Driving Miss Sarah....

Drove back from Nimes. Got a bit of a late start since we just had to sit at the cafe next to the Roman Arena for a coffee and to people watch. Then after consulting the map we decided to take a different route home but unable to find the appropriate street out of town. Sarah navigating switching back and forth between Rick Steve's map in his book and a southern France Michelin map. It amazes me how one minute we are in the northeast part of the city and then magically, after identification of only one street, we are in the south west part! Basically follow signs that say, "Toute directions" (all directions) and hope they mean the specific direction we want. Circled the town lost for quite a while till we made it back to the gare (train station) and picked up the scent from there. There's usually pretty good signage for outlying towns but the highway numbers are not so obvious. Of course there may be several ways to get to the next town by following toute directions! We choose not to get on the A8 autoroute. Save money, it can cost 20 euros or more to travel any distance on these things, and we would see a bit of the country side and small towns. All goes well until dark. Then due to a) the headlights of the rental car are very misaligned or b) the operator of this automobile doesn't know how to turn fog lights off and headlights on ( My money is on "b" ) I have an illuminated field of view of about 15 feet in front of us! Brights help but of course since it's dark I can't just wave and grin and play the stupid tourist card as I blind everyone coming my way. I have to slow down to a crawl not to override my lights which of course does not please the guy on my butt. And poor Sarah  wants to schedule me for caterac surgery because she doesn't realize it's the car, not me! Not your most experienced with a map she is having some difficulty matching the strange sounding names of towns with the little print of the map in a dark car and I can't help because I'm too busy trying to stay within the solid white line on the left (and the on coming truck) and the broken line on the right (and the abyss). Every so often I would yell "signs" warning her to read the list of town names, identify them on the map, make a decision if that is indeed the way we want to go and tell me where to turn. All in a time frame of 30 seconds! And that is why the French invented the roundabout. Very few intersections with traffic lights here. Rare need to stop, wait for traffic to make a left turn. As you approach the roundabout you see a sign with what appears to be a large letter "C" with spokes coming out to correspond to designated routes. With a quick yield you enter this thing, merge to the outside lane before your exit and continue on your way. Or not! If you miss your exit or are not sure of the exit you simply keep on going...around....and around. Sarah and I wonder it there is a limit as to the number of times you can circle. If you exit and you discover it isn't the right exit, there is likely another roundabout nearby allowing you to basically u-turn and head back to try again. There are enough of these things that traffic lights are rare and in some towns it takes the diligance of two to pick them out. By the time we get back to the cottage Sarah is having stress related back spasm and I can hardly turn my neck. My hands finally get circulation back from the white knuckle driving.

The cars here are small. They have to be. We have a whole new perspective on the concept of "close". These mountain roads are basically one lane. Meeting someone coming in the opposite direction is much like the game of "chicken". One vehicle or both must hug the outside edge of the road without dropping off into a ditch or worse. I usually stop but these French drives have a better perception of space and usually zip on by. Occasionally one of us actually has to back to a wide spot but we try to look ahead and time our passing at an acceptable place. It is not unusual to stop for a large truck to make a hairpin turn taking up the entire width of the road. Driving thru the many small villages are not any better. The ancient buildings are built right up to the streets edge (you would think they would have anticipated a time when there might be something bigger and faster than a cart) and if there is room for a sidewalk it is likely filled with parked cars while pedestrains have to walk in the street. Even in the big cities the scale is small-just more faster traffic with a certain disregard for lane markers, turn signals, or speed limits. They do however stop for pedistrains in crosswalks. 

Then there are motorcycles....fast and fearless they not only may pass on a blind curve but may do so when there is obviously a car coming in the other direction! Squeezing between cars stopped at lights or while held up in traffic in the city is one thing but squeezing between cars going in opposite directions at 70k/h is impressive. A common gesture, once they pass, is to kick out their right leg-either a motorcyclist's "thank you" or in lew of using turn signals it's "hey, let me in". 

Actually looking forward to huge cars, traffic cops and road rage.