Our leisurely luncheon, followed by our canal-side activity, had taken up more time than we had thought. We therefore decided to press on more quickly so, at the next ‘échangeur’ we turned onto the fast trunk road, or ‘autoroute’ as it is called in France. We were eating up the miles when the sky began to darken and we could see heavy rain clouds on the horizon. We stayed on the autoroute, stopping only briefly at a ‘Station de Service’ to re-fuel and put up the hood before the rain came.
After a few more