Nothing to report

Yesterday we went through the chunnel. It was a brief, unexciting journey. Calais is something of a dump. A grey, shabby dump. The road between Calais and Dijon is just miles and miles of barren, empty undulating green fields. About a quarter of the cars on the road were British, much to our horror! The toll roads are empty and have eerie pristine verges. The green fields are punctuated by the occasional rustic farmhouse or windmill. Small, pretty villages are the only sign of people. I have not been in a country that is so vast and so clean. I felt transported twenty years into the future.

More of the same today, because the toll roads take the most unexciting, direct route through the country. We saw a gorge in the distance. We’re following the river valley all the way down to Marseille. Lyon was briefly interesting: huge, hulking industrialism all around us, a maze of tunnels and bridges through the city centre. We’ve spotted the first grape vines; bare and gnarled in the brown fields. The signs say Cotes du Rhone, Chateauneuf du Pape, Provence… each gets a little cheer from J. in the front seat, our wine connoisseur.

The motorway eateries are so different here. You can get a fresh green salad, fruit, Parma ham and a selection of cheeses. I wonder if the British ate like this before they were overcome by the tide of American superhighway monoculture?