Bonjour!

My wife and I just got back from a 3-week trip to London and France. I was, of course, keeping an eye out for MINIs while we were traveling...

I was surprised that I didn't see more MINIs during our four days in London. Sure, we saw some, but not as many as I expected. (We did see a lot of Smart Cars, though. I want a Roadster!) It was also surprising how many of the MINIs we did see were convertibles. It seemed odd to me that there is a much higher proportion of convertibles to coupes in London than here in "sunny" California. My wife surmised that the weather in London is so gloomy so much of the time, that when the sun comes out, people want to take advantage of it.


OTOH, when we got to France, we saw MINIs galore! LOTS of "classic" Minis, too. Almost all of the classics had bash bars front and back. The way the French park is amazing. They get SO close! I guess the classic's headlights and taillights are just too vulnerable.

Saw a few 2007 MINIs. One of them was parked, so I got a good close look at it. With all the stuff I had read about the styling changes, I was surprised how much it looks like the earlier models. It's pretty subtle, subtle enough that my wife, who is a bit of a car freak and of course sees mine in the driveway every day, couldn't spot them.

me: "There - there goes a 2007."
her: "How can you tell?"
me: "It just looks different - can't you see it?"
her: "Hmm - maaaaybe."

We saw lots of billboards in France for the new MINI Cooper D(iesel). I would have liked to drive one of those!

Speaking of diesel, we rented a Ford Fiesta TDi turbo diesel. I didn't ask specifically for a diesel, but I'm glad they gave me one. The cheapest we paid was 1.01 euros per liter (about $5.16 per gallon) while regular gas was mostly around 1.36 euros/l ($7.00/gal.), plus the car undoubtedly got better mileage. I figure we might have saved as much as a couple hundred bucks over a gas car. (We also saved some money when the Autoroute workers went on strike in the southeast of France and waved everyone through the tollbooths without paying!)

Our Fiesta was a pretty decent little car. Fairly peppy and okay on the highway. And small enough to drive down narrow medieval streets and park in amazingly tight spaces. My only complaint was the fairly loud diesel "clatter" inside the cabin. The car kind of grew on us as we drove it for 12 days. Factor in how much we saved on fuel, and I could almost say we loved it!

Our plans changed in the middle of the trip, so we ended up doing the car rental at the last minute. (I've heard you can get better rates if you reserve your rentacar from the US before you leave.) After a little searching on the Internet, I discovered that I could get a 25% discount from Hertz with my AARP membership. I didn't have my AARP card with me, but I went ahead and entered the discount code in the box on Hertz' website, and sure enough, no one asked for the card. The only mistake I made was I didn't look closely enough at the return TIME. I got the date right, but returned the car at about 3:00 in the afternoon, when it was due at 10am. That extra day cost me about 75 euros. Ouch! Should have reserved one more day...

Anyway, beyond the car thing, we had an amazing trip! My wife had never been to Europe, so it was kind of fun seeing it all again through her eyes. The French were wonderful and charming, and made us feel very welcome. (Yes, even in Paris.) We were very lucky with the weather - aside from London (which was typically gloomy and drizzly), we only got rained on one day in Arles.

Quick highlights: seeing Les Mis in London's West End, pubs (!), Sainte Chapelle in Paris (the most beautiful building interior I have ever seen!), walking around Paris at night, standing in St. Hubert's Chapel in the Amboise Chateau and discovering that Leonardo da Vinci was buried there (!), hearing countertenor Luc Arbogast singing in the plaza in front of the Palais des Papes in Avignon on Easter Sunday, lunch at the Colombe d'Or in Saint Paul de Vence, the Van Gogh walk in Arles, and spending time with our daughter who is doing a semester abroad in Cannes!

 

Sounds like a great trip. I got to see Les Mis with the original cast when I was 18 in London- I think it was the Royal Theater. I also really enjoyed London-I want to see much more of Europe, just haven't had the time or $$ lately but soon!

I have also wondered about the Brits and convertables. In the 40's-80's they built some of the best roadsters which has always seemed odd to me considering their weather. I figured the same as your wife-when it nice,it's really nice so celebrate!

 

Great, My wife and I will be in France later this week for 10 days. Time to go Mini hunting

 

Have a great trip. Where will you be? I could recommend some great places...

We were in Paris for 6 days, 2 days in the Loire Valley (Chateau country), 2 days in Arles, 2 days in Avignon, 4 days in Cannes, 3 days in the St. Paul de Vence area in Provence. You going to be near any of those places?

Bon voyage!

 

Loved the pictures. I went to London for business 3 months ago and managed to skip over to France for a few days between meetings. I thought the smart cars were sooo cute. By the way, French people are WILD drivers!! I was terrified most of the time while on their roads. OLD people were passing me like I was standing still!

 

my first car was a 78 Fiesta and loved it....Lee Iacocca in his book while at Chrysler, after he had left Ford, wrote that the bigggest mistake he had made while at Ford was not bringing the Fiesta over to the US to manufacture it here to make it be considered a domestic model.....they stopped importing it here once it became a 'captive import' and no longer could be considered part of the manufacturer's fleet mpg averages around 1980.....they needed to sell more low profit Pintos to allow them to sell more higher profit Continentals, so the more Fiestas people bought would mean the less Pintos they might potentially purchase, so they squelched the Fiesta rather than producing it here to replace the Pinto

 

I was very nervous the first couple of days, but then I relaxed. I found "go with the flow" to be a good rule of thumb for driving there. Don't worry about speed limits, lane markings, right of way rules... just go with the flow. If everybody else around you is doing it, you do it, too.

And every time we got behind someone who STOPPED when entering a roundabouts my wife and I joked, "Must be an American!"

 

Could it have been the "Queen's Theatre"? That's where we saw it.

A quick peek at Wikipedia says it opened at the Barbican Theatre (10/85), then moved to the Palace Theatre (12/85) and then to the Queen's Theatre (4/04).

And FWIW, John Owen-Jones played Jean Valjean. (Odd similarities in those names!) Brilliant actor and one of the greatest musical theater singers I have ever heard. I'm not kidding - I understood every single word he sang the entire evening. And my hearing ain't all that good these days!

 

Now that was a well written trip summary. Thanks!

 

Well, the wife and I had a great time. We spent two days in Paris, 3 days in the Normandy area, and the last 5 in the Carcossonne (Languedoc region) You are right, Paris is the city of Minis. i got tired the first day taking pics of the ones I saw, new and classic. Paris was great seeing all the sites. My wife is French so that helped. Then in Normandy, her friend had a car and drove us around to all the sites. Then on to carcasonne, where her family is, to see the largest castle in europe. Her sister has a car there so we were chauffered around again to the mountains and other little villages. Man I loved it all. I even got to drive a Citroen 2cv around a little village in Gruvet, south of Normandy. cool little car, and I am now looking to import one. I thought I would be sad to miss the Dragon, but I ran into one which was way better. We found this painted on the side of a schoolhouse in a lil village not far from Rennes le Chateau,