Road Trip: 2000kms across Europe in a Skoda Fabia day two part two

Heading north always feels like going uphill but this time I was because the road out of San Sebastian brings you though some beautiful mountains and tunnels on the road. On this occasion there was nothing beautiful about the rain falling, it was pounding down. I had the wipers on full and still it wasn’t clearing it fast enough, the road seemed narrow and the trucks wide.

There were tailbacks because of some crashes, some of them were minor enough but others were cars upside down surrounded by flashing lights. Then I slowly passed a passenger bus on fire, it looked like the engine burst into flames. There didn’t seem to be anyone on board and the Police were closing the road for fear there might be an explosion. I got though and didn’t look back, making my way along the E-5 towards Irun and the border.

To set the trend for France the border is a toll bridge, I paid and started to drive through and that’s when the Police pulled me over.

Now I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong so I wasn’t too worried about the French Police wanting to chat, but then the first question

“Is this your car Sir?”

“Ehh no, it belongs to Skoda” Now the problem with that comment is that my car had Czech Republic number plates and here I am leaving Spain with an Irish accent, this might be hard to explain. Turned out that the Policeman lived in Ireland for a bit during the 90’s and was more interested in how Ireland was getting out of recession than anything that might be in my boot. We chatted about the #fabiaontour hash tag that was on the side of my car before I took off in France.

I was now on the A63 heading North for La Rochelle, still some 400kms but the French have odd speed limits and the motorway limit is 130kph so I floored it and set the cruise control.

Passing Bordeaux I had now paid over €20 in tolls, this was getting expensive but I blasted on on stopping for the odd service station to fill the car with petrol and me with water before heading on.

That evening I got to the outskirts of La Rochelle and its rather complicated one way narrow streets. Dodging people, cars and road works on a street that isn’t really wide enough for a car is hard after a long drive but finally I found the hotel and parked in the underground. The lady at reception told me that it would be €10 to get it back out which I find crazy seeing as the car park is in the hotel. The French have some hidden charges that don’t have small print.

The last leg of driving would be to Cherbourg for the ferry, nearly 500kms would seem like a day off after the millage so far.

The last part of the Fabia on tour adventure is out soon, keep an eye on @indomotoring