The Road to

MONACO 04

Part 1

by Cannonball Bob

Monaco is where rich people go for the weekend.  It’s where rich people watch expensive motor sport from their opulent hotel suites, whilst throwing away money in the evenings at the casino around which this wealthy retreat has based it’s earthquake-proof economy.

I’d been close by Monaco several times but never actually been there.  I had a hankering to see what life was really like in Casino Square but didn’t have the time or more importantly the budget to swank round town for long.  So I went off with a couple of friends and got down there in a couple of days and home again in much the same time.  It was challenging and hectic but not rushed and certainly not impossible.

Now, with today’s ferry prices more buoyant than the ferries themselves, could such a brief trip be justified?  Most of the big ferry operators and the Tunnel ask around £200 for a short stay return so the biggest single expense was looking to be the sea crossing.  This is where  www.Speedferries.com comes in useful.  A one-horse company, they operate between Dover and Buologne using the Easyjet business plan.  No frills, and the fares were, in effect, auctioned off with the price dropping all the time as the date of departure beckoned.  It bottomed out at just £65 for a five day return.  Boarding the tiny catamaran and jetting out of beyond the seawall at Dover I sensed a small victory.  Alongside the docks were the larger corporate ferries, swallowing other people’s cash and caravans and taking longer to do it.  50 minutes later and we rolled off and away in to a sunny Boulogne  and the open, rapid stretches of peage.

If you like fast but relaxed driving French motorways are for you.  Despite Anglo-Saxon ideas of the French being lazy and pompous, they build superb roads which have clearly been designed for rapid transport and we breezed along in warm July sun, roofs down.  Even in the height of summer the traffic never once clogged and by early afternoon we were well on our way to Reims.  If Monaco is the Kensington & Chelsea of motor sport, Reims is Stonehenge and we couldn’t pass by without wandering around the abandoned pit lane which last saw action in 1974.  Appearing over a slight rise the cathedral grandstands look out over what is now a simple country road.  Across the tarmac, the pit lane garages and race control stand empty, windows missing and paint peeling.  Sitting at the back of the grandstand for a while, the sound of passing motorbikes clanged around the interior roof space whilst on the buildings opposite the white wash faded on regardless.  Sponsorship and advertising logos can just be made out in places, Total, Ferodo, Esso, their colours turned pastel by years of decay.  Trees now occupy the garages, the upper floors have fallen in, and in the building’s stairwell, the fossilised remains of a BP mosaic lie waiting to be excavated.

There’s a sad air of neglect about the place, yet it still has overtones of grandeur, of the excitement and danger that it hosted over 30 years ago.

We left the grandstands and headed further east for our night stop, the southern tip of Lake Geneva.  It was knocking on towards 6pm by now and I could hear my firm, compact hotel bed starting to call my name but it was still a few hours away.  Heavy rain arrived as day turned to night, although the scenery was getting more and more spectacular, with the motorway gradually evolving from the die-straight Roman roads of Northern France in to graceful, sweeping low mountain passes.  Tunnels too started becoming a regular feature and gave welcome breaks from the relentless rattling of rain on the car roof.

Emerging from one stretch of underground road I could see the beacons of multiple neon signs in the increasingly dreary night and these marked the beginning of Archamps near Lake Geneva where we had simple hotel rooms booked for the night.  The name “Lake Geneva” may conjure up images of a mirror-perfect expanse of crystal clear water and still mountain air so clean it stings, but this is not so.  Peering further down the valley towards the actual lake itself, it was grey and foggy, with a dim skyline of chimneys, cranes and scaffolding-clad offices. The hotel teetered over the motorway embankment in amongst industrial units also placed for easy commuting. We unpacked the cars just as it was getting totally dark outside, the rain still not giving us a break.  Once inside and in double-glazed comfort, the drab exterior of our over night accommodation was easy to forget and over a beer and some food we recalled what had been a long day in terms of both time and mileage.

It had been a little bland in places but Reims was good and we had a superb impromptu picnic at one of the many well appointed service areas on the motorway. The next day was planned to be a lot shorter, made up for in epic scenery hopefully.  All we needed was for it not to be raining in the morning.