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RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Bryan Downes - 03-09-2017
Below should be, if I can work it properly, a picture from my Ipad taken today at 9:00 am french time on our way down to Faverges 30 kilometres south of Annecy. This is the beging of today's journey 140 miles to Macon in Burgundy.
Hope it works, Bryan.
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Timothy P - 03-09-2017
Really enjoying your updates Bryan, thank you very much for sharing.
Definitely feeling inspired.
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Duncan Grimmond - 03-09-2017
Wow, suitably impressed. Crack on!
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Erich - 04-09-2017
Beautiful, Bryan. Postcard worthy!
Erich
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Bryan Downes - 05-09-2017
Thank you Timothy, Duncan and Erich for your interest and kind remarks.
Sorry for the delay in updating but had no internet available for past two days!
On Sunday last we drove fron Tertenoz along lake Annecy and through the very sprawling town of Annecy to get onto our 143 mile route to Macon. The route was quite scenic but more hilly than we realised and thus our journey was longer than predicted.
Stayed the night just outside Macon and left early to drive 139 miles to Avalon. First stop was a visit to an artisan confiture fabricant that my wife knew about who makes exotic cherry, bitter cherry and dark chocolate conserve.....wow. We found him and bought some! See picture. Then continueing our journey through the Maconaise vineyards looking neat and orderly and very scenic. These are the chardonnay graves that make the very good Macon Blanc white wine you see in varying qualities at your wine merchant or supermarket. The vines gave way to arrable crops and cattle raising and then on into the Morvan National Park area of hills covered in mixed forrest and grass scenery stretching as the can see - very spetacular and some of the best scenery all holiday. In fact this is our best day's route except for that in the Haut Savoie.
Here is the picture of the visit to the Artisan Confiture Fabricant:
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Ruairidh Dunford - 05-09-2017
Good going Bryan!
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Bryan Downes - 05-09-2017
Here is picture of some of the Maconaise vineyards
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Martin Paul - 06-09-2017
What an amazing trip you are both having. Thanks for keeping us updated.
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Bryan Downes - 09-09-2017
From Avalon our route continued to Beaugency on the Loire, then to Caen Ousterem for the ferry to Portsmouth, and then home to Stafford. The total tour distance covered was 1741 miles.
We have enjoyed a wonderful Austin Seven motoring holiday in France; our route taking us through some beautiful countryside in Normandy; interesting and scenic farmland towards Moulin; the wine region of Beaujolais; splendid alpine scenery of the Haute Savoie; vineyards of the Burgundy wine area around Macon; the splendid Morvan National Park with its spectacular scenery; and a lot more as well. Furthermore, the traffic-free “D” roads that formed most of our route have been superb and gave us really pleasurable driving.
Our Austin Seven has been much admired everywhere we stopped and has been a great conversation starter: we met Venezuelan cyclists in the Loire, chatted with Australian cyclists on our climb up the Col de la Croix Fry in the Haute Savoir, spoke to a mechanical engineer from Israel at the top of the Col des Aravis, met Dutch and Belgian holiday makers, and enjoyed speaking to many French people from all walks of life at every coffee stop - they all admired our Austin Seven and wanted to know all about it!
Furtermore, our amazing little car never missed a beat and was completely reliable during the whole trip requiring no repairs – not even one carburettor jet needed cleaning ! Also, you may be interested to know the car retains its up draught carburettor, low compression head, original DS4 distributer with standard contact breaker, and (this could be controversial) original Austin crankshaft with properly split-pinned castellated big end nuts!
One amusing, or not so amusing, incident occurred as I was filling up with petrol at a supermarche near Avalon: a French man in a car pulled alongside, got out of his car, said in perfect English how much he liked our Austin, asked its age, my wife told him 1930 and thus 87 years, he said: “ thats old so that is three old ones!” and drove off. We were speechless! We never think of ourselves like that even though I am in my eightieth year! Most French people are very polite and nice!
All this and the joy of driving a vintage car on wonderful traffic-free well surfaced roads that put UK roads to shame.
Bryan and Roberta.
More pictures:
I should have given the last six pictures captions:
!) Annecy old centre
2) Ascending Col de la Croix Fry
3) Also ascending the Col de la Croix fry
4) Summit of Col de la Croix Fry
5) La Clusaz
6) At summit of Col des Aravis
Bryan.
More pics to follow soon.
RE: Austin Seven on holiday in France - Timothy P - 09-09-2017
It has been a pleasure following your progress Bryan. Sounds like it was a truly wonderful holiday, thank you again for sharing your experiences, and for the photos of your beautiful car in the stunning scenery. Pleased to hear some detail on your car, and that it performed so flawlessly. It sounds like the car enjoyed the trip and the attention as much as you did.