Well, yes - it was supposed to be a holiday. Marseille on "business" - obtain an Italian Passport for my wife- and then carry on to try to celebrate the fact with her friends in the Charentes /Cognac area. Yes - a long way, but we allowed as much time as was required, in fact we didn't even really have an itinerary. Drive - stop to eat or drink as we wished, stop to overnight as required .....which is what we did. And yet - something didn't work! Marseille was a dream. Hotel and the stay were more than acceptable, and the business went off beautifully - Italian Passport obtained with little fuss, our small amount of "tourism" done with success, and happily completed, we set off to the longer journey, but with no more than 250 to 300km's per day on the programme. Day one towards Charentes, rain......mountains and dizzy spells for me......and things had started on their downward path! Where and why these dizzy spells no one knows, not even right...