ON THE ROAD

We awake with excitement and go out for pastries for our last walk in Paris. The weather is perfect and clear with bright blue sky. We get a cab to our lease car at 9.30am. The drive along the Seine is beautiful in the early sunshine. We arrive at Peugeot Sodexa at Courbevoie without incident. We finalise the paperwork and are on the road by 11am. Our car is big and black and feels perfect for our pending adventure. We drive throughout the day and re-familiarise ourselves with French roads. We stop frequently for diesel and coffee and slowly got into the rhythm of a European roundtrip. We finally arrive in Münster at about 7pm tired and hungry. Our car’s recalcitrant GPS system took a while to warm to our company, which added a couple of hours to the journey. We finally find the Mauritzhof Hotel Münster, which is both comfortable and welcoming, and enjoy a good night’s sleep. Our drive into Germany is an exciting experience. The weather is clear and cool and we slowly warm to the speed of the autobahns. During the trip, we see cars fly past ours at speeds well in excess of 200 km/h. For a very short period, our car’s cruise control is set at 160 km/h, which is a surreal experience.