Bank holiday chaos – can we learn from Europe?

Staggered school breaks and systems to flag traffic pressure points help our neighbours skip the queues, says Nick Trend

We don’t have long to wait before the next episode of our great national tradition: queuing. Not the nor- mal sort of quiet, orderly civilised line-ups in which we think we excel. What I mean is the infuriating, stressful, chaos of the log-jams that develop every bank holiday weekend, when the motorways back up to a standstill, the security queues at the airport snake into the car park and travelling by train involves sitting on your bag by the doors for three hours.

This year, with staff shortages and the surge in bookings caused by the end of the pandemic, it may be worse than ever. Does it have to be like this? And can we learn from our European neighbours? I talked to our experts in Italy, France, Spain and Germany. None has a spring half-term week, but they do have bank holidays and other peak travelling days and some seem to have found a way to ease the pressures by staggering school holidays regionally. It’s food for thought as you crawl around the M25.

SPAIN

In Spain, the dates of some public holidays vary around the country and many are held on that fixed date rather than being shifted to a Monday. According to Annie Bennett in Madrid, the year’s biggest problems are mostly over: Easter and the holiday at the start of May is a massive getaway period. The latter is the first break when people head to the coast and there are usu

Join the queue: the long lines at Manchester Airport over the May Day weekend were typical of the British bank holiday experience ally huge jams leaving and returning to major cities. For summer holidays, a lot of people now have at least a fortnight off in July rather than August – and, ominously, this year July 1 is a Friday, so is likely to be even busier than ever.

GERMANY

Kate Mann in Munich says German bank holidays are date specific but when they fall on a Tuesday or Thursday, some schools close and take an extra rückentag (bridge day) to create a mini half term. Generally, pressure is eased because summer holidays are staggered regionally from June to September to avoid pressure on travel infrastructure. Jams are likely and trains and airports will be busy, but, says Kate, “I wouldn’t call it chaos”. The wider choice of destinations (and origins) in Germany helps to disperse the traffic: “Not everyone is on the M6 heading to the Lakes from down south.”

FRANCE

According to Anthony Peregrine in Montpellier, the bison futé website (bison-fute.gouv.fr) flags up the key pressure points around the beginning of July, the cross-over (chassé-croisé) period in July-Aug and the end of August, when everyone is on the motorways south and west (to begin with) and then north and east for the return. Other crunch points this year are the public holidays of May 25/26 and June 5/6. Although some school holidays are staggered regionally, the summer break is the same across the country. This year it starts on July 7 and ends on September 1 everywhere in France. Travelling then, says Anthony “can be appalling tests of patience”.

ITALY

As in Spain and Germany, Italian bank holidays fall on the exact date and people adapt their plans to create long weekends. According to Anne Hanley in Umbria, the biggest problem is then the pressure on the motorway network – not just the exodus, as in the UK, but the huge jams caused by the huge rientro on Sunday evenings. The government flags up the worst days when it would really be better to stay at home. August 15 (Assumption Day) is a prime example of this. The rail situation is helped by an efficient booking system and as for the airports, Anne says the biggest pressures are during the big exoduses in July and August. “The other times when you really don’t want to be in an Italian airport is… British half terms!”