Bordeaux

Well, we can officially say we have driven over the longest bridge in France as we needed to cross the Loire river on our way to Bordeaux (not strictly true but we wanted to go on the bridge) it is approx 3,500 metres long. That means we have now driven on the highest bridge in France (Millau Viaduct) which stands at 350 ish metres tall and the longest. I want to try and find the shortest and lowest but Laura won’t let me.

Drove the first leg of our journey to a massive shopping centre at La Roche Sur Yon which has Tesla chargers. This was always the plan as we like a good shop and as it was about 1 and a half hours from Saint Nazaire, the toilet would be needed. The car was charged way before we were ready to leave which is pretty much always the case, so it needed to be moved to a normal parking space after, no biggie – helps get the steps in!
For the next leg, we drove another 1hr 30 mins or so to Tesla chargers at a town called ‘Saints’ all the chargers are easy to see on the route map, so no planning is needed but as I am an overthinker, Laura and I would have already had this stop half planned in our heads. As it was near the shops, we used the loo and Elliott went Lego shopping as this has become a bit of a holiday tradition. After grabbing a few snacks as well we were ready to hit the road.

The final leg to Bordeaux was pretty uneventful unless you count the massive near accident as another car had unfortunately hit a deer and it was lying dead in the road so cars were swerving to avoid it or slamming on the brakes causing cars to nearly enter the car ahead from behind.
Total miles travel today were 262 at an average of 69mph – it was noticeably hotter today, so air con was on a pretty high speed as well as my ventilated seat. All this means the m/kwh was 3.8 – The Merc in similar conditions last year was around 2.8.

We arrived at the hotel in the early evening and ate dinner in the restaurant.

Our plan was to explore the city in the morning before heading to our next stop, so after breakfast we caught a bus into the city centre. The trams which ran from near the hotel weren't in service, but the bus route was simple enough and got us to where we needed to go from right outside the hotel.

We looked around the cathedral first and then wandered the streets down to the river where we took in the grand buildings, monuments and reflection pool before a ride on the big wheel. We made our way back to the bus stop, confident that by waiting at the stop on the opposite side of the road to where we got off, we would catch the bus back from whence we came. After waiting for ages and not seeing any buses with the number we needed, we saw a sign with our bus number that pointed around the corner from where we were waiting, little did we know that because the buses were replacing the trams, we should have been waiting at the tram stop for the bus! Just as we turned the corner, our bus arrived so we hopped on and headed back to the hotel to pick up the car and head off.Read more