The Life in My Years

An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.

“You’re driving in France?” That’s my friend Jenny’s response after I’ve told her that I’ll be renting a car during our trip to France. Her reaction is troubling. Not the question so much as the tone. Her inflection could’ve said, “oh how exciting,” or “what fun.” But it doesn’t. It’s more like, “have you lost your blinking mind?”

Jenny was born in France, has spent a fair portion of her adult life in France, and has driven in France. And so, her alarm is, well, alarming.

In heated tones she tells me about the nightmares of driving in Paris, and then she cools off when I tell her that I’m not driving in Paris, I’m driving in France. That said, her level of agitation goes down from a five alarm conflaguration to a sputtering birthday candle.

Once we get to Paris, and I get a look at Parisian traffic, especially the (barely) controlled chaos at Place Charles de Gaulle (home of the Arc de Triomphe), I understand Jenny’s concern.

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I’ve pre-booked an Audi with Sixt at the Paris airport. I usually rent with Sixt whose slogan is, ‘Don’t rent a car, rent the car.” And If I’m driving in Europe, I want the car. I want to be Sam, Robert DeNiro’s character in the movie, Ronin. Seriously, I don’t plan on driving through vegetable stands, or dodging oncoming traffic while going the wrong way down a highway, and I have absolutely no gun play in mind. All I want is to drive a car that enhances the adventure. Not unlike driving a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray on Route 66.

In Spain, I rented a Mercedes. From the moment I started up the car, I told Cora, “I want one.” She said, “We have money, buy one.” The woman who gives me grief when I buy a 25 Euro souvenir T-shirt was giving me permission to spend at least $65,000 for a Merc. I could’ve asked her to repeat that statement while pressing record on my phone. She has a history of conveniently forgetting such permissions when I dredge them up later. I immediately passed on the notion of a Mercedes.

For a trip the previous year through Austria and Bavaria I had prebooked a BMW. Because on the Autobahn, you don’t want anything that says Honda or Nissan. Sixt didn’t give me either of those. Nor did they give me the BMW, or an Audi, or a Mercedes. They gave me a

Volvo?

Not the car –

a car.

On the Autobahn I pushed the poor dear to 115 miles per hour and eased up when it seemed like she was getting the vapors and shuddering. Meanwhile, an Audi R8 sped by in an electric blue blur.

---

We’re at the rental counter in Paris and I’m ready to pick up my Audi when I get buyer’s remorse, or, more accurately, a jolt of fiscal responsibility, because in six Parisian days we’ve already blown through the budget. I end up choosing a VW Polo. It’s definitely

a car

and not

the car

What would Sam/DeNiro say? It would probably be a one word answer, beginning with “p” and ending in “y.”

It’s that first hour of feeling out the car and getting out of the airport labyrinth that can be nerve wracking. We’ve found the (yawn) Polo and the luggage is sitting on the garage floor while I’m looking for the latch to open the rear door. There’s no latch under the dash. Feeling under the handle on the rear door – nothing. I’m just about to go back to the rental desk and debase myself in ignorance when I accidentally squeeze the fob and hear the pop of the rear door release.

Idiot.

Find all the controls; parking brake, mirror adjustment, wipers, lights, defrost. Pair my phone to the car and time to go. I’ve started the engine and we’re just about ready to pull out when there’s a rap on my window,

Oh fuck, what did I do now? Busted. For . . . What?

A woman is standing next to the car speaking in French.

“Parlez-vous anglais?” I ask.

She shakes her head and we’re at a temporary impasse until she points to her luggage and then at her very pregnant belly.

Got it.

I load her car and we’re on our way.

After about an hour we’ve cleared the outer rings of Paris and I can finally relax.

---

Before driving in France, or any foreign country, I do my homework. Three YouTube videos have taught me two important things to keep in mind.

When it comes to speeding, the French, do – not – fuck – around. There are about ten different versions of speed control in France, from the basic gendarme with a radar gun to mobile and fixed speed cameras. Radar gives drivers a window of five kilometers per hour and then motorists are pushing their luck. And you don’t necessarily get the ticket on the spot. It could come later, likely from the rental company, along with a “convenience fee.” Because nothing says corporate larceny, and customer inconvenience like “convenience fees.” The Polo may just be a car, but it does have a speed alarm which ding-dings when I’ve exceeded the limit by just one KPH.

I also learned that in France there’s a thing called priorité à droite (priority to the right). When in force, a driver approaching an unmarked intersection must yield to drivers approaching from the right. Not such a problem in the countryside where there is a clear view, but problematic in villages where the roads are narrow and the intersections blind.

