Somewhere in France

It was -11C when we departed the apartment at 4.15am this morning to drive back to the UK. Driving down the hill towards the village the car kept automatically breaking as at those temperatures the car system would have registered ice on the roads. What it did not take into account is the excellent clearing of ice and snow by the Swiss road maintenance crew, plus we have winter tyres on the car which are a necessity in such conditions.

Driving through France there was snow and/or a thick hoar frost for most of the journey. I have never seen snow in France when doing this journey on all the many previous occasions that we have driven this route. It looked absolutely beautiful with sunlight filtering through the mist over the farmlands, I wish I could have stopped to take photos but then we would never have got home, as the scenery was absolutely stunning. It was too difficult to take photos from the motorway so I had to commit the beautiful scenes to my memory rather than my camera card. I did get this shot when we stopped to at a roadside 'aire de repos' just after sunrise.

We had a very easy journey without any traffic. It only took 8.5 hours of driving time to the Eurotunnel at Calais (longer in actual time with coffee stops) and then another 1 hour 15 minutes to get home. Passport control at the Eurotunnel was very slow, but the Pet Check area was super efficient, as we pulled into the car park a staff member came up to the car and checked Xena while she was still in the car.

Thankfully we had no bad weather, after all those reports we were a bit nervous but it was absolutely fine and clear for our entire journey. We are now home, unpacked, post opened and Gavin has even already taken the car to the car wash as it was so filthy.