Chris and I were there, our first experience of camping together but not of travelling a couple of 100 miles to get to our destination. I wasn't worried about travelling, Chris' driving is good and his awareness of what is going on, even in a foreign country, is impressive. we both found it a bit weird being on the 'wrong' side of the road, but you get used to that when you decide to travel through every town from Calais to Le Mans! We skipped the toll roads, thinking that it would be cheaper but it definitely wasn't quicker - as we found out when we travelled back on the toll roads.
After doing our shopping in Carrefour in Calais - which was a good idea - we made our way to the circuit. Along the way we saw some amazing buildings and towns. The countryside is really flat for the most part, there are some lovely scenes (French people have a thing about putting things in very straight lines - trees and wind turbines in particular) but mostly we were so focused on following the sat nav that we may have missed some things. Still here are a few pictures.
Lovely buildings that caught my eye. I don't know the name of the town they were in but I would go back and shop there in a flash!
We got to Le Mans and then spent an hours sitting in traffic to get to La Sarthe, to the campsite. We were shown to our pitch and quickly realised we had quite a lot of space, because the people either side of us hadn't arrived yet. We set up camp, which is fairly easy when you have a pop up tent, blow up bed and a pop up gazebo. If there were more people involved I would show you some pictures of set up! Chris and I work really well as a team, we both know what needs to be done. One annoyance was that the gas cooker had become a little stiff, so we botched a solution for the first night and had a very good bolognese! We then headed to the circuit for night practice and a chance to look at the shops on the outside of the circuit.
It's a big site, but we happened to be quite close to the main entry point and so was our stand. It's better than I expected! Plenty of people, places to get food, and excellent radio service to tell you what is going on. we watched the end of night practice and walked back.
On Friday, we spent the whole day in Le Mans, waiting for the drivers parade - here's a picture of my favourite driver
Giancarlo Fisichella - on the left. We waited for the whole day! Travelling on the tram was fun, nice and smooth, easy to get around. We spent time eating good french food and drinking with Chris' friends. We walked back through the village, looking at all the car stalls and different sponsors.
Saturday was race day and a chance to see the start of the race. We hung around for a bit and saw the Alan McNish crash. I surprised myself by sitting for 4 hours watching what was going on. There were 20 hours left but dinner was calling. We went back to the track at about 9.30pm to see what was going on, only to witness another crash, from the same team. 2 Audi cars down, one to go, 18 hours to go.
The good news is, that when we woke up the following morning, the Audi was still running, and eventually, we watched it cross the finish line, only 13 seconds ahead of the Peugeot. Giancarlo Fisichella finished second in his class. It was an astonishing race, lots of drama and plenty of stories, that will hopefully turn into a classic! (We also saw Stirling Moss retire at the age of 81, though we didn't know it at the time!)
An amazing weekend, rounded off by a trip to the museum and a second BBQ!
We travelled home so quickly and watched the Canadian Grand Prix, so all in all it's been a pretty amazing weekend for the high end motor sport world!
Onwards and upwards...back to work today to mentoring and meeting with youth workers. Getting ready for a trip to Ely... going to have some Brie and pack my bag.
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