. One who I thought would have to sit behind me for two hundred metres because of a median strip in a town just went through on the wrong side. Remarkably, all slowed down for the radar cameras, which are liberally sprinkled along the roads.
Finally, after stopping in a town for a comfort break (memo to self: remember that unisex toilets in small town are squat, and best used only if desperate), I arrived on the outskirts of Orleans. Most of my travel in was through Ormes, which must have given rise to the chicken and road crossing jokes, as it had a pedestrian crossing every one hundred metres through the entire two or so kilometres of the town.
Now in Orleans, I found the Tourist Information Centre (yes, closed), but had seen a Formula1 motel on the way in, so decided to give that a go. Seemed reasonable, at €30 a night for the room (would have seemed better if I had more than one in the room, but …) and only €3,90 for breakfast. WiFi internet access too, so it seemed good by now. The only thing is – no en suite. The toilets and showers are down the hall. Okay, can’t have everything, and breakfast is from 5:30, so I can get an early start (only thing is I’m in a city and nothing opens before either 9 or 10). I can pay for the Internet by card when I connect, so that should be all right (warning bells should have started once I saw which hotel chain owned the Formula1 – the last time I stayed in one of their hotels, Internet access cost US$10 for a few hours and I refused to pay it).
Off I went to McDonald’s as there had been no patisserie open along the way that I had passed. Good, no crowds this time. Straight in, but I got the only serving girl in France who can’t either understand or speak French OR English. But I got food before I starved to death.
Sitting and eating, and uploading photos and my blog, and answering two emails, I had a family with a small boy and small girl in the next table area. The boy slid up and down the seat opposite me, looking at the computer. After a while the parents apologised for him, told him off and he went and played in the playground. So then the little girl spilled her drink over the table, then leaned forward into it to make sure she got saturated too. The parents tried to mop everything up (I got more serviettes for them) and then went to leave, but the little girl stood there, hands on hips and wasn’t moving until she got her drink. Finally the parents just left her and walked out, and, deprived of an audience, she went too.
Off I went back into Orleans. I found a place to park (paymant not needed on Sundays) and walked to the cathedral, famous of course because of Joan of Arc. If I thought the roadbuilding in the US was being done to thwart me, here it is cathedral restoration. Every cathedral is being restored and is draped partially in plastic, scaffolding and sheeting. If the middle ages were the golden years for cathedral construction, the early 2000s are the golden age for restoration. Then of course it started to rain. Normally I wouldn’t worry but with this cold, I won’t shake it if I keep getting wet (it’s not that getting cold and wet gives you a cold, it just lowers your resistance to the bugs already in and around you, so you then show all the symptoms). I soldiered on and got photos of the outside of the cathedral and the town area (some of which I hope you see as amusing as I did – people limited to ten kilometres per hour) and also the traffic lights and their repeaters.
Road space is a premium in most towns and so traffic has to occupy as much of a road as possible. So you stop at the traffic lights, not before them. Problem: you can’t see the lights – solution: put little repeaters on the pole, at the height of the driver’s eyes. Bot not everyone realises; it took me a day to grasp this, but today I had to toot some drivers who didn’t react to them either.
Back at the Formula1 (I can’t call it a motel, as it certainly isn’t), I went to connect to the Internet. €4,50 the girl had said. What she omitted to add was that only covered one hour! Macca’s does it free, here €4,50 an hour, at home I pay A$59.95 a month for cable speed and 20 GB download in peak and 40 GB download in off-peak. I can certainly see why France does not have a high Internet usage, but I cannot understand the price. Then again, E85 is only €0.85 a litre, nearly half the cost of petrol – yet only 15% ethanol! By that pricing, E50 should be free!
However the bed seems comfortable enough (I’ll find out in a few minutes) and the room is warm enough. I have a great view of the parking area (but pull-down shutters), a TV (but no programs I really want to watch) and on-call entertainment (I can hear everything from adjoining rooms and along the entire hallway, including the lobby). I do not think I will be hosted by Formula1 again unless I’m desperate.
Three principles compromised today – Macca’s, chain establishment accommodation and paying excessively for the Internet. How low can I go?