ENTENTE CORDIALE
It was Robert Louis Stevenson — the Scottish novelist and travel writer best known for Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — who famously said “I travel not to arrive, but for travel’s sake,” and it’s about an hour into the billiard table-smooth French autoroute from Calais that the penny (or euro cent) drops. For though I’ve had the most absorbing day in an English vineyard, and am en route to its French equivalent, it’s the bit in the middle I’m enjoying at least as much.
I’m driving a (very) French car, DS Automobiles’ new DS 4, which has been built to encapsulate the design aesthetic of a Parisian fashion brand. From my leather-trimmed, air-conditioned perch I can see fields of bright yellow sunflowers punctuated by sparkling white wind turbines, popping against a clear, cobalt sky. All about is serene, and life feels good.
And though I am very much looking forward to the pending promise of a classic rural menu that may well include escargot and will definitely feature some of the region’s wine, for now the thrill is in the journey, in the art of travel. So I tweak the music volume upwards, offer a sigh of thanks to Gods unknown and push for the distant horizon.
It started, as most things do, with the kernel of an idea that gathered a momentum of its own. How might we platform the UK’s most gifted LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs by showcasing their stories and
