Paris Roundabouts

By midday on Wednesday 30 March Eurostar had swiftly delivered us from London to Paris.  We took a cab from Gare du Nord straight on to the Périphérique and to the 16er where we had an appointment to collect our new means of transport for the year.  A shiny new Citroën DS3. 

She´s sleek and stylish, classic lines with a modern edge....and so we named her Cécile de France.  Two toned, slate with a ruby red roof - or is it burgundy?  In any case, she´s very French!

I took the wheel and edged Cécile out of the Citroën driveway, and under instructions from our resident gps (affectionately named Dotty) made an immediate u-turn into one of Paris´s notorious roundabouts!  "Anti-clockwise" I kept reminding myself.  I thought that was all I needed to know.  Mon dieu!  It was probably only a 6 or 8 lane roundabout, but with no lane markings there are as many lanes as there are cars.  I managed to steer Cécile to the ´middle´ and there, immediately to our right, a four-car collision.  I carefully crept our brand new car past the waving arms and shouts.  First attempt to exit the roundabout was aborted and on the second attempt I jumped too early - the wrong exit.  Nevermind, Dotty had us manouvering through narrow lanes and alleyways until, before long, the dreaded roundabout reappeared.

This time success!  In a few minutes we were heading south, in search of Spanish sunshine, laughing all the way.

We pulled off the autoroute to celebrate with a café crème and a baguette, toasting to Cécile de France and our new adventure together -"here´s to Paris roundabouts".



She has red number plates, and as we have seen
 no other red number plates, we can only think
that it is to warn other drivers!



Cécile - she´s lovely outside and in.