The Kindness of (French) Strangers

Well, we made it out of Paris and into the Alps and Provence - but not without a long journey and a few bumps in the road.

Dave picked up the rental car (our new friend, a nice, little, silver Ford hatchback). We loaded up the car and headed out to Anne's family's house. Dave has an amazing sense of direction. Once we navigated out of Paris, he remembered the way to Anne's and we got there in less than 30 mins with no problem at all.

Anne was there to greet us - and feed us breakfast - while Dave put our bikes together for the trip. After a few "incidents" with the expresso machine, we were well-fueled and ready to start the long drive to the Hautes Alpes - Provence.

Getting out of the Paris suburbs was easy, and we headed south through the Dijon region. We drove through several hours of rolling countryside and farmland. The Dijon/Burgandy region is well-known for its wine. (Wine lovers may be familiar with Chablis?). There are also a number of small towns and chateaus, but we were on the main highway and wisked past the sights. I used the time to catch up on some sleep.

About four hours into the drive, we arrived in Lyons. We had thought about having lunch in the old town section, but when we saw the traffic heading into the city, we quickly changed our minds and kept heading south toward Grenoble.

Within the hour, the landscape dramaticaly changed. We suddenly went from rolling hills, farmland and forests - turned the corner - and there were the foothills to the Alps towering in front of us. Grenoble is situated in a large canyon between some very high peaks. (The Olympics were hosted there in 1968).



There was more traffic into Grenoble, but this time we braved it because Dave had been driving five hours straight and we were both tired and hungry. Grenoble was bigger than we expected (though nowhere near as big as Lyons). We got through the very urban outskirts of the city, where a university is located, and got to the center of the old town. We found a parking garage and went looking for food.

This is when we learned a very important fact about France. There are a few hours between lunch and dinner when most cafes do not serve food. It was 6:30 and right in the middle of those hours. There were tons of people sitting at tables at tons of sidewalks cafes - but they were all having drinks and enjoying the beautiful day. Food wouldn't be served until 7:30. We were getting nervous about the hours still ahead of us on the road, so we found a small pastry shop that had some pizzas left over from the lunch hour and had them warm them up for us. We quickly downed the food and got back on the road.

Our "bump in the road" occured about 30 kilometers later as the highway turned into a two-lane road. We saw a sign that said, last gas on autoroute. Which suddenly made Dave think...we should fill up before we get too much further. So we turned around and headed to the station. Well, it was closed but pumps were open....open for people who had European electronic chips in their credit cards. Oops. Suddenly it dawned on Dave that all of the small-town gas stations ahead would have the same situation. And we did not want to head into the mountains with the knowledge that there was no gas available until the next day when the small stations would reopen. So...we turned around and headed the 30 kilometers back to Grenoble. Sigh. And it's when we got there, that we started to panic. By then it was 8pm, and not only was every gas station in town closed, but every station only took the special cards. We stopped at one station and there was a man inside, but he motioned through the window to Dave, "no we are closed."

The look of panic on our faces must have been obvious, because this is the moment that a stranger stepped in and saved our night. At the next stoplight, when Dave and I were "discussing" our next move, a young guy pulled up beside us and honked. He didn't speak English, we don't speak French, but he yelled "station?" and we said "oui" and he motioned us to follow him, and we did. He took us through Grenoble and very kindly dropped us off at a 24-hour gas station that probably would have taken us forever to find. Relief.

And then the 30 kilometer drive BACK toward the hotel, and the realization that we wouldn't arrive now until near 11 p.m.

Thankfully, it does stay light until 10:30, so we did have incredible views of the Alps for most of the way there. And even after it got dark, the roads were all very well-marked so we found our way to the hotel (Vieil Aiglun) with no problem at all.

After 10 hours of driving and a few hiccups, we pulled up the side of a small mountain, in the dark, about 21 switchbacks into nowhere - and arrived at our little slice of paradise. We turned off the car and all we saw were stars in the night's sky and an ancient church illuminated on the hill. Everything was silent, except for our feet crunching on the gravel and the crickets in the fields. Our little stone house looked incredible, even at night. The owners had left directions for us to our room and we found our way through the courtyard and up narrow stone steps. Our room was perfect. We sat out on our little balcony, looking out into the darkness - and finally felt the stress of Paris and city life melting away.

Within 30 minutes we were asleep - thankful for the kindness of strangers and slipping into dreams of meeting up with the Tour de France the following day.



(Sorry, we are a day behind in our blogs. After that journey, there was no way we were posting last night. Today, Bastille Day, we had a great adventure. Dave will be blogging about it tomorrow.)