Vintage Cars

We spent another night at the car park in Chateau Gontier and got to see the car rally next morning. And would you believe they had a coffee tent? This might be the closest we have ever been to our morning coffee. We sauntered over to the tent and ordered two coffees.

I love the deckchair vibe of this one - it’s a Citroën 2CV (french: deux chevaux; english two taxable horsepower!)

There was some confusion as we didn’t have the correct money but we were soon directed to the money tent where we got two (pretend money) tokens. Back to the coffee tent where there were 5 men available to serve. They must be expecting a rush.

There were lots of cars to photograph but this one caught my eye because of the suitcases on top. It looks like a Volkswagen but it’s actually another Citroën - dont know which one.

For now it was just us and our pretend money which we passed over and waited expectantly as two paper cups full of hot water were placed in front of us. We both looked into our cups and back at each other - an issue with our French? But no, two sachets of instant coffee arrived next with a stirrer…

Isn’t this adorable? A two seater in baby blue. It’s a Piaggio Vespa 400.

In my childhood there was only instant coffee. No espresso, no americano, no latte, no cappuchino. A jar, a spoon and some water or for the adventurous, hot milk (the adventure is related to the real danger of burning your mouth.) Filter coffee arrived in the 70’s (?) but it was a bitter thing having sat for hours on a pub counter waiting for someone to dare order coffee instead of a drink. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not but the coffee prepared us well for the cars - vintage coffee, with vintage cars?

This one was driven by the only woman driver I saw at the rally.

The impeccably clean white travel case and white sunroof! It’s a Fiat 500.

Fin