Ouch! Sciatica on the Long Road to Troyes

Some combination of age, long days sat driving our motorhome Zagan and running down mountain roads have taken a toll folks. Yes, I’ve finally graduated in life to the status of sciatica sufferer. I’ve heard mention of sciatica before (which it appears is a catch-all for anything to do with sciatic nerve pain) and not thought much of it. When I found myself hobbling around with a sharp pain deep in my left glutes (literally a pain in the ass) I Googled it (well, asked an AI engine). Up came ‘sciatica’. OK, at least I know what it (probably) is.

When I put a plea for advice on this blog’s Facebook page, I was surprised how many people I knew had suffered with it. The general advice was to do yoga, stretch and back/core strengthening, so that’s what I’ll do. I’m popping ibuprofen but as few as possible, saving it for nighttime when the pain’s the worse. Last night was comical. The pain is the least when lying on my back but I struggle to sleep in that position. Switching to lying on one side took me about three hours. I kid you not. Each time I tried a stabbing pain halted progress until finally, inch by inch, I managed to shift one leg and then the other, with a cushion between them.

It goes to show, just how quickly stuff can change. A few days ago I was stood arms in the air celebrating a run up the incredible Col du Galibier. Now it’s taking me five minutes to get from one end of the van to the other. Carpe diem folks, tempus fugit.

Anyway, back to that long road to Troyes! Last time we blogged we were way down south in sunny Provence. A bit too sunny as it happened, as we were spending much of the time hiding from the blazing ball of fury. It was about 30 each night when we went to bed, not great for a good night’s kip but we were sort-of getting used to it.

With a ferry home in a week, we were eyeing up the map with a little trepidation though. France is big. Google Maps was predicting nine and a half hours of toll road driving from Vaison-La-Romaine to Calais. But that’s (presumably) doing the 130kph limit (81mph), which we don’t often manage in this lumbering thing. Partly because it would require a mortgage for the additional diesel (about 30% more fuel than if we drove at 100kph), and partly because of hills, lorries and traffic. I guess we’d be more like 12 or 13 hours of driving, but on the plus side, heading north we’d have less sunshine blasting through the van’s huge windscreen cooking us.

Which explains why we opted for a a long blat north up past Lyon and Dijon to Langres. Google Maps suggested about five hours but it took more like six. We thought we were being clever travelling on a Sunday when there would be less traffic, but daftly opted for the last Sunday of the French school holidays, the roads were rammed. We crawled our way through Lyon, with the traffic only easing off once we were cruising through vineyards north of the city.

We got off the motorway to refuel (using the Prix Carburant app to find lower-cost diesel) and took another break at a (rather pleasant) motorway picnic aire later on for lunch. It wasn’t enough though, as it turned out. The mild glute discomfort I’ve had these past few days seriously bit me on the butt afterwards.

We’d picked Langres as it’s in Les Plus Beaux Détours de France (The Most Beautiful Detours in France). This has a free book of interesting-but-off-the-beaten-path towns you can pick up at the tourist offices at 100-odd locations. Vaison-La-Romaine is part of the scheme, and we grabbed the 2024 copy of the book while there. Langres also has an aire a short walk from the centre and isn’t too far off the motorway. It’s sat on a hill surrounded by medieval walls, gates and towers, with views out over surrounding countryside.

Even on a Sunday evening it had a buzz with outdoor cafes and restaurants full of punters. With a patient Ju, I slowly hobbled over to the impressive cathedral and afterwards straight back to the van. Ju ran around the city the following morning, so saw far more of it than me. Without shade the aire was hot and Langres was only likely to be a one-nighter for us, somewhere to come back to. Vans started their engines before 7am the following day, and by the time we left about 10am, most had gone.

Having sussed long drives equals more pain, we picked Troyes (pronounced ‘twah’) as it was (a) only 90 minutes on the toll road (b) a lovely city which we briefly visited before and (c) has a really well-reviewed aire. The aire is especially nice.

Located on the site of an old municipal campsite, it’s part of the Reseau Aire Services network (which I’d never heard of until now). Like the Camping-Car Park network, you can reserve some of these aires, but not this one. Anyway, whoever owns it has spent big, landscaping with huge, stabilised and staggered pitches under mature trees. It’s like this brand new aire we used earlier in the year in Hasselt in Belgium. These places are setting a new standard for aires above the usual ‘pack ’em into a car park’ approach of old.

The old centre of Troyes is Tudor. Well, being French it’s obviously not Tudor, but it looks it. All narrow streets and half-timbered facades. It’s very pretty, again with an impressive cathedral about a 30 minute walk from the aire. I was struggling on the way in, so we took the bus. An English couple joined us with their labrador, which the bus driver decreed to be ‘too heavy’, but allowed them on anyway. They weren’t so lucky on the return trip, and walked back after being refused boarding.

The bus dropped us away from the center, but we spotted they have freebie little electric shuttle buses, so we jumped/hobbled on board. I’ve a newfound respect for anyone of reduced mobility by the way. On both the main bus and this shuttle bus I was in pain trying to get off, as the doors irritatingly shut onto me each time. The world’s in too much of a hurry for slower folks, it would seem.

My strongest memory of the town is from the cathedral, of a small and very old box. Held in the treasury, it was brought back from the fourth crusade, the history of which always makes me smile/grimace a little. Being a crusade, it was meant to head off and take Jerusalem from the Muslims back into Christian hands but this holy war (itself a contradiction these days) was a cockup from start to finish.

A deal had been done with Venice to ship the crusaders across the Mediterrenean to Egypt, but too many fighters went from other ports, so the force heading to Venice couldn’t pay the bill for all of them. As a result they did another deal with Venice to attack the Christian-held city of Zadar which was rebelling from Venetian rule. That seemed to give them a taste for attacking folks of their own religion, as they then headed off and sacked Constantinople too (where the little box was stolen from). The Holy Land was left pretty much unfettered, as only a tenth of the knights made it there.

Ju’s impressively run 18km solo this morning in preparation for the Robin Hook Half Marathon so is celebrating with an ALDI muffin. I’m trying to move about a bit and stretch to keep the pain under control. We’ll either stay here tomorrow or shift another hour or so north, depending on how we feel. It’s a day on the aire for me though, good for blogging mind you!

Cheers, Jay