Holiday adventures in France

In the summer of 2000, during a budget holiday in France which started with Paris I did something I would not recommend now: hitchhiking. And not any type of hitchhiking but with a precise destination: Toulouse.
It was an unforgettable sunny day of 14th of July, the national day of France when all French breathing human beings (including the truck drivers) were on a bank holiday. I knew that in Western Europe, hitchhiking is a way to travel around for free, unlike Eastern Europe, where some drivers still see hitchhiking as a way to make a quick buck (or penny).

So after hours of struggling and making use of the information point (in French, doh) in one of the tube stations to ask how can I get to Porte de Versailles (the gate to exit Paris) I finally got there. I found the road close to the motorway, wrote TOULOUSE with a biro and started showing it to the drivers passing by. This word must have been a good joke for the mere sedan drivers because they were smiling or – worse – laughing when they saw my destination. Probably none of them was going that way.

And to add extra value to my disappointment, no trucks that day. Ever since I always check the bank holiday dates for every destination I choose, to make sure the whole location is working at full capacity. You don’t know when you need a mechanic or a shoemaker on the way. So I had to return to the railway station, buy my ticket for Toulouse and took a TGV train. But I spent more money in the process. In Eastern Europe they have a saying: “The stingy ends up paying more, the lazy ends up running more”. Luckily for me, I did not have to run all the way down to Toulouse. But my holiday turned up not so cheap in the end.

What are your holiday adventures?