Saturday 17th December
Well the journey back was not so bad after all, in fact one of the best we have ever made. We had a couple of sleeps on the way but drove mostly through the night and got a much earlier crossing (tunnel, so what exactly is the verb?) than we had planned. Now most of our friends who drive back avoid Paris, preferring a slightly longer route via Reims. When you mention the word Paris, there is a visible shake of the head and the sound of air being drawn in over pursed lips and teeth. But we have done Paris for a long time, and sometimes we have to slow down a bit; once or twice we have even stopped altogether for a few minutes, but mostly it is pretty smooth. Our SatNav guides us through the spaghetti maze of intertwining roads into and out of the capital city; once (and never again repeated) it even took us on a spectacularly long, and I mean several kilometers, tunnel, a six lane motorway in fact under the West side of the city, brightly lit all the way too). We always do a few tunnels on the journey back, and they are clean and wide and well-lit; it seems that hills and valleys present no problem for French road-builders, a tunnel of two kilometers here and a viaduct of several hundred meters there – no problem. But Paris, with a good SatNav is really no problem either. In fact it is Motorway all the way, at one point 8 lanes each way, and we simply bear left or right as we are instructed and suddenly we are over the Seine and on the Peripherique, and then heading for Charles de Gaulle airport (we drive under the runways) and off to Calais. No hold-ups, no traffic lights and no snags.
What a difference approaching and getting through London. Stop, start, traffic lights and roundabouts and no main North South or even East West route at all. And a major disgrace no decent six lane bridge or tunnel. We crawl towards the Victorian BlackWall Tunnel and though being constantly renovated it is an antique with grubby white tiles and a decrepit dirty feel to it. Unbelievable that in the 21st Century in our Capital city we still have only two hundred-year old tunnels under the river (and one is single lane!!!). The French certainly do it differently; they plan and simply knock down whatever is in the way. “You want six lanes? Are you sure that will be enough? Why don’t we make it eight, and let’s go the shortest route possible while we are about it.” We sailed through Paris, and though only a couple of miles from the Blackwall tunnel, we crawled through London.