The Lost Art of Trundling

We decided that our 10-day trip to England would be less of a rush if we did a 'trundle' instead of the usual dash to the Channel ferries - a total of more than 700 kilometres from here.  It's what we used to do, before we settled here permanently. I was blessed with long holidays as a college lecturer(!), so we were able to roll slowly across France each summer, no fixed itinerary, discovering the delights of out-of-the-way places by taking the 'yellow', 'D' roads (à la Michelin) or even sometimes the white ones. It's how we fell in love with France.

Since our full-time residence here we abandoned this idea in favour of a dash along the ever-burgeoning motorway system, marvelling at how more and more quickly we could cover the distance.  Hotel fees reduced to a minimum, door-to-door from here to my dad's place in Dorset on the same day.

This time we thought, why not have an 'old-time' holiday on the way, taking 2 days instead of one? Trundle speeds should save us some fuel too, contributing towards the cost of an extra night's lodging somewhere. Setting of in a vaguely northerly direction, we would keep the speed down to 80km/hr or less and enjoy the ride, with the expectation of coming across a small country hotel in a sleepy town sometime in the late afternoon.

All went according to plan; under a bright, blue sky we drove leisurely across the Millevaches plateau, an upland area with considerably more than one thousand cows on it ('vache' means 'cow' in French, but here it is probably an old word for 'source' or 'spring'). After a café lunch at the Lac de Vassivière we pressed on, gradually leaving behind the granite uplands of the Millevaches as they gave way to the softer contours of Creuse, parts 

of which showing similarities with south-western UK.

The rest of the day's journey was now dictating itself - a drive to the Creuse river, then follow it through to Argenton-sur-Creuse where we took on board two enormous cappuccinos at a sunny café location in the middle of town. Then again onwards up to the small town of Descartes where we found a hotel for the night. 

The town was named after its famous 'father of modern philosophy', René Descartes. It used to be called 'La Haye en Touraine'. Imagine calling the village of Stradbroke in Suffolk after its famous son, Robert Grosseteste (12th century philosopher and Bishop of Lincoln).

Whilst sipping a refreshing beverage at a pavement café in the town we were reminded yet again of the 'Rentrée' (see my blog of September 3rd). The sign shown here was in the window of the pharmacy on the other side of the road. The enterprising proprietor has shipped in extra supplies of anti-nit spray and kits to 'finish-off the little critters' and wishes his customers a 'Bonne rentrée' - presumably guaranteed after making this purchase.

Dinner was up to expectations: I had a warm goats'-cheese salad with figs as an entrée followed by turbot in a mustard-seed sauce then baked banana in cream and rum as dessert. Nyam! nyam!, as the French say.

We were about half way but the next day, despite the easier, flatter countryside of Touraine and Normandy, it still took another day to reach Cherbourg port under our 'trundle rules', rolling into the port around 6pm with an hour to spare in order to catch the ferry.

There is a coda here: We saved some fuel -  around 10% in fact. However, the following days' reflection brought home to us that we had spent two whole days in the car instead of one, with a subsequent heavier toll in terms of general fatigue. In fact, for the first day in the UK we were knackered. The 10% fuel saving was not much really and to cut this long story short, we decided to go back to the quick-dash regime next time.

Trundling can be considered part of the holiday of course, but is not necessarily for everyone. The French may be catching-on. I noticed a piece in, I think it was 'Le Figaro', last week. It has been shown here that the consumption of carburants by the nation's motorists has fallen significantly over this summer - the French are driving more slowly, to save fuel! Encroyable!!

Mapmaker