It has been a few years since I last went on holiday and the same for my mother who last travelled with my late father the year before the COVID global pandemic. This year we’ll be travelling together, partly following a route my parents would formerly have taken with stops and way points that had been their traditional holiday for their last 3 or 4 years of summer travel.

By the time this is posted either the holiday will be underway else over (though posts will be back dated). Also I need to apologise to those of you wondering where the fountain pen connection is, this blog was first started as a place to allow friends and family to read up on my travels.

The route, as mentioned, follows roughly the route taken previously by my parents, or more accurately with stopping/passing through a small town near Limoges where a late friend of my later father used to live. My parents used to stay with Bruce for a few days each year on their way down to the jazz festival at Marciac. My mother is hoping to spot one or more of his friends they had previously met to say hi. Finally the turn around point was to be Marciac as my parents became regular attenders of the annual jazz festival, except we could not book accommodation within about 20 miles of the town, however we will not be that far away in Auch and so will visit. Additionally a friend of my mother’s has moved in to the area, though she will not be around at the time.

Side note. This will be my first time driving on the Continent in an EV, though one with close to a 300 mile real world range (450km). All routes have been planned accordingly, with the side catch that I have been trying to target using just one charging network, Ionity, as I have a discount with them that makes the charging costs not much different from off peak at home, i.e. 25p per kW (and I think 25c or 29c in France) compared to 69p per kW normal price. This does cause some limitations, though no real problems. The one thing that will prove to be difficult is avoiding péage and auto routes, particularly the former. Putting aside the cost and the fact that long stretches at 130kmh (~82mph) will hurt the range of the car, the routes are boring and also avoid points of interest.