So, after an uneventful trip through Holland and a 15€ breakfast (2 week-old pains and 2 cups of coffee) in Belgium we arrived in La France just north of Rubaix.

Having been warned about the cost of French toll roads, we had planned to go by way of the backroads past Paris and find the N10 (yes, the French know how to name their roads - and make them sort of visible to tourists)

It turned out, that even finding our way out of Rubaix proved somewhat troublesome. Eventually we found our way towards Lille and found the proper exit to be on our merry way..

Pretty soon we found ourselves on a nice country road heading for Amiens, but it seemed everytime we hit a village we got lost again. Mainly because we didn't understand that unless otherwise specified - the N5 (which we were following) would continue straight ahead... In retrospect that seems pretty obvious, but at the time it was a little frustrating to constantly loose sight of where to go next.

We found Amiens, and as the temperature had reached 30°C we decided to find a park - which we did, and it was huge and with a nice little stream/river! - and take a nap. (Kimie had been driving most of the night, and I was still tired from the lack of sleep the week before).

A little rest did us (well certainly me) a lot of good, and we continued south towards Chartres. Roads were pretty narrow and only allowed us to average something like 60 km/h, but the countryside was nice. Sometime late Saturday we reached Tours where we got lost again - but found the N10 which leads South past Bordeaux and eventually Spain.

And this is where we learned another important lesson: 24 hour gas stations in France are practically non-existing outside the toll roads. As we reached Barbezieux we were down to 5 litres in the tank, and we didn't dare go any further without gas. Actually we had passed numerous gas stations on the way - and you could use them 24 hours a day, if you possess a French Credit Card!

Since we only had Visa and MasterCard we were pretty much screwed. And worse yet: Next day being Sunday, there was little hope of finding an open gas station anywhere, so we decided to wait til sunrise, find a gas station i Barbezieux and rely on The Kindness of Strangers. A nice French fellow allowed us to use his credit card (in exchange for €, of course) and off we went with another 3 hours worth of sleep in the bag.

3rd lesson learned: If you travel in France at night, use the toll roads, where you're sure to find 24 hour manned gas stations.