Post-Europe Trip Reflection #2: The Road Trip Begins

8 July

Cab it back to Charles de Gaulle to pick up our rental car. During our trip planning months ago, we quickly learned that for four people, renting a car was the way to go. We got a sweet deal through our lovely travel agent friend, Maria that gave us a car for cheaper than one Eurail Pass! It didn't take much to figure out that we would need a serious upgrade to be able to lug around the suitcases of four women, so at the airport we were given a VW Touran, which either seats seven, or seats five with a big trunk! Here we are posing with our grey friend (at the end of it all):

Driving felt a little tricky at first. Getting used to the feel of the van, its trippy side mirrors, the feel of its clutch and its sixth gear. We got some advice for where to head out to and also consulted the France road map I brought from the Waterloo public library. We were headed for Champagne. Specifically for the cellar of Moet & Chandon. We had the directions from their website and thought we were set.

Well, leaving the airport headed for a certain Autoroute proved to be much more complicated than expected. Silly, inexperienced us. As we followed the appropriate signs, they would randomly disappear. It didn't take long before we realized that we were headed back toward Paris! We exited and tried our hand at asking for directions (something that we would get really good at in days to come). That didn't work out too well, so we just got back on the Autoroute and headed back in the direction from whence we came. Eventually we got on the one we wanted, after an hour of wasted driving! Our first lesson on the unique nature of European signage.

The traffic wasn't spectacular at this point as many French folk were beginning their holidays on this Sunday morning.

A few hours later we realized that the directions from the Champagne cellar website weren't so hot either! We were given a most lovely drive through the scenic Champagne region and I would post some pictures had I taken any--I was driving! We did pass the same places more than once and from a variety of angles! Finally we threw out the directions they gave us and just figured it out ourselves. Started asking people again. When we made it to Epernay, the town where the winery was supposed to be, we were still at a loss and could not find any signs pointing out this most famous place! Fortunately the next man we asked for help from, offered to have us follow him. (Knowing the verb for "to follow" proved to be helpful as it was about the only thing I fully understood in what he said!)

And there it was. This huge building. Couldn't believe that we hadn't seen it. There was no winery how I picture them from my experiences in the Niagara region. We posed with the statue of Dom Perignon, the monk who discovered Champagne/sparkling wine. Checked out the bottles, Sharon bought a bottle of rose. Learned that we didn't have enough time to do the tour, which was kind of expensive anyway. AND, learned that you couldn't taste any champagnes without doing the tour. :( Ah well. We can say we were there.

Since it had taken a ridiculously long time to get to Epernay and since we still had a long way to Switzerland, we stopped in at the tourist office and asked them to print us out some directions from a French website. And we were off again.

Same thing, getting to the Autoroute didn't go so smoothly. This time, I don't think we actually went out of the way, we just drove on slow roads through towns for quite awhile, questioning where we were the whole time! Finally we made it onto one of the lovely 130 km/h-speed limit Autoroutes!

Now, my friend Daria was expecting us for dinner in Basel and we definitely had had enough time to drive that distance if all went smoothly. By now, I'm sure you can see that driving was NOT going that smoothly and it became apparent that we weren't going to make it to Basel until after 10!!

By the time we got to the border, we were pretty spent. Nothing too eventful happened in the crossing. We had to pull over to buy a vignette to be able to drive on Swiss roads. Straight away we were immersed in Swiss-German. Leaving the border, a directional error occurred (forever to be named by us as "The Tunnel Incident") and we found ourselves driving under the Rhine River to the wrong side of Basel. As exhausted as we were, seeing signs for Deutschland or for Zurich wasn't too comforting! Rather than trying to figure out another way back across the river, we just exited and turned around. The whole time I was so anxious to get out of that tunnel and on to Daria's.

The street signs were not easy to make out at this time of night, especially with names like Mulhausstraf, Vogenstrasenhauser or something like that! Before making it to her house was another needed ask for directions. Once at a handy police station and once with a lady on the side of the road, where Judy tried out her Pennsylvania Dutch (Mennonite-style German).

Happy ending to a very long day. We made it to Daria's. Had some nice fondue. Settled in for our night in her cute little apartment. Last time I saw Daria, she was slightly Canadianized in her English, but she has since lived in Africa and England and now holds quite a posh English accent. It was really great to hang out with her, but that happened more the next day....