I was watching an old episode of Top Gear the other week and they were in the Channel Tunnel and I said to the missus, I really fancy doing one of our French trips again.
When the kids were wee we drove to the South of France in our Renault Scenics to stay in Keycamp tents. Fantastic holidays. You could bring back some amount of booze in a Scenic using all the hidden compartments not to mention the floor of the back seat area which the kids didn't need for their small legs. If I remember correctly, one Scenic had a square hole at each side of the parcel shelf that took a plastic bottle of wine - was it vin rouge or something it was actually called??Came in a litre or 1.5 litre bottle.
Anyway last time we did it, one of the families we went with somersaulted their Scenic down the motorway whuch kind of brought the French driving holidays to an abrupt end!
Now it would be just the missus and I, nice car (the X1) and I really fancy doing it again. Maybe even take our own tent (if the rats havent destroyed it in the loft).
With Covid and flying risks, there is a certain further appeal of driving and using the tunnel so minimal risk of full on mingling with crowds.
We normally would drive from Glasgow to my brother's in Bishop Stortford, stay over there, up early and drive to Tunnel and get early train and usually get past Paris for an overnight and then drive on down to Montpellier area. Last time we did it we crossed the Millau Bridge (several times as I didn't realise the visitor centre was on the North side) which hadn't long opened.
Although I do remember hearing one story, kid in my nieces class at school in Livingston, family did something similar except they drove non stop from Montpellier to Livingston with the father at the wheel the whole time. Tragically he actually fell asleep at the wheel as they came off the sliproad at Livingston and one of his daughters got killed in the crash.
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