Things ...

Normal service with the Blogroll has resumed, well what passes for normal anyway!

We returned our latest visitors, happy, safe and sound, to Bordeaux airport yesterday afternoon. It was great fun having them stay but then it always is with friends and family whether just for a few days or longer. At least, as it was a Sunday, the roads were virtually empty and it was a real treat to be able to drive in such conditions. An added bonus of Sunday travel is that HGVs are not permitted on the roads unless carrying perishable goods or livestock - great idea that.

A further bonus was that unlike our trip home from the airport a few days previously I did not miss the turn for the ring road thus obviating the dubious pleasure of driving west to east through Bordeaux. It is a beautiful old city and well worth a visit or two if well organised beforehand as there is a superb tram system there and parking near the tram stops is very cheap. Conversely an ad hoc excursion is not recommended especially on weekdays due to the incredible amount of traffic in the city which is not helped by the planning of the roads and streets there. Modern Bordeaux owes much of its present layout to Napoleon who decreed that the city, like Paris, should be designed on a grid system, i.e. roads running on north/south and east/west axes. He also decreed that there should where possible be wide, straight avenues not for the obvious aesthetic beauty but to enable forces of law and order to have swift and easy access should any further civil problems arise, especially bearing in mind that this period was only a few years after the French Revolution.

A major disadvantage of the grid system of planning in this instance is that at virtually every junction there are traffic lights. Unfortunately virtually every set was against me crossing Bordeaux and I did not so much drive as pedal my way across the city.

Moral of this tale? Remember to use the SatNav ere it is too late ...