When our stay in Bruges was up we walked down to the station to have our last coffee and croissant. It wasn't quite the morning routine I had in mind for a longer stop-over, as I envisioned finding some sweet cafe to call our local during our stay, but we were closest to the railway station, and we'd found eating in Bruges more expensive than hoped. And we were pretty determined to keep in line with the tight budget we had planned. So for €2.80 each we had quite a good coffee and a freshly baked pastry, even if it was served in a paper cup.
The day was taken up with the train journey to Brussels, the bus to the airport, the Ryan Air flight to Marseilles and then the car collection and drive to Avignon. It was all going pretty smoothly, though it usually takes me a day or so to readjust to driving again, and I felt more conscious than previously when changing gears with my right hand. But just as I was starting to relax into it as we drove into Avignon, the gps required a sharp left turn, yes we could see a suitable lane, round I shot, and just as I was looking to merge into the road we turned onto, I realised there was a line of cars coming fast towards me. I managed to stop in time, took a moment to see the "lane" I should have merged with, requiring a careful dash through the oncoming traffic to get onto the right hand side lane. Only moments after this the gps announced we had arrived at our destination, but seeing no hotel in sight I pulled over on the next available side street and we trekked back on foot to see where we were meant to go.
Despite our eagerness to have another try at true French food, our hopes were dashed again as we walked around our neighbourhood only to find all the restaurants shut (at 7:45 on a Wednesday). So it was a dodgy burger at the closest Turkish takeaway bar, though after we had put our order in I wondered if we had made yet another mistake by not ordering the house special- a toasted panini stuffed with salad and then topped with fries, with lashings of Mayo. They made quite a few in the time we waited ? We hoped we would do better the next few nights and not be forced back to try it out.
Awhi & Heather
ReplyDeleteRuiha and I have recently been to Raiatea and despite trepidation I did a lot of this right hand side driving while there. I was getting quite confident until one day when the turn off from a roundabout was closed for maintenance. It soon put me back in my place.