At nearly every intersection, I’m coming to a nearly complete stop, checking for anything coming from the right. It must confound drivers behind me.

---

The Polo comes with navigation and since I’ve had some bad experiences with Google girl, (like the time she sent me fifty miles in the wrong direction in Arizona) she’s riding the bench and the Polo has been moved to the first team (yes we’ve anthropomorphized the navigation systems).

She’s great getting out of the airport and on the road to Normandy. She’s British (yes we’ve anthropomorphized the navigation systems). And she’s polite, as every instruction is prefaced with, “please.”

Google girl, on the other hand, can be a little churlish. Where the Brit will say, “Please, take the next right,” Google girl might say, “Take the right.”

“Well you don’t have to be so snippy about it,” I’ll say. Sometimes I even use the “b” word on her.

“What do you expect,” chides Cora. “You’re mean to her.”

“Well, sometimes she deserves it. She fucks up too much.” (Yes we’ve anthropomorphized the navigation systems).

Our English guide is doing fine until we’re minutes from our temporary home in Ver-ser-Mer, in Normandy, when she insists that I go the wrong way down a one way street. I bring Google in to pinch hit and she gets us home.

A few days later, the Polo keeps leading us into a dead end at a construction zone and then takes us well out of our way. Time for Google girl who gets us back on course. Our British guide, let’s call her Liz Truss at this point, is benched for the remainder of the trip.

---

“Are you planning on taking that JC handle with you?” I ask Cora.

She has such a death grip on the handle above her window that I fear she’s going to either rip it off or leave finger indentations in it.

“What’s JC?” she asks.

“That’s the handle you’re squeezing to death.”

“Why JC?”

“Because when someone grabs it they’re usually shouting, “Jesus Christ!”

Cora laughs.

But she doesn’t let go of the handle.

It’s not as if I’m driving like Sam. I haven’t hit a single fruit stand, or tried to run a car off the road, or tried to shoot at another car (I don’t even own a gun).

---

“You know it’s a little bit insulting and unnerving when you pray like that while I’m driving,” I tell her.

She ignores me.

There isn’t a single time when we start a drive that she doesn’t make the sign of the cross. The sign of the cross, and the praying are tolerable (sort of), but if she pulls out her rosary we’re going to be having a come to Jesus meeting.

I ask her why she’s so nervous.

“I hate these roundabouts,” she says.

---

“They have 50,000 roundabouts in France,” Cora tells me, as we approach a roundabout. I figure that she’s exaggerating but later when I check Google I find that she’s hit it just about right. Google says, there are between 40,000 and 60,000 roundabouts in France.

She hates them but I rather like them. If there wasn’t a roundabout, there would be a stop sign or a traffic light at each of those 50,000 intersections, and all over France traffic would come to a standstill.

Roundabouts are also handy for tourists like me who often take a wrong turn. If you take the wrong exit out of a roundabout you’re certain to come to another one in a few meters allowing you to make a 180 and return to get back on course.

We have one roundabout in our hometown of Hercules that, having successfully negotiated many of France’s 50,000 roundabouts, I’ve become rather smug about. At home it’s not unusual to be following a driver who comes to a complete stop before entering the roundabout, causing me to slam on my brakes and lay on the horn. “What’s the matter with this guy?” I’ll say to Cora. “Doesn’t he know how to negotiate a roundabout?”

---

Our stay at the Ti Al Lannec Hotel in Trébeurden, Brittany is done. It was the only hotel that we stayed at during our trip. When I planned our various stays I booked an apartment, a house, a resort hotel, another small home, and a bed and breakfast.

When we opened the door to our room at Ti Al Lannec, Cora marveled. So did I, frankly. The view from our room and our balcony was stunning.

“How much did you pay?” she asked. She always asks that. She’s an unrepentant accountant.

“I don’t remember,” is my standard reply. And most of the time it’s true. I book these things months in advance. I’m lucky if I can remember what I had for breakfast in the morning.

Whenever we check out of a place, she asks to see the invoice and I tell her that they’re emailing it to me (which they do), and I’ll show her later (which I never do). I don’t want to get into money conversations.

While we were doing our walk through I stepped into the bathroom. “Hey look,” I called to Cora. When she stepped into the bathroom she was delighted to see –

Dinner was amazing. Throughout our stays in Normandy and Brittany I concentrated on seafood, especially –

Throughout our entire trip I reveled in cheese and bread.

When I ordered cheese for dessert at Ti Al Lannec I expected the server to bring a platter to select from. Instead she brought –

I was a little disappointed when she said I could select five. Only five?

I woke up one night during our stay and had trouble getting back to sleep so I stepped out onto the balcony to an enchanting view.

