May be it is a bit too late to brush up my French? Mum and I are to sail to Caen in two days and I have just restarted my French lesson!!!
Oh well, I truly hope that we won’t encounter any challenging situations during our road trip…
J’aime l’autoroute française!
We checked out of our hotel at Reims around 10:00 and headed towards our final destination, Calais. The city was 274km away and A26 would take us there.
I must say, driving on the French motorway was a pleasure…
You see what I mean?
Especially, the landscape around Arras, was very flat and open. The scenery may have lacked the grandeur of the Alpine region with the rugged peaks and winding roads, but I preferred the calm and predictable vista on A26 after the continuous driving of the past nine days.
There was just a blue sky and golden crop fields on the both sides of the motorway…
Another thing I liked more about driving on the French motorway than on the German equivalent, was there was hardly no bullies behind their high-powered wheels. I really was fed up with those German drivers who tailgated my car and pressurised me to move to a slower lane despite my speed was nearly 90mph while we were in Bavaria.
The French autoroute was all calm and civilised…
As we got closer to Calais, we started to see more cars with the British number plates. ‘What shall we do at Calais?’ We would have more than six hours to kill before boarding a train home…
Aimez-vous Brahms
I have to interrupt the report of the Waitors’ Race at Reims for today because I have come across a wonderful gem during I was beachcombing Youtube last night.
“Goodbye Again” 1961
The film is based on a novel by Françoise Sagan’s Aimez-vous Brahms.
I call the film a gem because the cast is amazing: Ingrid Bergman, Yves Montand and Anthony Perkins, the location is glamorous: ever so beautiful Paris in the late 50’s and the costume for Ingrid Bergman: designed by Christian Dior! What not to like?
As a teenager, I read all of Sagan’s novels, imagining how it would like to be in love. Even though most of her love stories ended tragically, it didn’t put me off from reading them and I found being “ennui” impossibly grown-up and sophisticated. Oh how shallow and immature I was then.
Anyway, the film may be getting deleted from Youtube soon because of the copywright business. So watch it while it lasts!
Spaß!
After returning to our room from our evening saunter, we turned on the TV and scrolled down to check what channels were available in Strasbourg.
My French was almost good enough to get by as a tourist. I could understand French TV programmes as long as it was not too complicated so mum and I had a load of fun during channel surfing in our hotel room. I served as a translator, and we shared lots of giggle.
Hötel Cathédrale didn’t offer any English programmes, such as BBC or CNN, but French and German. At Reims, we discovered Les Guignols and found it hilarious therefore we were looking for something similar.
Then, we found “Verstehen Sie Spaß?”(Do you understand fun?)…
A German prank show!
It was because we understood very little German, except ‘Wunderbar!’, ‘Bitte?’ and ‘Danke’, we didn’t understand what those poor victims in the show were actually saying. Still, their reactions were priceless and the ideas behind the pranks were brilliantly funny. Long live Spaß!
Allez, Brigitte! Allez!
So Emmanuel Macron has been inaugurated as the 25th President of France today.
A new First Lady of France walking down the red carpet…
So elegant and confident!
Blue really suits her. She looks beautiful,
Hope they will visit London one day soon. And I and Bella will be there along The Mall to cheer her on!
