The Opel and the MINIs
Beastmaster and Peanut Adventures
Mini Adventure to Le Mont Saint Michel
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The Plan. It's a simple plan - grab a load of minis and catch the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Le Havre on Thursday night 23rd March 2006, spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday in France and return on Monday. We will be based in a hotel close to Le Mont Saint Michel. |
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The Map.
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The Hotel.
Best Western |
Le Moulin De Ducey |
| 1 Grande Rue,, Ducey, France, FR-50220 |
The webpage for the hotel gives a variety of rooms but budget for £50.00 a night per room and you have this well covered.
The Ferry.
LD Lines You need to book a cabin on the way out and a basic seat for each passenger on the way home. 11pm sailing out and 5 pm sailing back on Monday afternoon. Cost should be £148.00 per couple with car.
The Sell.
3 nights in France, one night in a cabin on the ferry, loads of mini adventures and some fine French cuisine to boot! All for £150.00 per person assuming you are travelling as a couple. That gives you more holiday for less money, compared to GoMini's 2005 mini weekender.
The Players.
1. Beastmaster and Peanut (Ady and Chrissie)
2. minifriz and mandy moo (Darren and Mandy)
3. paa100 (Andy and Natalie)
4. RVW (Ray and Gail)
5. chrisandjax (Chris and Jax)
6. Matrog and Becca (Matt and Becca)
7. Jaffa Racer (Kev and Carol)
8. phone (Tony and Janet)
The Itinerary.
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To be determined after discussion amongst participants but to include a few mini runs, a few meals out, some free time, some shopping time, some chateau hunts and constant fun! Le Mont Saint Michel, Chateau de Combourg and St Malo are just a few of the local delights waiting to be explored by minis! |
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Friday
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Sunday |
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Monday
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Detailed Autoroutes |
Photographs and Tales from the French Weekender
The video |
Nb. The video is 131mb and takes half an hour to download on a 1mb broadband connection |
Normandy Report by Natalie Williams
Mini Conquest of Normandy
I would like to thank to all the other new Mini owners who came with us
to Normandy for the weekend break at the end of March, 2006, because I
am finally beginning to understand my husband – he was destined to get
that cute little car. It is so that if you are a new Mini owner, you
cannot be normal. You are probably quite eccentric, too gadget liking,
occasionally rude in a Mr. Fawlty- manner, and possibly also a little
bit short-fused. I don’t want to claim that stylish Beastmaster – the leader of the weekend pack -, trolley making and beer drinking Darren, brainy Andy, driving master Ray, burger loving Matt, environmental friendly Chris and Jack, fun loving Kev and quiet Tony are all lunatics who should be confined in an asylum for the rest of their lives, surrounded by a large garden behind incredibly high walls. I just want to say that all these seemingly very different people are in fact very similar. As a mere Mini passenger I find it very scary.
And now, I would like to award some prizes for the weekend as an expression of my eternal gratitude and for having a great time. The first prize for the sense of drama goes to Matt, otherwise known as Matrog, who tried to lead our convoy through Le Havre and managed to lose four Minis within the first mile. The second prize won the chocolatier and baker Dupont avec thé in the town of Trouville for excellent and unique croissant and pain au chocolate kebabs on their breakfast menu.
The Shortest fuse award goes to my husband for loosing patience far too quickly with other Minis and leaving them at the car park to find their way back to the hotel.
The prize for the best ladies’ underwear conversation at breakfast is deservingly won by Ady alias Beastmaster for his near monologue on the issue at Saturday’s breakfast. And Saturday gets the prize as the wettest and windiest day of the trip. I definitely got very cold. The best lunch award goes to the restaurant in l’Hostellerie du Chateau, in a lovely market town of Bricquebec, with its excellent four-course menu, and best crème bruleé I have ever eaten (three flavours – vanilla, chicory and saffron).
The most pulled face award goes to Becca for her disappointed expression when her Chateau - par excellence lunch arrived and she finally realised it was not going to be fish, chips, crisps and Mr. Whippy with smarties.
The best quizmaster goes to Chris Keighley for two reasons: he has an electric blue car and we won. Janet takes the prize for developing condition called passenger sickness and still enjoying herself, and Carol for bravery as a vegetarian in France.
And this is the second prize of the night for Matt for the most remarkable words of the weekend: five Minis were left behind in the busy town of St. Malo, so Ray called Matt’s mobile and asked him where he was, to which quick Matt answered: “At the traffic lights.” Right, very helpful. Long live sat nav! The most unpleasant surprise award goes to the French supermarket petrol stations that are unusable for foreigners on Sundays as the person in a hut who normally charges you for the purchase is probably having lunch with her husband/his wife and all you are left with are machines that don’t communicate with British bank cards. Done. All the prizes dealt.
In short, those four days in Normandy felt like a month. I could not believe how much we managed to squeeze in it. Was it really only today when we saw Le Mont St Michel with its grandiosity of Lord of the Rings’ set? Returning to our hotel from our last supper together we met a group of drunken French youngsters. They were violently pointing towards our hotel and babbling in French, which no one could understand quite enough to make any sense of it. As soon as they got that we were unable to converse or comprehend in their language one of the young ladies smiled and said in English, pointing towards our hotel again: “Something good is happening there.” And we looked and we saw our lovely Minis and had to agree with the French Miss: wherever Minis go, something good always happens.
P.S.: Beastmaster asked me to write the Czech take on the events. I am not sure I have done that. I do apologize these who I managed to insult and those who I forgot to insult – well, perhaps next time. Natalie Williams April 2006
