Driving in France
Bypass – a surgical procedure to restore normal blood flow to an obstructed coronary artery.
Has it become too hard to travel through France by car? There is always talk of how the car has destroyed cities, is it happening to the small towns as well? It is as though France is at war with the car, doing everything it can to handicap travel, seeing only the costs while forsaking the benefits.
Driving in rural France is like living with a difficult lover: frustrating, rewarding, tormenting, delightful. What the difficult lover, in this case rural France, needs to understand, is that if she gets her way too many times, she may end up being very lonely.
We travel by car in France because in spite of the extensive public transport there are places that can only be reached by car, especially if you are cycling or climbing. Travelling by car opens up the delights you already know or have imagined; the picturesque landscapes dotted with charming farmhouse and quant little villages; the fields ringed by dry stone walls; patches of forests. There is little monotony, with something to surprise and delight you every few kilometres. There can be joy in driving through France.
There can also be frustration, especially if you actually need to get somewhere, if the purpose of your journey is not to just travel through the countryside but to arrive at Point B having started at Point A: it is at this point the loving becomes difficult. Take the motorway you say, that is what they have been built for. Would love to I reply, but, the motorways in these parts run north-south, I want to travel west-east.
Let me explain the frustrations, in two parts: the driving to Point B, and the being at Point B.
The driving.
France is changing. The speed limits have been reduced on all roads bar the motorways, 90kmh is now 80kmh, towns are generally now 30kmh and these limits are enforced through many fixed speed cameras. Not that any of that matters, you rarely get to drive at the limit.
Our drive of 200km took over 4hrs. Let’s start with the roads. The roads are always narrow, rarely are they the width of two lanes, so it is difficult for two cars to pass without at least one slowing down and moving onto the gravel – that would always be me. Try to overtake on such a road – when you do, let me know what it is like. The bridges match the roads: narrower than you want them.
There are no straight roads in rural France. There are rarely even straight sections of road. Every road is winding, and not of the gently curving kind, but the tight bend kind. Each bend requiring at least one gear change. Typically the corners have poor sightlines making it difficult to see all the way through the corner so they must be approached carefully, gingerly.
There is always traffic. France might have the lowest population density of Europe but it is still in Europe. As you near the end of a straighter section of road you will come up behind a tractor, approaching the narrow bridge you will see a truck on the other side, half way round a tight corner you will encounter a car.
The towns, oh the towns. Those beautiful old towns – they were all built before the car was invented. The streets are narrow, often with a pinch point that is only one lane wide – no reason at all to make the road one way …. And then there are the speed humps, in every town now, often marked and visible, sometimes not …
It is a long slow drive through the back roads of France.
That is the experience of driving to Point B, but what about the experience of being at Point B – being in one of those beautiful old towns. What I enjoy when in these old towns is sitting in a little café watching the world go by.
Take Bedoin as an example, a 10km 25min drive from where we are staying and the starting point for riding Mont Ventoux. The town is full of cafes serving the many tourists attracted by Ventoux. Take your lunch at one of them, sitting outside to enjoy the view of the old buildings and the tree lined streets. Sitting on one side of you will most likely be another cyclist, and on the other side …. the wheel of a large truck, followed closely by it’s exhaust. Followed by a car, another truck and then a tractor towing a trailer of grapes recently picked.
Sit in the café as I did for just over an hour, and there would not be a 5sec period during that time when there is not a vehicle going past. You see, all the roads to Bedoin converge and force all traffic through the town.
And the worst thing, they don’t just coast through town. The many pedestrian crossings and cyclists force the vehicles to frequently slow down or stop, and then accelerate again. The sound and fumes of this endless parade not captured in the romantic image in the brochure.
There is a solution to the linked problems of driving through and being in the old towns of France: bypasses.
Would that be like leaving your difficult lover? No not at all, merely the benefit of a good counselling session.
