Panther Enthusiasts Club UK

We left Escalles at 9:30 and started the 150 mile journey to Coucy. We travelled via the A26 Autoroute to to junction 13 and made our way up the steep hill to the ancient "Cite" of Laon, crowned by its magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral which was built between 1150 and 1235. This was our planned lunch stop before completing the remaining 25 miles to Coucy. However, our journey here was not without incident, an electrical fault developed on one of the Kallistas. Once the fault was diagnosed it was quite easy to fix, but it meant the car spent the rest of the trip with power to the electric pump being supplied via a wire run from the battery and up over the roof. Also it was whilst we climbed the twisty road to the top that our 12 car convoy was split for the first time. Eventually we all met for lunch in a cafe outside the cathedral - what a great thing mobile phones are!

We finished our lunch had a look around the Cathedral, took in the magnificent view over the flat countryside below and travelled on to Coucy. The cathedral is strange in that it is adorned with statues of oxen. Apparently, these are in commemoration of the oxen that toiled to haul the stone up the steep hill during the building of it.

It always has to happen - no matter how good your recce was in France you will always encounter a "DEVIATION" and we did so for some the 25 miles to Coucy turned out to be more like 30. Coucy and the Belle Vue was a welcome sight and with no more driving that day, the beers and gin & tonics began to flow.


Solving the electrical problem - we were lucky the car made it to a service station	Laon's magnificent cathedral

Our lunch time stop opposite the cathedral.	Liz poses with some old relics and architecture

Nigel and Mary pose above the plains of Picardie.	Most of the Kallista's were parked behind the hotel

Mine had its own space outside the B& B just down the road	as did Peter's Ferrari, Linda's Kallista and Michele's TT.

It was no hardship sleeping in the B&B - look at that view from our bedroom	If we looked to the side there were the ramparts