Avignon is so very clean and tidy. I wish I had been able to see it perhaps 50 years ago when I assume the old town was still lived in and the tourist infrastructure was less of a deal. #provence2024

We have reached Provence. A village north east of Avignon tonight. It has the usual sleepy calm, impossible sunsets, soft air. #provence2024

A brief pit stop up in the mountains at Vallon Pont D’arc. Beautiful swimming and kayaking spot in the mountains, only 25 mins from the motorway. A bliss for tired shoulders after all the driving. #provence2024

Lyon could give Birmingham a run for its money in a competition for most unforgiving and complex urban motorway set up. One small mistake and your whisked into another set of tunnels #provence2024

And from this to the anonymity of an off-highway hotel. An International unplace that offers only the beyond-language frisant of liminality, of the night feeling. Many times I’ve embraced being no-one in nowhere. Tonight? I’m not sure. It’s been a long drive #provence2024

Driving through Eastern France the geography is a World War One history lesson. A landscape of glorious defeats and victories. Marne, Amiens, Somme, St Quentin. Then Rheims rises out of the rolling pastoral, stone and controlled civic splendour #provence2024

Industrial signage on ferries is resolutely un-modern. It feels like it’s slipped through from the 1940s. Little pockets of other space that remind you you are not at home at the moment. The journey has commenced. #provence2024

The port town of Newhaven has recently seen some much needed regeneration. This mural at the ferry port illustrates the floating South Downs and the commonly spotted Great White sharks #provence2024

Over the next four days I will be driving from Sussex, England to Provence, France. This thread will be my travelogue. Right now it’s time for bed, up at 6am to head to the ferry at Newhaven. What are your most memorable road trips? #Provence2024