September 22nd – Driving

Final view around the chateau (panorama):

We had to cover about 550km (340m) from the Chateau east to almost the Swiss border. There were two choices of routes, one which used toll roads all the way and would likely be boring and expensive. They actually add an extra 100km onto the journey but would only take 6.5 hours to drive. The other was across country and pretty much the shortest possible route but with a mixture of (the equivalent of) A and B roads, with a tiny amount of motorway.
Obviously we chose the latter and here’s the ‘proof’:

We had a couple of rest stops but mostly it was just 9h of doing 90kmh (well, maybe a bit more than that). There wasn’t much of note except that the roads were got gradually busier as we crossed over. This meant that some of the fun, twisty bits of road were spoiled by lorries and slow cars. This was somewhat disappointing.
We managed to have a bit of fun on some of the stretches though. And I can’t stress enough just how capable the BMW is at overtaking. It really doesn’t handle as well as the RX8, has more body roll and is less stable but it can really, really perform. In the UK there are some uphill stretches which offer a second overtaking lane but in France these are very common. They’re often quite short and the end can come as a bit of a surprise but they’re quite useful. 450nm of torque at 2k RPM means we can just pull out and be half way up the hill before the Citroens and Renaults have time to do anything.
Most of the time there was enough power in 6th to pull around anything pretty quickly but when needed 3rd gear can mean pulling out, passing and pulling in in about 4s. This was rarely need though because many roads are like this:

 
One of which we did 36km on in a straight line. We overtook a lot of cars and lorries today. The French mostly don’t seem to mind though.
A note to the unwary: we’ve stopped at petrol stations where our credit cards weren’t accepted. Some petrol stations are unattended and only take cards. These are Esso and Total, so not small outfits. On the third attempt we were starting to worry as we knew our cards worked and we were getting low on fuel. A nice French biker tried to help but didn’t understand the problem. However, the guy who ran the shop with the pump (manned petrol stations tend to be part of another business like car rental or a repair garage, not a franchise with sandwiches and barbecues) came to help us. He had no English but was able to explain that foreign cards didn’t work (in France) and it seemed that we’d locked out his pumps. He had to reset them and then we had to fill and use the card machine in the shop. He was patient and helpful and now we know the problem we can hopefully work around it.
Lunch was at the side of the road on a disused piece of tarmac. Not a bad view though:

We had a quick stop in Beaune as it had a rather lovely Hospice, as recommended by Lindsay, but we struggled to navigate the centre of Beaune due to poor signage and a very slow data rate on the iPhone. Eventually we found it but didn’t have time to go in so will have to come back another day.

Eventually we made it to the B&B. The room is small but nicely equipped (with wired networking, not wireless – I can hear Daz saying ‘As it should be’) and a good bathroom but we both agree that it’s not a 14th Century Chateau. A quick meal at a local Brasserie and it’s time for bed.