#MyTopThree: Countries. 2. FRANCE

Hotel in Chantilly we used on first night of southbound tours

Good Wednesday to you. Left is a little picture I posted online recently which for some unknown reason was crazy popular and led to the #MyTopThree idea! So here we are, number two of my top 3 countries you’ll have guessed by now is France. The amazing France. It’s a fantastic country. 

Thanks to that pic let’s mention the most important thing……food! In pretty much every services they bake fresh baguettes every day and if in time to catch them warm they make it difficult to not eat them all, especially with President butter, the finest butter on earth in my opinion, sorry U.K. dairy industry, it just is. I’m not under any illusions, every services doesn’t have a bakery out back making dough! It will come in readymade, probably frozen, but it’s still delicious!

Now I desperately want one

Still rattling on about food……pasta boxes! Now I know rambling on about convenience food in France is a bit strange! But we all know what french food is like, how amazing, how easy to get, so let me go on about lazy food which I rarely enjoy as it’s usually shit! These pasta boxes are lovely! Do several flavours and just enough for a spot of lunch! So yes, pasta boxes. I am a pasta addict after all. Can you tell I’m writing this before breakfast?!

One of my favourite ferry cos 

So anyway, the rest. You’ll hear no end of bullshit from lorry drivers about France and the French and it’s all exactly that, bullshit. The fact is the French are very straightforward with finely attuned bullshit detectors so a lot of lorry drivers fall foul of this. Plus all the types who come out with the ‘French are surrender monkeys’ nonsense are surprisingly common. People who’s only knowledge, incorrect knowledge, seems to be that Britain won WW2 singlehandedly and they like to look down their nose at the French because ‘we saved them’ because frankly people that grab any opportunity they can find to feel superior. To grab a Brexiteer quote ‘we won, get over it.

Ding ding all aboard

I approach France EXACTLY how I approach any country, with politeness and a few words of their own language, as many as you can. It’s just basic respect, you’re a guest in their country, act like you would as a guest in someone’s house and all will be well. Has been for me anyway. I haven’t come across a country this doesn’t work yet. 

The Alps

France is possibly the best country in the world to drive across, well apart from Paris but then that’s same of all major cities. It’s just in Paris it seems you’re as likely to be stuck in major traffic at 2am at 2pm! The only place where sitting in traffic in the middle of the night is commonplace! But yes away from Paris it is sublime. The autoroutes are probably the best in the world, I know they are tolled but as an employed driver I don’t pay! Services like the vast majority of Europe and unlike the U.K. are free to park in, normally well laid out with lots of parking and as I said at start you can either grab a snack of a pasta box or a meal and both will be great.

The Alps

Police, well the Gendames who patrol motorways in their blue cars have a reputation for being tough but again it’s not one I’ve ever encountered. Been stopped a handful of times by them and customs at the Peage (toll booth) with their little lollipop and I’m always on way fairly fast. It’s same with British drivers after Brexit having ham from sandwich’s confiscated…….why the fuck are they in your food? And you know the answer straightaway……attitude. Give people a reason to give you hell and they will give you hell.

Millau Viaduct. (Not my picture
took off Google)

So that’s my advice to any new drivers worried by drivers tall tales of the authorities in Europe- don’t believe it. If it did happen it’s about attitude nothing more. They are just doing a job, you are doing a job. Do it to best of your abilities and well and you’ll be fine. In my nearly 25 years of driving for a living (including sizeable periods for the Irish and Dutch remember) I have NEVER been fined. Same with customs etc at ports, never been rude to, never been kept unnecessarily long. I only mention all this as these are the things that you’ll see lorry drivers hate most about France.Loading and unloading is generally ok, no major dramas. Again as in every part of life your attitude is a measure of how you’ll be treated and as I said previously one this I swear by is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS greet people in their own language. Even if that’s all you can do it sets up what they think of you positively.

Group of 6 Rungis

It’s wouldn’t be a post about France from a fridge driver without mention of Rungis! It’s apparently the biggest wholesale market on earth and many drivers talk of it with horror!

Welsh lamb in Rungis

But frankly I think several drops in Smithfield Market London is way harder than Rungis. Yes you have to be careful, the group of six down the alleyway with posts designed to damage have taken many a fridge door off but overall it’s not too bad. Not sure what it’s like now as haven’t been in a couple of years but when I first started going it was manic. You’d queue for every bay, people would try jumping, trucks everywhere but in last probably decade it’s seemed to get quieter every year.

Everyone wants your bay

Another thing you hear a lot is about the strikes. Yes, the french like strikes, been caught up in a couple, no drama. It always makes me laugh that the lads who bitch most about the French striking will in the next breath complain about how we are badly treated at home and long for us to have a strong Union! So yeah while I’ve been held up by strikes and it can infuriate you at time, for instance Christmas week in my first video, in the long run you get through it and if it means worker get what they wanted then more power to them. The U.K. and France are total opposites when it comes to attitudes to work. We see doing 70 hours a week as a big ‘look how hard I work’ boast*. The French see it for what it is, companies taking the piss! The ideal is somewhere between us and the french as we are at extreme ends of the scale.

The Alps

So to end. My favourite parts of France are Brittany, through the middle over the Millau Viaduct, one of my favourite bits of road in the world as it’s deserted, and over the east, the Jura

Mountain region, did a coach tour there once and it’s stunning and deserted in a way the Alps is too famous to be, but that’s the other favourite, the Alps. Going to Italy given the choice I prefer Frejus Tunnel as it’s a better road and less delays with escorts (fridges need escort through Mont Blanc) but for scenery Mont Blanc wins.

Now, go forth and purchase baguettes!

*A boast I’m as guilty as anyone making

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Millau Viaduct Wikipedia

My First Video Starts with Operation Stack

The first night hotel on southbound tours. It’s in Chantilly but can’t remember name

Heartbeat monitor at port looking for stowaways

A quiet Calais next to a then new P&O Spirit

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