Slow Fleet – Mercedes 500SE June 2015 Road Trip Part 1

Latest Costs: £0
Miles this period: At least 350 , total with the next instalment.

The day of the trip began with an early start heading towards the port of Dover, the route was mostly motorway, which is the ideal territory for the big Merc. Except that there seemed to be an unfeasible amount of road works on the M1. When I say road works there wasn’t any work taking place, but many miles of 50 mph speed limits. This probably helped because after a diversion from the M20 back the M2, massive tailbacks, I filled it back up in Faversham and calculated that it had returned 26mpg. Not too bad, and it was running rather well.

Getting to the boat using the this route is much better and I don’t know why I used the M20, even though it’s a viable option. Once through all the checks and parked waiting for the boat I managed to make the black tape dipped beam blockers. I think I should create a range of them for older cars, those modern deflectors just don’t look right.

My Ferry Link are a decent ferry operator, the boats being recent and pretty tidy offered a pleasant and relaxing crossing. It’s always good for the driver to get out of the car for a while, and I don’t mean to stand next to it. Besides, there’s some pretty good views to be had onboard.

Once off the wrong side of the road was adopted and it was a straightforward head to the AutoRoute to get to the destination early enough to get be able to get out again to buy some food for the week, which would no doubt be eaten in the first evening…

Rolling along at 130kph, 81mph, it was obvious there was some vibration, it might have been a wheel, but difficult to tell. What wasn’t difficult to tell was the stuck sunroof was lifting at about 80mph creating a slight gap between the panel and the seal. Going faster increased this a little, but it didn’t move much, of course this is entirely theoretical…

There might be a fuelling or ignition issue, but its so small it’s very hard to pinpoint. Monitor it and see if anything else shows up, after all there’s probably quite a bit of lack of use to undo.

Anyway, the route was easy and the cost wasn’t too high on the tolls as the destination was in Picardie, close to the medieval town of Laon. The accommodation was attached to a farmhouse south of the city, on the edge of a very quiet village with a view of the stunning cathedral which sits in he old town high up, a bit like Lincoln in a way. Gites de France again providing some fantastic little places to stay, which aren’t expensive, with a decent amount of parking space, which is important in this case.

After the greeting by the owner and being shown around it was a quick unload and off the the local Carrefour, which was a couple of minutes away, if you realised you needed to go under a very low bridge containing the main road… But as usual the show was huge and easy to lose an hour and a half in, but plenty of things were bought as the next day was a Sunday and I had no idea where to go to or what might be open. I figured the Carrefour might be, the sign confirmed this, but I’d rather be out seeing things that shopping all the time. Besides, we had a bank holiday to contend with on the Monday, which means the country pretty much shuts down, certainly compared to Britain.

Saturday was dealt with mostly with travelling so Sunday it was decided to do more driving to see some of the area, which was rather stunning, a trip down the old road going past the gite led to an unmade road with houses sporadically scattered along it’s length. It took some time but this came out on a D road, a B road if you like and a right turn off into the middle of nowhere took in many interesting villages and a rather large lake or two. Stopping for lunch in the car park of a place called Aqua Plage, a man made beach on a large lake with a park and kind of nature reserve. But, the car park had large grass areas with many picnic benches with many locals doing the same thing, even sunbathing…

The first trip towards Laon meant going past the lower part of town and some sort of market, selling second hand things, a bit like a car boot but without the cars. From there the first of many trips up the hill into the old town, the Merc rumbling it’s way happily up the top and through the narrow streets of the middle. One thing being apparent, some tappet noise I had known about seemed much louder in confined spaces. The other sort of confined spaces to be wary of were parking spaces, but this being a Sunday was quieter, so an end slot on the road going around the front on the level below the town centre was used.

The town is stunning and the cathedral is imposing , very much a smaller Notre Dame in Paris, like many of them are. The tourist information centre was open, which was a surprise, and was full of helpful information and nice staff, not a surprise. An attraction pass and tour booked easily meant a return the next day. I said it would be the first of many trips…