Do you know about Timehop? Chances are you do, but if you don’t: Timehop is an app that allows you to connect your social media accounts and then everyday it reminds you want you were posting about on that day, a year ago, five years ago, eight years ago etc. It is a lovely reminder of the places you have been, the people you were with, what you ate. Mostly what I ate. Or the latest pose the cat has decided to plonk herself into on the kitchen table.
Mine this week has been full of France last year. When we stayed in a French Chateau in the Dordogne, for a whole week. It was such good fun and this week it has all come back to me thanks to Timehop. The crisp clean French morning air. The lazy evenings drinking wine in the garden. The afternoons by the pool. The mornings exploring nearby towns. Going back to the vineyard my parents owned where the children spent ten glorious summer.
The pain in the backside that was flying and having to get all our stuff into hand luggage.
See here is the thing. I don’t do “travelling light”. I don’t deliberately take three outfits and matching shoes for every day of a holiday, I just have a load of kit. Camera / chargers / laptop / phone / tablet. So by the time that lot is in the suitcase there is not much space left for clothes. Or toiletries. Don’t get me started on that ridiculous 100ml rule. They will happily sell you more than that in duty free on the way out but demand it off you on the way back if it is in your hand luggage.
It is impossible. We have done it a couple of times now and I have vowed that going to europe by plane as a family for a week is not happening again. We will be taking our own car and getting the ferry.
We drove to France the year before when we hired a gite in the Loire and it was painless. Packed up at home, drove to the ferry port, got on the boat, drove through France. Dead easy and I didn’t really comprehend how easy until seven of us went away last year and thought that flying would be easier.
Big mistake. Huge. Yes we didn’t have to drive in convoy down the length of France but oh my days the faff of trying to do it with hand luggage so we didn’t get fleeced for paying for a suitcase too. And arriving at our destination in France to find there were no drinks and no loo roll. And it was 5pm on a Sunday.
There is no Tesco express in France.
As I hit the supermarket at 8am on the first morning of our holiday I vowed that never again would we fly to Europe. We are only ever taking the car, and going on the ferry. That way we can take as much as we cram into every pocket, nook and cranny in the car. We don’t have to carry it all or leave stuff behind.
In fact when we went to France a few years ago with two other families they even brought home made dinners to get us through the first few nights in huge cool boxes in their roof rack. And then on the way home they had all that empty space for all the cheese and wine souvenirs for loved ones.
And it seems I am not alone in this thinking. Brittany Ferries have made it look much prettier than my eight paragraphs above:
Image source: Brittany Ferries – Ferry VS Plane to France
Nope, the only way to get to Europe is by ferry. Planes are for long haul. Or romantic city breaks a deux .
Or as I am now going to think of it Families = Ferry.
You can have that tagline Brittany Ferries by the way
Image source: Brittany Ferries – Ferry VS Plane to France