In the morning we walked to La Trebeurdine, a boulangerie/patisserie. When you walk into one of these shops you are overwhelmed, in a pleasant way, by the smell of freshly baked bread.

You step up to the counter, look at the array of delights and then the hard part begins. My God, what do I order? If I get that one with the raspberries then I’ll miss out on the one with the strawberries. But if I get either one (or both) of those then what about the chocolate pastry?

Yeah, this ain’t Dunkin’ baby. And the downside about having a croissant in France is that the ones back home at Peet’s suddenly have all the appeal of newsprint.

Cora agonizes over her choice but I know just what I want. Kouign-amann is the signature pastry of Brittany, one that was introduced to me by Cora’s cousin Ayen, when we got together in Normandy.

Our stay in Trébeurden is done and we’re headed for Gouesnach, farther south in Brittany. But there’s a problem. A dump truck in the middle of the entrance road to our hotel. A man is busy with a backhoe dumping dirt into the truck which is nowhere near filled.

I figure he sees our car but he’s pretending not to notice. In any event, it doesn’t look like he intends to move his truck.

Cora and I are trying to decide what to do when I see the manager of the hotel, out for her morning walk. And she’s not a happy manager when she sees the entrance to her property blocked. A heated conversation ensues. He’s apparently not going to move his truck and she’s not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

Finally he gives in and moves his truck just enough for us to squeeze past. I thank the manager and dump truck man and we’re on the road.

---

“We’re driving through the fucking French countryside,” I scream.

“My lord, you and your “f” and “f” says Cora. “Of course, what else would it be. We’re in France.”

“Yeah, this ain’t Kansas.”

I’ve driven in Kansas – and a host of other states. Anyone who’s read this space knows that I love a good road trip. I’ve done the nostalgia of Route 66 and the loneliness of Highway 395. I’ve driven parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and seen the blue Pacific from California’s Highway One. I’ve crisscrossed the cornfields of the Midwest, been to the quirky Top of the World store on the Beartooth Highway, and gotten lost in the hollers of West Virginia. Talked to locals at diners and roadhouses in Wisconsin, visited funky landmarks, and toured offbeat museums (the Spam Museum in Minnesota, and the Milan High School Basketball Museum in Milan, Indiana). Touring America’s roads is an adventure. Doing it aimlessly is a blast. It’s something every American should do given the chance (at this writing, good luck with that, now that the current moron president’s misadventure has sparked stratospheric gas prices).

I love driving in Europe. The roads are as smooth and flat as a pool table. In California you wouldn’t be far off if you mistook any given road for a World War I battleground – or the surface of the moon.

But beyond the nice roads it’s just the whole experience. Everything is new and different. I love stopping for gas or a break at the travel centers. Many of the offerings are like what you would see at a travel center in Texas. But the fun is in what is different. You can get a donut in the States. You can get a better than decent pastry at a travel center in France. I even like the language difference.

My only gripe is the size of the coffee. At a patisserie I’m fine with a small coffee. But when I need 16 ounces to keep me awake on the road, a small coffee from a travel center on the A14 doesn’t really cut it. Unfortunately if I want a large coffee I have to opt for, ugh, Starbucks.

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Driving in France isn’t just and adventure, it’s piquant. It really sinks in when we get to Normandy. We’re staying in a house in the coastal commune of Ver-sur-Mer. Every excursion from our temporary home takes us through a series of old villages. It’s hard to keep my eyes from wandering from the streets which are often pinched down to one lane and the intersections, blind.

Wherever we go during our two week drive we’re able to spot distant villages from the open road, as each little ville is marked by the spire of an ancient church (more often than not, it seems, they bear the name Notre Dame).

“Should we check it out?” I ask.

“Why not?”

Most villages require only a short stroll. If the church is open we go in and marvel at the old edifice. Maybe we’ll stop at a patisserie for coffee and a pastry before continuing our drive.

The names of the places are melodies: Douarnenez, Quimper, Ploumanac’h, Trebueden, Crissay-sur-Manse, and Cap Frehel.

Or they exude oppulence: Château de Chenonceau, Château de Chambord, and Azay-le-Rideau.

Or recall history: Omaha Beach, Carentan, Sainte-Mère-Église, Ouistreham, Fort la Latte, and the ruins at Carnac.

France is an absolute delight. We’ve barely touched this marvelous country, and as we pass vineyards, villages and the rugged coast of Brittany I have to wonder,

what took us so long?

Banner photo: Ploumanach Lighthouse on the Pink Granite Coast of Brittany

Next series installment, On the French Road Part II; A Photo Journey