The Drive From Opio to Vittel 9/3

The French do so many things right. Pique-niques, espresso, well-suspensioned small cars, the most fabulous Brie I've ever tasted... I could go on and on. But today we had some challenges with our first freeway (autoroute) experience. To start, we had no idea how to pay the tolls... everything I'd read about them gave no real indication of when you pay, or how to pay. It's been inconvenient to say the least to realize our credit cards don't work here at either toll gates or gas stations with no attendants. The U.S. hasn't started putting chips in our credit cards yet, like the whole damn country (or maybe continent) over here. So even if the machines say they read magnetic strips, they still may not work. So that has left us with only one good option for gassing up... at the attended stations right off the freeway, which are about 1€68 per litre, or about $6.35 per gallon. That's about 60 cents per gallon higher. Even at 40mpg with A/C on and maybe 45mpg without, that's still pricey. Our drive today cost us about 85€ in gas and 85€ in tolls to get here.
Another thing we had to get used to was if we were headed the wrong direction on the autoroute (which happened) it was hard to find our way off and make a u-turn. Or if we got turned around in Lyon (which happened) it was hard to negotiate killer traffic to make a legal u-turn. But once we actually got going again on the A6, it was easy sailing...
On the positive side, the French are very conscientious drivers. They NEVER drive in the fast lane if they're not passing and they get on your ass and flash their lights at you if you are. That may be something that drives us insane when we get home. We've covered a lot of miles on this trip and haven't seen one police car except in the cities and towns, maybe 6 total.
Our route today from the Riviera to Vittel Le Parc in the northeast took us west to Aix-En-Provence, then north through Avignon, Lyon (the gastronomic capital of France), Dijon (in the Burgundy wine region where we will spend the night at a B&B on Thursday and Friday), and up to Vittel. The countryside was mostly vineyards through the burgundy region and grassy fields north of that, with the autoroute flanked by tall, lush trees most of the way. It looked a lot like the Northwest U.S. We're looking forward to spending some leisure time exploring the club and lounging around tomorrow.