Driving back from Merignac airport one darkish evening I was rather tired and cross – anyone would be who had just fought their way through Gatwick South to a plane. Fortunately the rocade is not the bumper to bump jam in the evenings as it is in the daytime. So I was gradually soothed, avoided taking the turn off to Toulouse and headed dutifully towards Bordeaux Centre.
Once over the dreaded Pont d’Aquitaine*, I remembered I had to take the second right turn, try to squeeze in between lorries thundering down on my right in order to join the rocade. I had to be in the very rightmost lane in order to get off the rocade to get onto the A89 to Libourne and Lyons. We were still on the free part of this motorway.
Then the blue signs for the peage I took a wrong turning on the A89 and headed for Libourne Centre. This takes one off the motorway too, as I quickly discovered. So I drove home, which is near Perigueux, from signboard to signboard, starting towards St Medard de Guizieres which I knew was somewhere near. We spent a couple of hours wandering through villages and vineyards north of Bergerac and eventually found a link to Perigueux.
* I dreaded it from its inception. Then it was a steepish four lane bridge, slung on metal strings between four metal towers. The formal speed limit was 70 kph. Now it is a six lane bridge with no immediately visible change to the untutored eye. It just got wider. The speed limit is still 70kph.