And finally, Rudy must awake!

It’s been a while! I feel like I have been in my slumber for about two years … oh I have!! Captain Clarke and I have embarked on an adventure. I am to speak at a conference in Monaco next week and flying, which would be the normal mode of transport, has simply become impractical. Usually there are three flights a day from Gatwick and four from Heathrow to Nice (the nearest airport to Monaco) but after the pandemic the flights have been reduced to one per day from Gatwick and the timing is terrible. It departs Gatwick at 07:30 which arrives in Nice at 11:00 local time and departs again from Nice at 12:00. The conference starts at 08:30 in the morning and finishes at 13:00 two days later. That means that I would have to fly in the day before and leave the day after. With hotel rooms at £1,500 per night that is not an option!! So, after discussion with Captain Clarke I looked at trains, but I can’t get to Paris early enough in the morning to get the train to Nice, so we decided there is only one option left … drive.

Now driving may seem like the best option right now but there is an additional challenge. The car is 100% electric! Great for the environment (kind of, but that’s a whole difference debate) but can we get from England to Monaco with an electric car in just two days? It turns out that France is a bit further along with infrastructure for electric cars than the UK. The UK is getting there and will probably be there in a year or so but France is definitely ahead. We left home at about 11:00 and drove down to the Channel Tunnel. Apart for the 11 mile queue of lorries waiting to get their paperwork checked (Brexit, what Brexit?) before they then joined a second queue for the boats or train, the journey was uneventful, if a little slow. Once we arrived, we topped the car up for five minutes (literally) whilst we nipped into the ‘Duty Free’ and then proceeded to passport control. ‘Duty Free’ was about as Duty Free as ever … a bottle of scotch was 10p cheaper than you can buy it in Morrisons but if you bought a bag too it was the same! To be honest, we sailed straight through and got onto the next train. Arriving in France we drove towards the A26 and then on towards Reims on the Route de Soleil. At our first stop to charge after about 140 miles, we had a bit of a problem because the charging stations were not exactly obvious – no signs to guide you to them so we ended up driving the wrong way up the one way road in the service area to get to them!

When we eventually found our way to the charging station we discovered that all chargers were 150kW meaning that we could fully charge in about 20 minutes. It turns out that this is the case almost everywhere on the motorway network and there are always multiple chargers so you don’t have to wait. So, a couple of charges later we find ourselves a few kilometres north of Dijon for our first overnight stop. We decided against the Formula 1 hotel that looked like it was made of cardboard and had no restaurant and went on for another 30 kilometres to a motel we had found on the internet which got good reviews. We arrived at about 8pm, freshened up and went for dinner. Jolly good it was too! Food that would, frankly, beat almost any restaurant within 20 miles of home! It was reasonably priced and really very good. Washed down with a bottle of Provence Rosé it was a thoroughly enjoyable meal. One small point that I should have mentioned was the UK sticker (or more accurately label) for the back of the car. It is no longer legal to have a GB sticker, but it is a legal requirement to have a UK sticker. Diligently we had bought a magnetic UK sticker for the boot of the car. Sadly, we discovered when we tried to attach it at Folkestone that the boot of the car is not made of steel, so the magnetic sticker wouldn’t stick. Fortunately, we had also bought an EU travel kit (also a new legal requirement following Brexit imposed by our good friend Boris the Liar) which included a sticky UK badge. I had wanted to avoid a sticker because it damages the paintwork but with no choice, I stuck it on the back windscreen. Problem solved, we were able to proceed. So, today we shall proceed southwards. It is worth mentioning that on our stops for a top up we discovered that, even though we were still very much in northern France, the temperature had improved dramatically, the temperature was actually 21℃! The plan for today is to stop and have lunch in Lyon before driving further south to stay a second night en route before arriving in Monaco on Monday morning. All very exciting and, so far, really a very good journey. Tomorrow could be another day! It seems, though, that driving an all electric car through France is frankly, RudyMenTerry!