Two men went to Meaux

One man and one woman, actually. We collect our Renault Modus and I drive it round the carpark getting used to LH drive, manual gears and driving on the right. Once I stop flapping at the door handle every time I want to change gear, we drive out and down to the nearest fuel stop. Peter can't get the GPS on his Touch Diamond to find any satellites, so we revert to old technology and buy ourselves a map, which gets us to Meaux. Driving down the main roads turns out to be a breeze compared to navigating the narrow cobbled streets of Meaux. Peter is constantly getting me to move over so I don't sideswipe the wing mirrors of parked cars, and I'm constantly moving right again to avoid oncoming traffic. We decide the best option is to park and walk. Cobbled streets now a delight, as is meeting a group of girls on horseback coming down the street. Meaux feels very French as we pass fromager, charcuterie and shops of elegant clothes. Having had 5 meals in a "day" that has gone on for about 20 hours, we aren't hungry. We are in search of a hotel we glimpsed on the way in, but couldn't find again when driving around. Finally we go into a restaurant, get directions, navigate back to the car and drive to the hotel, book in, have long long long showers and collapse. We wake early and go out to buy croissants and pastries for breakfast so that we can feel properly French. We organise French SIM cards for our phones, view the cathedral and eat a beautiful lunch before heading off Loire-wards via Fontainebleu. Peter's Garmin satnav system found satellites overnight, but we still manage to take a number of wrong turns en route. We finally get up courage to tackle an autoroute, and find it surprisingly easy. Rather than roar along at the speed limit of 130kph, we tuck in behind the 90kph limited trucks, and let the rest go by, occasionally overtaking to get a different truck's backside to look at. We muddle through the toll system, as I thought we put a credit card in at the entry tolling point, rather than taking a ticket out. When we finally get to use a credit card at the Sortie it isn't accepted and we have to pay cash. We arrive at our gite Le Plessis in time to meet Veronica, who is charming and helpfully directs us to a nearby restaurant for dinner.