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We awoke to grey skies and drizzle on our arrival
in Le Havre and disembarked just after 8 am and made our way
out of a Le Havre, greatly enjoying hearing 'Emily' (James' new sat-nav!) direct
us along the 'Winstern Shersheel Boulevard'....
Having set Emily to avoid toll
roads, she immediately decided to avoid the bridge just outside Le Havre (the
Pont de Tankerville) and took us on a very strange journey through a large
industrial estate, before depositing us at the edge of the river Seine, with the
instruction, 'Board the ferry'! Having left one ferry only 45
minutes or so before, neither James or I had expected to be boarding another one
quite so soon! We could have gone back of course, but we thought -
in for a cent, in for a Euro - we'd give it a try!
This turned out to be the ferry at Bac de
Quillebeuf which took us over to Port Jérôme on the other side of the river
Seine. We then continued our drive along a very pleasant scenic route to
Le Mans after this unexpected and very surreal diversion.
We arrived in Le Mans just before noon, sadly just
too late to book into our hotel, so we took a drive around the town, then down
the Mulsanne Straight and from there on to Indianapolis and Arnage, where we
stopped briefly to take our first look at the new gravel trap installed on the
outside of Arnage. We were both quite interested in the strip of astroturf
laid there, wondering if it would get ripped up like the similar strip on the
straight at Silverstone had last September....
We got back in the car fairly quickly - it was by
now raining reasonably hard - and drove on down to the Porsche Curves where we
investigated the viewing area at what was clearly these days the 'Travel
Destinations' campsite. We were hoping to find out way in here some time
during practice or the race. We actually wandered up onto the track for a
look at the hallowed tarmac and to admire the view the drivers would soon be
seeing a lot of.
But by now we were both feeling pretty hungry, so
we decided to stop to sample some traditional French fare - at McDonalds!
A couple of burgers and fries later we toured the centre of Le Mans for about 20
minutes looking for a good parking spot from which to walk to scrutineering,
which was to be held this year in the Place de la Republic.
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