Five on an International Roadtrip - Easter Monday, 21 April 2014

Paris, France to Turin, Italy.  It looks so simple on Google Maps, especially for Australians used to driving long distances. 

OK, so first there was the small matter of the dimensions of the boot not being quite the same as Andrew carefully researched and then measured at Peugeot in Balwyn... or maybe our packed suitcases were a bit fatter than the empty ones he had carefully laid out at home.  But pushing the kids’ seats forward and giving them a bit less leg room soon compensated for that, and we were off!

Cruising around the Lyon ring road, two-thirds of the way into the trip, everything was going to plan (including eating pretty bad food and drinking definitely bad coffee at the road house where we stopped for lunch), until two events:

1. Payment of the first toll (for the 400km Paris-Lyon leg). 

2. Xavier decided he didn’t need a sleep

Tolls

OK, so it was a few hundred kilometres longer than Citylink, but there were no tunnels (yet), so we were not quite prepared when the person requested €35... and so the toll rush began.  Between Lyon and Turin, we remember at least five other significant toll payments, with most in the €10-30 range.  As we approached each tollgate, the stress levels in the front seats of the car rose dramatically, with:

• the driver (Andrew) frantically trying to decide which queue to enter - machine, person, Telepass (like our “e-tag”, oh if only the Peugeot people had mentioned tolls and offered us a Telepass!), cash-only, credit cards-only, etc; and
• the navigator/cashier determining whether we were paying a toll or just taking a ticket for the next section of auto-route, and whether our rapidly-dwindling cash reserves could cover the toll.  We confess that we did raid William’s Christmas Euros from his aunty and uncle, Gervase and Cade, to cover the last toll, but can confirm he has been repaid!

Xavier

Today was the X-man’s day to plumb the depths of unacceptable behaviour. 

Despite being offered all sorts of entertainment, inducements, encouragements, his usual sleep music, and flat-out bribes and threats, he refused to sleep or rest and gradually became more irritated and irritating.  Being in the middle seat, poor William drew the proximity short straw.  Unfortunately for him, we had drummed into him the message of not retaliating, and he took a hammering from Xavier, including a huge hair pull which elicited a decibel-record scream.  Other party stunts included throwing shoes, and Houdini-esque slipping arms out of (really tight!) straps and defiantly refusing to put them back in.  Car stops sailed past the three we had budgeted for, and approached ten before he finally fell asleep 30 minutes before we reached our destination.  Thank goodness for small mercies... and a very warm welcome (including wine) in Turin!  But that's a story for another day!