Good Friday 2000, myself and 3 friends left home at 3.30am to catch a coach in Carmarthen at 4.30am for a 4 day trip to Paris.
We then proceeded to pickups at Cross Hands, Swansea, Port Talbot, Bridgend, Cardiff, Newport and Bristol.
Onto the M4 and hopefully next stop Channel Tunnel.
Wrong
Into a very busy, even 20 years ago, London for pickups in Croydon and one other place I can't remember. Back onto another motorway where we very shortly pulled into a service area to join about 15 other coaches. It turned out each coach was going to a different location so passengers and luggage were exchanged appropriately.
Half an hour later, a late comer arrives and the business starts all over again.
Off we go to Folkestone,onto the train and off at Calais. Onto the autoroute and Parapherique eventually. Traffic at a crawl, we went past the Stad de France where there was an international playing, past the Palace of Versailles which was close to the hotel where we were staying about 10.30pm.
Of course the bar was closed and, as it was Good Friday, every thing was shut thereabouts.
Saturday and Sunday were spent, very enjoyably doing touristy things.
8am Monday morning, back in the coach. I am not sure if my memory is playing tricks as I seem to remember passing an airport and seeing Concorde take off. It was 20 years ago.
The return journey was equally interminable, also having to wait at the service area for 2 hours for a delayed coach.
We arrived back in Carmarthen about 2am, home about 3.
The coach drivers were great blokes, it turned out that they had been"volunteered"and had never been to Paris before. Subsequently, I discovered that we joined the Parapherique clockwise travelling about 270 degrees when we should have travelled anticlockwise.
I said never again, but given present circumstances, I would jump at the chance.