There follows a few notes and observation about our journey from Spain through France and back home.

Drivers from NL.

If you have not driven in Europe before then you must be aware of the madness of drivers with the following sticker on their car and caravan, NL. You can be guaranteed that they will be erratic and totally oblivious to all other road usurers. If you are in the fast lane and about to overtake slower traffic you can bet your life that a caravan and car combination will suddenly pull out in front of you, then indicate their intention. Usually this manoeuvre will be uphill as well! There is only one way to prevent this occurring and that is to leave your indicator flashing from the time you pull into the fast lane and until you are well past. However! This does not always work so take care.

Take a good map.

If you are going through any city or large town try and make sure you have an up to date map or plan. On our way down to Spain the plan was to skirt around south east of Paris. We ended up going around the north east to north west then (we had to stop once to got a detailed map) through Versailles and coming out the south side of Paris.

Royally Lost.

The first time we drove to Spain we drove straight down well away from Paris and on down through Lyon and all went very well. We hade no worries about driving back through Lyon, how wrong we were. We got royally lost and ended up on the N6 instead of the A6. At least we got to see the country side from a different perspective.

French service stations and rest areas.

Don’t be surprised to find the hole in the ground toilets. In all the rest areas we stopped at we found they were equipped with toilets but they are hole in the ground types. They are not old left over's from years ago, no, they are (in a lot of cases) brand new! A whole in the ground.

You will also come across this type to toilet in a lot of motorway petrol / service stations. If there is a restaurant alongside the petrol station then go there as these usually have (what I consider) the more conventional type. Also many Cafes use hole in the floor toilets but you can usually get round this by using the women's toilets For some reason they all had normal types??

Motels.

A few words of advice to those of you who have not used these establishments. If you are traveling during the summer then you may like to take the following items, a fan, a pillow or three, a travel kettle with coffee and sugar and finally but not least a bottle opener.

A good nights sleep.

This year we stayed in a Premier Class Hotel. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? The temperature during our stay was well into 37 degrees in the shade and the room was just as hot. There was only one small window and a door on one side of the room we could not induce a through draft, no matter what we tried. We ended up going to a super market and buying a big fan. This, along with the cork screw and a bottle or two of wine enabled us to get a good nights sleep. From what we’ve seen of other people leaving each morning the use of fans is quite common. I even saw a man walk out to his car with an enormous pole fan.

Worth 10 to 20 euros.

If you are moving day to day from one area to another then you may be happy to put up with this kind of discomfort. If however you wish to stay within an area for a few days then the added cost of a proper hotel with air conditioning would reduce stress levels between people and greatly enhance your enjoyment. To know that you can escape the heat and get a good nights sleep must be worth 10 to 20 extra euros of anyone money.

For more information about living in Spain look at this site, www.homeinspain.info