Road songs.

Thursday 2nd July. Tournon-sur-Rhone 45.07336 4.82161.

There have been many, many songs written about roads in the history of popular music. I won't start listing them, there are thousands. Some deal with lonesome roads, some with particular roads and there probably isn't a successful musical artist over the last 70 years who hasn't sung a song about roads. But I defy the best songwriters to write a song about our journey today. We've travelled 140 miles and we've been in the van for 8 hours. More of this later.

We spent last night in the Italian town of Susa, a few miles from the French border 45.13856 7.05313. A lovely medieaval town with lots of courtyards and alleyways to explore. As we wandered about we noticed that many folk were carrying bottles, or several bottles, of Pastis or spirits and saw quite a few shops selling wine and aperitifs. Curiosity got the better of us and we popped into one of the larger shops and were amazed by the prices which were much lower than anywhere we had seen in Europe. Not being greedy we settled for a bottle of Pastis and a bottle of proseco but we have no idea why they were so cheap.

Today the plan was to drive to where we are now avoiding the motorways and the route: Susa - Briancon - Grenoble - Romans-sur-Isere and finally Tournon looked pretty scenic. So we set the Sat Navs and within 10 minutes missed a turn and found ourselves on the motorway. A couple of expletives later we realised that we could come off at the next junction but the motorway was so scenic we decided to pay the tolls, save some time and just carry on. We arrived at the services at Bardonecchia to buy some croissant (no luck) and those of you who have travelled this road will know what's coming. As you leave the services you immediately enter the toll booths for the Tunnel du Frejus, we pulled up at the booth and the price came up on the board, €58.60. I explained that I didn't want a weekly pass and when I was informed that was the price for one journey I asked how we could turn round. A weary sigh from the toll booth operative, a quick squawk on the two way radio and someone eventually came to escort us back onto the south bound lane. The drivers of the vehicles queuing behind us were very patient.

So, back to plan A. Off the motorway and we headed for Briancon passing through some beautiful countryside, the village of Ouix and got halted at every level crossing as trains passed. The village of Cesana Torinese is lovely but it's a steep climb out and on the first hairpin bend the fridge door flew open depositing cheese, yoghurt and tomato sauce all over the floor. An unscheduled stop in a lay by for a clean up and we were off again. We left Susa at 10am, it was now noon and we hadn't really travelled very far. The road to Briancon was stunning and we stopped on the outskirts for bread and croissant (sold out of croissant). We had peaked at just short of 2,000 metres and headed off toward Col du Lautaret when we noticed that all the Grenoble signs had been covered over and then we saw the signs saying the road was closed at La Grave. We weren't too worried, thinking there would be a diversion but when we pulled over and looked at the map we realised that there couldn't be! There is one road through La Grave and that's it.

Back to Briancon and then south to Gap, west to the aptly named Die onward to Valence and finally we arrived here at half past six. The drive up and over the mountains was stunning but although neither of us liked to say it in the middle of the afternoon, with the cab like an oven, we agreed, once we had parked up here and sat down with a cold beer, that we would have been better off paying the €58.60.

" We took the van this mornin' headed to old Touron,

It didn't seem so far away and then it all went wrong,

The toll booth charges made us frown and so we went the long way round,"

Chorus - "yoghurt on the floor, cheese on the floor, never goin' up those mountains no more"

Pat

 

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