HIGHWAY TO HELL

The family holiday is an annual test of character, not least because of transport trials and tribulations, but this year Alan Cochrane is determined that their summer trip to France will be plain sailing

Alan Cochrane road trips his way to holiday success

The term fly/drive is a well enough known one when it comes to holidays. However, last year I discovered a different version. My wife and daughters fly and I drive. And, you know what? It works. Or it did, as far I was concerned.

The plan goes likes this. For years we drove all the way from Edinburgh to the Ardeche in the south of France. This can involve various options. Route one involves driving to our in-laws at Twickenham. We spend a couple of days with them, then drive along the M25, down the M20 to Dover and catch an early ferry to Calais.

After that it’s a marathon drive south, usually stopping off at places like Dijon, Beaune or Reims en route to the village where we normally spend a couple of weeks. All of this resembles a typical family holiday, you might think. Except that it’s an exceedingly long drive – the worst part not being the trek south along the increasingly expensive French autoroutes, but instead the journey there and back along the increasingly congested British motorways, all the time with two daughters who are far from enamoured by long trips in the back of the family car.

We’ve had many a nightmare return to Edinburgh via the M25, M1 and M6, and for many years we’ve sought different and, of course, better ways of doing the journey – all to avoid driving through England.

The obvious alternative is to fly to France and hire a car when we get there. Simple, you may think. And it is, if you don’t count the vagaries of air travel and the cost of both that and car hire. I can’t think of a single occasion when all of our luggage has arrived where it should, when it should, thanks to the less than helpful assistance of budget airlines.

And before we go any further let’s be clear about one thing – women of every age need a colossal amount of luggage and one of my wife’s or daughters’ bags invariably goes missing when we fly. Furthermore there’s the irritation of car hire checkers who are intent on squeezing some extra cash out of us when they see invisible marks on their vehicles.

We’ve also tried ferries, on the Hull Zeebrugge or Newcastle Amsterdam routes, there and back. It’s not a bad alternative, although it still requires long road trips with jam-packed cars – even in the best-ordered families these circumstances spark the odd harsh word or argument.

And so, last year we tried a new solution. I would drive – all the way, with the family car and all the

luggage, some of it in the roof box, via the ferries whilst the ladies, with only hand luggage, would fly. That way, went the theory, I could tootle my way south from the ferry port with no moans from the back seats and no arguments about my driving or about the correct route from the supposed ‘navigator’ sitting next to me. We all met up and stayed at a Lyon airport hotel, continuing the journey south next day.

So far so good. Ah, but what about the return journey? A piece of cake, I thought. I dropped the rest of the family at Lyon airport and proceeded on my merry way, stopping off at Charles de Gaulle’s birthplace in the Marne and driving along the north coast of France and Belgium, through Dunkirk and its neighbourhood, to Zeebrugge, making a pit stop at a pretty nondescript hotel.

However, my solo journey turned out to be a dawdle compared to what the ladies suffered – a total airline meltdown with a dodgy budget airline plane that couldn’t fly which meant a nine – that’s right nine – hour delay before their flight home took off.

With this appalling journey and the pitiful airline compensation we received in the aftermath, the question begged to be asked: should we repeat the medicine this year? That nine-hour wait must have been a one-off, surely.

As regards prices, there’s not a lot in it. Air fares and hire cars should be a lot dearer than ferry travel, but the truth is that ferry prices are through the roof in the summer – at least when compared to spring and autumn, especially if you haven’t booked months and months in advance.

The result, as far as I can see, is that the pros and cons of flying and driving just about even out. And so this year, with all fingers and toes crossed, we’re planning to repeat the exercise.

I will drive the family car to Newcastle for the DFDS ferry to Amsterdam, then head south down the Dutch, Belgian and German motorways and on into France. Meanwhile the ladies will fly direct from Edinburgh for that rendezvous, again, at Lyon airport.

What could possibly go wrong?

“A total airline meltdown with a dodgy budget airline plane meant a nine-hour delay