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Back at Le Grand Lucé, a splash of water on my
face and croissants, French bread, jam and masses of
coffee had the desired effect and I joined the rest of the Tourists (some of
whom had contrived to miss something like 14 hours of the race so far…… ), in the
back yard for the team photographs, which had a special significance this year
as we all again donned our Le Cheval Blanc t-shirts!
After saying our farewells to Madame and her
staff we set off about 9.30 a.m. from Le Grand Lucé on our now standard run out
to Indianapolis and Arnage. We were lucky enough to get all the cars into the
first overflow car park there (lucky of course, as John had no garage ticket for
his car!), and the weather was still reasonable as we made our way up onto the
spectator banking. We were greeted by another new TV screen there – just as
well, as the view there is now so poor…..
I took one or two shots here, but to be frank,
I've only included them for the sake of completeness. These days there is
little point taking photographs at Arnage and Indianapolis as there is no way
past the debris fencing unless you have a stepladder - and no, I'm taking one of
those next year!
But Arnage does have the great advantage of some
of the better food and drink anywhere on the circuit and before long the lure of
cider, omelettes and merguez proved too much and we adjourned to the eaterie for
an early lunch. And so it was that I sat there in that seat for what
seemed like hours, quite unable to summon up the energy to go back out again.
But it was as well that we had chosen this spot
and grabbed those seats…. Earlier in the morning I had told the others that the
forecast said that it was just a matter of time before the rains came again and
this time, expect a real downpour. And so it came, within minutes all but the
most diehard had left the banking for cover as it rained torrentially – so hard
that it even began seeping through the tarpaulins over the seating area at the
eaterie.
Any thought we may have
previously had of heading back to
the garages went out of the window as the rain continued to pour down and the
race continued until near the end under the safety car. Which I suspect
was relief for one or two of the Tourists! But a shame that one of the
more entertaining Le Mans races in recent years should end as a bit of a damp
squib…..
We headed back to the cars and made our somewhat
damp journey away from the circuit for another year. As usual, the journey was
no more than a matter of moments for me in Martyn’s car, as I slept like a baby
all the way to the
Hotel Continental
at Cancale. We were the first to arrive
there and Jim and I grabbed a room while Alan dealt with the rest of the
allocations. After struggling with the controls for 10 minutes, I finally got
the shower working and slowly brought myself back to some semblance of life
before joining some of the others in a pastis in one of the local bars.
We discovered that the hotel was under new
management since our last visit here in 2004 but I was relieved to find that the
food was just as good as ever. Is there anything to beat a platter of huge
langoustines? (Other than a huge platter of huge langoustines,
perhaps....... ).
The St. Jacques (scallops) which followed – in an excellent
asparagus risotto were also excellent. As the meal drew to a close and the
thoughts of some (who had had more sleep the night before than me!) turned to
going out on the town, I headed off to bed and some badly needed sleep.
As you might imagine, little disturbed me that
night and we slept well into the morning before getting up
and indulging in a very good, leisurely breakfast. We left charming Cancale in
good weather at about 9.45 to make the journey on to Port en Bessin – you see,
we already had our next meal planned well in advance!
Again, long-standing readers will know that
we had stayed on the Sunday night at Port en Bessin in both 1995 and 1996 and as
we arrived there just after midday, we made a beeline again to the Hotel De La
Marine -
http://www.hoteldelamarine.pretexx.fr/en/hotel.html -
where we managed to book ourselves in for lunch. The soupe de poisson was very
good as was the fish dish which followed, although my third apple tart of the
weekend was actually quite poor compared to that which Madame served us at Le
Cheval Blanc on Saturday night!
The meal over, there was no real time for
sight-seeing. Some were keen to get to the hypermarket but Martyn was a bit
more concerned by the fact that he could no longer find his ferry ticket. So
we decided it would be more prudent to get to the ferry terminal at Caen to sort this
out instead of going shopping! We left Port en Bessin somewhere around 2.45, I
guess, and with a sailing at 4.30 p.m. French time, we knew we had to make
tracks to the terminal. In fact, when we got there, the loss of the tickets was
no problem at all as the booking was on their computer system, but the fact that
we had four people in the car was – the ticket (of course – remember Portsmouth
on Thursday night?) was for three….
But they let us through, intending that we should
wait for the other cars and make the same adjustment as we had on Thursday, but
in the end, we couldn’t be bothered to wait any longer and sneaked on board
anyway….
And so the 2007 Tourists trip to Le Mans came to
a close. I’ll say no more about the ferry journey back to Portsmouth than I
usually do……
And so to conclusions: I think I can say quite
honestly that this was one of the best trips of the 22 I’ve been lucky enough to
experience. The company was splendid, as always. It was good to have some old
faces back with us after a few years away and to meet new acquaintances, some of
whom I have little doubt are likely to join us again. The highs? Experiencing
the whole of the Friday evening driver parade for the first time - a great Ten
Tenths meeting – so much great food (!) and generally excellent company. The
lows? Very few indeed – just the weather really and that only spoiled things
when I was drowned on Friday and when the race was badly affected in the last
couple of hours.
Once again, my thanks are due in the main to Ian,
our Chief Tourist for brilliantly organising the whole event again. Now we can
look forward to Le Mans 2008…….
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