'We're driving 10 hours to get back to England before quarantine is enforced'
Telegraph, 14 Aug 2020
The Telegraph's Kate Bussman on her journey back to the UK from France to beat the quarantine restrictions:
This morning, we woke to a dozen emails, WhatsApps and texts from friends and family back home checking we’d seen the news.
We’ve been on holiday in France for a week, and originally planned to come home on Monday. But yesterday morning, as speculation over a possible quarantine announcement went into overdrive, we decided to move our Eurotunnel booking forward to tonight (Friday evening). It was a not-cheap gamble - it cost £99 just to change - but we have no regrets at abandoning our holiday early. Plus, at least it has paid off.
We’ve had a wonderful week, and while that decision meant cancelling two much-anticipated nights at a beautiful hotel in Paris, and doing the drive to the coast in a single day, it wouldn’t be worth trading for two weeks stuck indoors while trying to combine work and the demands of our very active, outdoorsy child who now will be able to attend his summer camp as planned.
It was a gamble, too, even coming here. But we’d booked our villa in Ile de Ré, together with a family in our bubble, in January and would have lost the money if we’d decided against it. We came on the Eurotunnel - an entirely socially-distanced way to travel - and booked refundable tickets in case we had to cancel. We’re now two hours into a 500-mile drive home that we’d hoped to split in two, but even so, we feel incredibly lucky to have nipped in and out under the wire.
What has been striking, though, are the subtle differences between how people are living in France and the UK, and perhaps they’re connected to the rise in infections here.
Read more of Kate's article here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/france-lax-social-distancing-rise-in-infections/
Get the latest headlines: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.
This morning, we woke to a dozen emails, WhatsApps and texts from friends and family back home checking we’d seen the news.
We’ve been on holiday in France for a week, and originally planned to come home on Monday. But yesterday morning, as speculation over a possible quarantine announcement went into overdrive, we decided to move our Eurotunnel booking forward to tonight (Friday evening). It was a not-cheap gamble - it cost £99 just to change - but we have no regrets at abandoning our holiday early. Plus, at least it has paid off.
We’ve had a wonderful week, and while that decision meant cancelling two much-anticipated nights at a beautiful hotel in Paris, and doing the drive to the coast in a single day, it wouldn’t be worth trading for two weeks stuck indoors while trying to combine work and the demands of our very active, outdoorsy child who now will be able to attend his summer camp as planned.
It was a gamble, too, even coming here. But we’d booked our villa in Ile de Ré, together with a family in our bubble, in January and would have lost the money if we’d decided against it. We came on the Eurotunnel - an entirely socially-distanced way to travel - and booked refundable tickets in case we had to cancel. We’re now two hours into a 500-mile drive home that we’d hoped to split in two, but even so, we feel incredibly lucky to have nipped in and out under the wire.
What has been striking, though, are the subtle differences between how people are living in France and the UK, and perhaps they’re connected to the rise in infections here.
Read more of Kate's article here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/france-lax-social-distancing-rise-in-infections/
Get the latest headlines: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.
