Car Trouble in Mustard Capital

Leaving Switzerland we crossed the border into France on a lovely clear day. We stopped in at a town called Besancon for a couple of hours to buy a map, a phrasebook and some lunch (yummy baguettes).
The town was very pleasant, ringed by a river and with most of the buildings made out of a pinkish/yellowish sandstone. One of the churches had an astrological clock with 30 000 moving parts which 'had to be seen to be believed' but unfortunately it was closed for maintenance.
We moved on to a nearby, much smaller town where there was apparently a campsite still open (many close at the end of October). The campsite let us stay but we were the only ones there until a couple of vans showed up in the evening. The only water on was in the Women's shower block so it was very communal with people doing dishes and all sorts in there.
The small towns we had driven through so far look ancient and the streets are barely wide enough for two cars to pass with pedestrians having to walk on the street as well. We figure the buildings alongside the roads must have been there for hundreds of years, well before the roads were being used by cars anyway.
After a peaceful but freezing cold night in the tent (our condensation froze to the fly) we moved on to Dijon - Mustard Capital of the World- but on the way the car was getting a bit hot. We opened her up, everything seemed in order, and when we continued on the temperature stayed normal- fine.
We spent two days in Dijon looking about the covered markets, the mix of Medieval and Renaissance buildings and the usual churches, being guided by owls on the footpath the whole time (the town has a famous owl).
On Saturday morning we hit the road once more heading vaguely South West hoping to make it to some caves with prehistoric paintings. Once again our bad luck with caves struck with the car heating up a few kilometres out of town.
We decided not to crack the head and turned around back to Dijon. Being a Saturday we didn't manage to get into a garage despite the best efforts of a wonderful receptionist at our hotel (the first of many).
So we knuckled down to another two nights in Dijon. We slept in, we got on the net, we went to the local archaeology museum, we wandered the suburbs, all in all a very nice town but we couldn't ignore the fact that we were possibly very stranded.
Come Monday we dropped the car off at a local garage. Communication was very difficult. Several hours on and we got another saintly receptionist to call the garage and we were told that we would have to go to a Ford dealership. The fellas at Speedy Dijon didn't even charge for the trouble- legends!
We sprung on the Dealership that afternoon, were told we couldn't be seen till the end of the week, we looked sad and desperate and they took the car there and then. It pays to look pathetic sometimes.
Anyway the long and the short of it was; The car's computer or some such expensive electrical thingummy is stuffed but the garage could do a temporary fix to get us back to the UK. Phew.