Both of those were wonderful in their day. Vivonne was one of those French local family routiers, so on Sunday lunchtimes, you had a classic mixture of local families with children dining alongside lorry drivers of all nations, endless carafes of vino collapso sweetening the social inter course. Those days will never come back.
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That’s exactly right, at Vivone all the cars would pull in at lunch time, then the locals would come to eat and be immaculately dressed and well turned out for a four hour long lunch and as you rightly said be sat next to drivers.
You may remember the Spanish driver that died in his cab after a fault with the night heater to set the cab on fire, despite the fire station being only a km away he sadly perished, the fireman arrived in minutes, the fire was about 02.00 am.
Drivers tried in vain to save him.
It’s customary in France to socialise at the bar for an aperitif to promote appetite ,after the meal a digestive drink at the bar to aid digestion such as a Calvados.
The pre-meal drink could be a drink with aniseed or liquorice such as Pernod or Ricardo.
Another point is on the continent they allow lorry parking at hotels, that’s a no no in the UK.
It was never a problem in Spain or France with adequate space for parking then indulge in the menu de dia, daily menu at a set price, some hotels offered discounts for drivers for a room so as a treat I would have a room to get the air conditioning in the summer or a hot bath in the winter or if the night heater was playing up.
The Brescia Est truck stop in Italy has a fully equipped gym , a motel , with a drivers room rate, car hire to tour the lakes if stuck there for the weekend.
Hi.
That’s very true.Nobody knows how many languages he spoke.I believe
japanese was one.I couldn’t begin to count the number of drivers he
helped out in some way or other.His restaurant was always good too.every
time i ate there my first course was always mejillones(mussels).You had
to stand up to see over the top of the plate they were heaped so
high.Although it must be over 40 years since I last saw him I will never
forget him.
All the best,
Paul
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He definitely helped out a lot of people, if someone was short of money he would say pay him next time they came in, that was very trustworthy.