Geneva – Lyon – St. Etienne
We collected the car – re checked our map on how to get out
of the city and set off. Driving in a
foreign city on the other side of the road is not the easiest but to add to the
fun it was pouring rain. Within minutes
of getting out on the highway a huge truck came boring down on us and but for
Pop’s great driving skills our trip would have ended there. My navigational skills are less than good and
so we soon missed the correct turn and we were lost. But this wrong turn had brought us to a
charming little town Ferney Voltaire. We
parked near a coffee shop and enjoyed a coffee while we consulted the map. A gentleman on a nearby table, Roland, came
to our aid and showed us how to get back to the freeway. He refused our offer of a coffee and said ‘aurevoir’
and rode off on his bicycle. When we
paid we asked if Roland was a regular and as he was we paid for his next
coffee.
We followed Roland’s directions and were solon tootling
along the freeway. After a while we came
across a toll area, so we took a ticket and drove on. Much further on we came to the pay
station. Unfortunately it was an
automatic system. As we were totally unprepared with notes and coins we had to
use a 50 euro note. The change falling
sounded like we had won the jackpot at the ‘pokies’. Plenty of change for our next toll.
We drove on to Lyon.
Thankfully the rain cleared but it had become very hot and humid. Lyon is a very large very busy city so it was
very difficult finding our way around and finding somewhere to park the
car. Finally we found a car park – it
was under ground and all of the road ways were extremely narrow. Pop did a marvellous job of getting the car
through these narrow passageways.
We walked along some of the narrow back streets and found a
lovely café for some lunch, soon the hassles of the morning melted away. After lunch we walked into the centre of Lyon
and was enjoying a look around until I realised I had left my camera in the
café. We went back only to find that
they had closed for the afternoon and wouldn’t be open till 7pm. We rang the number for enquiries but it was
no longer connected. Pop found an ad.
For an apprentice chef – we rang that and sure enough they had found my camera
RELIEF but they wouldn’t be back at the café till 6.30pm. So we had to hang about. We used the time to look for some better maps
and Pop bought a memory stick – for his camera not me!!
We just wanted to be moving on as we couldn’t find anywhere
to book a room for the night, and we preferred to get to a small town. Finally I could reclaim my camera we could
get on the road again.
We reached St.Etienne and booked a room and had tea. We asked if they had wi fi, this was met with
very puzzled expressions. Eventually he
understood what we meant aha WHIFFY (pronounced like sniffy). Yes they did –perfect. We were so glad to get to our room and get
onto Skype and unwind from an exhausting day.
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