KEY POINTS:
The idea was plausible enough. Cross France from Nice on the Cote d'Azur to Toulouse in the Haute-Garonne region, a 5 hour drive but travel, instead, by train.
Ah, the joys of a European train ride. It is to be hoped that New Zealand visitors to France for
the Rugby World Cup take the chance to use French trains. They are superb ... most of the time. This day, alas, something different was on show.
Two hours into the trip, the train glided into Toulon and stopped. It looked like it would never start again. The dreaded phrase "indeterminate delay" was heard on the tannoy.
There had been a suicide on the line between Toulon and Marseilles. The service was suspended.
And so I made a decision that looked like costing me my remaining years in this particular world.
She came down the train corridor, smartly dressed and offering English or her native French. "Cees train will be ere for per aps four hours. I will take my car and drive to Montpellier [about 200 km further west along the line]. Do you want to join us?" she cooed. "Eet ees always ze same: today a suicide, tomorrow another problem. Zees trains are terrible." It seemed a bit harsh on the railway people, but there it was.
So I signed up to her adventure party on the platform. A French student, an English journalist and two of the ubiquitous travelling Australians: a veritable pot-pourri of humanity.
What the experience would do was remind me of the intrinsic characteristics of the French; a people who get excited about anything from live lobsters in water tanks at restaurants to snails and frogs legs on a dinner plate. Truly, these are a different people.
But first, we had to arrange refunds for the premature termination of our journey. The leader of our group thrust her way to the front of the queue to remonstrate with a woman who stood behind a window with a large sign: "Ferme."
The conversation became heated, arms began to be waved, shoulders shrugged in classical Gallic manner. "She sez she cannot open zis window, eet ees not time. Incroyable, these people don't care."
Given that the whole station had been paralysed with scores of people waiting for refunds, she had a point. But French officialdom is not for dissuading, especially when customers are within sight. And, I mused, there is nothing like a little adversity to study a people, warts and all.
At last, we completed the paperwork, gathered our bags and found her car. Thank God, I thought, a BMW: this should be solid and safe. Well, the car itself probably was ... but not in the hands of this female Fangio. Here was a woman who could loosen up your internal muscles like few men.
The three-lane motorway she treated as her personal domain. Why use just one lane with three available? And what is that extra space called the hard shoulder for, if you can't drift into that occasionally? All this was negotiated at a speed to outpace Schumacher at Monaco. As we swept down the motorway towards Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles, the car being swung around as if we were on a dodgem track, she performed her piece de resistance.
If you haven't seen a French woman drive a car, answer her mobile phone, wave her arm in Gallic expression in parts of the telephone conversation and with the other hand try to reach into her trouser pockets to find some cash for the toll booth, then you haven't lived. The way the car veered around the road might have been a touch disconcerting to some, but hey, this was France and she was French.
As we flew out of Marseilles (still by road), the Australian girl in the back inquired weakly, "Er, what is the speed limit in France?" It is 130 km/h but to our intrepid driver, that is no more than advisory. She's up nearer 170 and enjoying the view.
"Ah, look at all these boats, they go to Corsica," said our tour guide, one arm directing our view to the port while the car drifted alarmingly sideways, narrowly missing the crash barrier.
Speed cameras? We actually hurtle past one. Alas, the glass frame has had red paint sprayed all over it. The French don't take kindly to rules and restrictions.
And then, mon dieu, someone had the temerity to try to get past. "Oo ees this, a crazy person?" she asked no one in particular, studying the rear-view mirror and waving both arms this time. Takes one to know one, I guess. As for patience, that's a game for card players, not French drivers.
Her other favourite party trick was to get within touching distance of the car in front at high speed and then swing the wheel to the left to overtake at the final moment. Fine, unless someone happens to be in the lane we want. A concerto of horns accompanies her actions, bringing forth loud snorts of derision. But then, using the motorway like a rugby field, a side-step here, a rapid evasion there, does present difficulties to others.
By some miracle, we limp into Montpellier. Profuse thanks are offered, warm embraces all around. And I cross the road to the railway station where, precisely 40 minutes later, the exact same train I had abandoned in Toulon trundles into the station, where I resume my journey.
Ah, but would I have seen French life in all its glory had I stayed on that train?
