Driving in France - the humanity!!

My husband and I recently rented a car and did a road trip across France.  10 days, 5 cities, more than 20 hours in the car.  My husband also was able to do one of the most difficult things in the world - drive in Paris.   We got lost for the first time 20 minutes after leaving our house.  The problem was complicated by the fact that every exit on the highway just led to another highway, and then another highway, so 50 km and 6 highways later, we are finally on our way in the right direction once again.

And my husband isn't the only one being brave.  I am also trying to direct him using nothing but the blinkie blue dot on google maps on my iphone.  This works great when walking.  It's less useful when driving.  The blinkie blue dot takes a while to update.   So my husband is going through a roundabout with three lanes and 7 exits and asking me where to go, while Mr. Blinkie Blue Dot says we are in the middle of a forest.

It doesn't help that roads in France are completely crazy.  A nice little grid?  Why do that when your roads can instead resemble a nice plate of noodles!  (One way noodles!) 

An example of where we got lost

Or traffic circles?   It's not a nice simple circle with roads radiating away from it at straight angles.  There are zig zags and sub cirlcles.  And other fun road shapes I've never seen before.

Then the French have a tendency to park in the middle of the road.  We were on a 4 lane road, with people parking in the left hand lane, a bus parked diagonally across the right two lanes of traffic, leaving my dear husband only a half a lane to drive through, with cars swerving all around us. 

We survived, although we did get lost a total of 6 times.  But we did it, and are two of the few brave souls to say we survived driving in France.