Roads and Rosé
A diary of a road trip through France with friends
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Day 1 — Paris to Lyon
We left Paris at eight in the morning, which means we actually left at ten-thirty because nobody could agree on which snacks to buy at the petrol station. Sofia wanted crisps. Marco wanted those little cheese biscuits that come in a blue tin. I just wanted to get on the road. We compromised and bought everything.
The motorway south of Paris is not beautiful. It is flat and grey and full of lorries. But then, slowly, something changes. The fields get bigger. The sky gets wider. You start to feel like France is actually opening itself up to you, like a book you have finally reached the good part of.
Day 2 — Lyon
Lyon is a city that takes food very seriously, and I respect that enormously. We ate at a small restaurant near the river where the waiter looked slightly offended when Marco asked if they had ketchup. They did not have ketchup. Marco had to eat his steak without it and he survived.
We walked along the Saône in the evening and watched the old buildings turn pink in the sunset. Sofia said it looked like a postcard. Marco said postcards looked like Lyon. We told him that made no sense. He said we had no poetry in our souls.
Day 3 — Lyon to Avignon
The landscape changes completely. Suddenly there are lavender fields — or at least what look like lavender fields, though they were not quite blooming yet — and old stone farmhouses and those thin, dark trees that look like green flames pointing at the sky. Cypress trees, I think.
We stopped at a market in a village whose name none of us can now remember. We bought cheese, bread, tomatoes, and a bottle of rosé. We ate it all by the side of the road on the boot of the car like we had been doing this our whole lives.
Day 4 — Avignon to the coast
The sea appeared suddenly, between two hills, impossibly blue. We all went quiet for a moment.
Then Marco said, 'Should we stop for snacks?'
Some things never change. And sometimes that is exactly what you want.