Leaving Paris

In one way it was hard to leave to leave Paris, in another way it was nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city.  We didn't waste a minute in Paris so to sit on the train for the 5 hour trip to Bayonne through the French countryside was a welcome opportunity to relax and just stop.

Our thoughts were of home though as cyclone Ita, a catagory 5 storm, was bearing down on the Far North Qld coast.  Our children, grandchildren and most of Steve's family were to be impacted in some way, and Cooktown, where we lived for 18 years, was expected to bear the brunt of the cyclone.  Fortunately the storm weakened before crossing the coast and everyone was OK, some flooded in due to the torrential rain, but all OK.

Why doesn't Australia have a fast train service!?  Our journey to Bayonne by train was smooth, comfortable and very fast with hardly a vacant seat.  On arrival we walked straight to the Avis office to collect our rental car only to be dissapointed to be handed the keys to a silver Renault Twingo instead of a red Citroen C1 which we had asked for and which was pictured on the web page!  Steve drove while I navigated and somehow we bumbled our way out of Bayonne onto the open road to the town Orthez where we stayed the night in an overpriced Hotel.

It was a daunting task for Steve to get behind the wheel of a left hand drive, manual transmission vehicle and venture out into the busy traffic of a large city like Bayonne, but he did a mighty job and only scared the living daylights out of me a couple of times before settling into it.  Although we drive an automatic car at home, a right handed manual car would not have been diffuclt to master as we have both driven them at some stage. However a left hand drive manual car requires the exact opposite of what we are used to such as changing gears with your right hand instead of your left, and the wiper switch is where the blinker switch should be (the car will probably require new wiper blades by the time we return it) and one must also remember to give way to the left, not the right, and on a twin lane highway the slow lane is on the right, not the left.

It all became easier on the second day and Steve did a great job of driving us to the town of Condom, a UNESCO listed historic village on the Baise River, with a magnificient ancient Cathederal at it's centre.  Small cobblestoned streets and laneways lead to tiny butcher shops, patisseries, flower shops, restaurants and residences. Absolutely delightful.  Our home for the next two nights is the Logis de Cordeliers, a nice family hotel right in the historic section of Condom.  For 55 euros per night we have a clean room, comfy bed, private bathroom, and from our window a lovely view of a church steeple, with rolling hills of trees, cultivated farmland and farmhouses in the distance. Viva Fance.