Spardo:
harry:
So the three wheel dog express has run its course ,Spardo?The 3 wheeler was never for the dogs Harry, but has run its course on the road long since and is now doing sterling service as a log store just outside the back door.
The dog express is still in full swing, with the Berlingo and the (re-chassised) Teardrop sleeper. It was with 2 big male Dobermanns that I was travelling that Saturday/Sunday mentioned above. I had collected 2 Galgos (Spanish Greyhounds) and 2 smaller dogs from Cestas services on the Friday lunchtime, overnighted at the only remaining routier in Chateau Gaillard, south of Paris, and delivered them to Douai in the Nord Departement Saturday midday. This is a regular run for me.
On Saturday afternoon I collected the 2 Dobies from nearby and Bethune and headed south with them. One Dobie was very frightened and nervous and made a lot of noise when the car stopped. After failing at Rouen I pulled up at the routier, now by-passed at St. Germain la Gatine, north of Chartres, fed them, walked them and prepared to settle down for the night. However Rocky, the nervous one, set up such a howling and barking that I thought it better to move on, the routier patron lives on site and there are neighbours. I finally pulled in behind a Spanish frigo south of Chartres on the N10. I reckoned I wouldn’t hear his frigo from there, and he wouldn’t hear my dog.
After Sunday lunch at Vivonne I was intending to overnight on the parking in the centre of Carcans which is halfway up the Medoc peninsula NW of Bordeaux. However, with Rocky being so noisy I thought the middle of town wasn’t a good idea and so continued the half hour further on into the wilds to the animal pension that was to be his new temporary home, intending to sleep there till my rdv at 8 on Monday. Good job I did because Eddy the boss was on site and took him in there and then. I then went across Bordeaux and down past Langon to park up with my other ‘mate’, Eliot. Again though, at this other pension the owners lived on site (I hadn’t realised that) and took him too! Result! So I was home Monday morning instead of afternoon.
Robert, I have remembered the Relais de la Beauce. It is the one just north of Ymonenville and has benefitted from the bit of new road running past it. The entrance is now from a side road and the lorry park is bigger, if anything, than I remember it. Long time since I ate there though, it was another good one I think.
At Bordeaux my favourite was always the Albatross, one of 5 restos almost under the Pont Aquitaine but only that (now renamed) and the Monte Cristo next door remain. I was looking to eat, but not stay there, on a recent Friday night but they were both closed so I went round to the Centre Routier round the corner where the food couldn’t be faulted. Especially not for about 14 and a half euros all in.
Thank you: you are spot on there, Relais de la Beauce is at Ymonenville! You mentioned the bypassed St Germaine la Gatine near Chartre. I used that one quite a lot and always got a good meal there. I can feel a carafe coming on already! Robert 