We left my house at 8pm on the Wednesday night before the show and drove to Plymouth to catch the night ferry to Brittany. All went well and arriving at the port we had the first of many encounters with people who either own or have owned Beetles. There was a young guy named Luke who is currently engaged in an all-points resto of a '55 ragtop. By Luke's description, it should be a fine example of a clean restoration. Since he lives quite close by we will have to pop in and pay him a visit.
We knew the next day was going to be an epic drive so it was a case of a meal, a beer and a bunk to get some much needed rest.
Looking back, Thursday now seems like a blur. We covered 742 miles in fifteen hours, finally arriving at our hotel at 10:30pm. Fortunately for me, I made some notes as we were travelling and here are some impressions of that long day.
We left Roscoff early, planning to get serious miles under our belts before stopping for breakfast. It was a drizzly gray morning but I had been checking the Internet and we were fairly confident things would pick up before too long. We drove most of the way out of the Brittany peninsula before stopping to pick up some food and fuel at just after 9am. We then headed for the petrol heads' Mecca of Le Mans. The car was performing sweetly with the oil temperature as shown on the original Motor Meter gauge hardly exceeding 90-degrees C at a steady 65mph and fuel consumption at around 40 miles per U.K. gallon.
We made it around the famous Paris Peripherique with a minimum of bother and there then followed a long slog across north eastern France up to the German border. This was notable for three things: the journey through Champagne country which was stunning, driving round Verdun, site of one of the most horrific battles of WWI, which was pretty scary and swapping a series of text messages with our friends Martin and Blanche Adams who, by this time, were already at the hotel sitting on the terrace drinking large German beers and generally chilling out. They managed to make a deal that the hotel restaurant would stay open till 10p.m. and we managed to work out that we weren't going to make it.