South of Bordeaux

It's Friday night and we're in a Premierre Classe hotel on the south side of Bordeaux. This is a better hotel than last nights one even though it is slightly cheaper! We left John and Jenny in Nottingham yesterday morning, it was a nice evening with them, as always I was on edge in case the dogs did some damage to their lovely house but all was well.

We set off down the motorway swapping driving occasionally and took the Tunnel to France, that was a great trip, so quick and efficient. We drove onto the train and sat there for 30 mins, Ben got a bit agitated at one point and tried to climb over the back seat but was ok after that. We arrived in France with no hassles and drove own to Ruen in the dark, mist and a little rain. Thankfully Tom Tom got us right through the middle of Ruen to our hotel with no problems. The hotel was – well to be frank, crap. A cross between a hostel and a prison cell, not that I have any direct experience of the later of course. It was right on a main street and had some dodgy looking people staying there, I was really worried the car would be broken into in the night so we lugged pretty much everything out of it into the tiny room up the stairs because the lift looked like it might beak down. It was not a good night, the dogs slept better than us!

Up early and off down the motorway towards Bordeaux, I'd decided that Premierre Classe was not for me and I planned to push on into Spain tonight and try and get another night in the hotel we are in tomorrow. However, it was a long journey and we decided to stop at this one which is better than the last one. The journey was long and boring, driving in France is easy and the service stations are all good, we had a really nice Lunch in one which is something you'd never say about a british one. Worringly I noticed that some of them are now owned by MOTO so that'll be the kiss of death for them. We're finding the French fairly friendly except on the roads, they are on the whole, erratic, aggressive, and bad at driving.
We'll stay here then head into Spain tomorrow where we have a nice country hotel booked which takes Dogs.