Finally!! Hard to tell, who is more excited, Hector or me. The entire crew is tested negative on Covid19, even though the results of the PCR test are not to be delivered before late evening. Me, usually known as unpredictable danger seeker, do not want to play at risk and spontaneously add on an antigen test with result notice in less than 20 minutes. Hence, a load of good vibes is part of the first voyage since June 2019.

First stop is Pforzheim. A friend I have not seen in 16 months and his wonderful girlfriend. Not to speak of the villa, the garden statues, the oh-so-eighties-bathrooms and delicious barbeque. It is fantastic to spend the evening with friends, something we have missed for way too long.

The next morning is a relaxed one, at least for the non-working ones. I scrounge a shower and start fresh and fragrant towards France, all formal documents at hand and ready to meet the armed border patrol.

If not for the different style in road signs, I would not have noticed the border crossing at all. So this is what I have made a fuzz about, with testing and prefilled entry forms and a well-studied, harmless look? Anyway, better safe than sorry, and so we move on, enjoying kilometre for kilometre with splendid music selection and a moderate volume of Diesel.

The second destination of the trip is Sancerre. Chavignol, a small village right around the corner of Sancerre, to be more exact. In other words: Of course, we do not stop until we reach a Hector-worth setting.

A walk around the village proves that you can reach anything of interest within 2 minutes (max.). Still, Chavignol proudly presents a nice fountain, comfortable benches and a luxury public toilet. The best (and only) hotel is closed for the time being while the bistrot offers a fast-and-delicious menu, all finished by 21h = time of “couvre-feu”. Right in time, I sneak into the cave of today’s vineyard of choice and drink my way through all wine colours offered.

30 minutes later, I sway back to Hector, store 18 bottles of wine in various compartments and wait for the next day to enfold. By now, we count 970km since our departure, and today’s 9 hours of driving + 3 glasses of wine come as an exhausting combination.