We left Dax at a sensible 07:45 for our 475 mile journey to an overnight stop at Hotel Inn Paris CDG on the way home. 

We’ve stayed at that hotel before, when it was a Best Western. We remembered it as serviceable; business class rooms with business class prices - you pay for Michelin but get service station quality meals.

Once bitten… we stocked up with sandwiches (etc) along the autoroute. On arrival we found it to have been a good decision. Their menu had changed and was mostly burger-type food at an average of €20 a plate.

The journey through France passed quickly… we both slept on-and-off most of the way, and slept some more overnight. It worked out well as our Paris departure was 07:15 (cases out by 06:00, alarm at an alarming 05:15!)

The journey to Calais was uneventful. A stop along the way, arriving at the port around 10:00 for a 12:00 ferry. Border control, both French and UK was typically slow but straightforward. We boarded the Pride of France on time at around 11:30.

Then we made an incredible discovery. The P&O Club Lounge.

We were obviously aware of them, but had never thought them worth the trouble. We decided to give it a try. We had been wrong. For a modest £26pp we found ourselves in a lounge comparable to the better airline lounges such as the KLM Crown in Amsterdam. It also had an exclusive outside terrace with deck furniture.

Deep, comfortable sofas. Beer, soft drinks, tea & coffee, wines, spirits, biscuits, nibbles, cakes & pastries all freely available - help yourself. A charming hostess then produced a hot food menu with 4 choices and invited us to a dining area when the food was ready. You could assemble a 4 course meal if you wanted: soup, salads, the hot meal, cheesecake, and wines were available to drink as much as you wanted. The food was well cooked and well presented.

The interchange at Stop24 was not up to its usual standard. Leger were using three ferry companies: P&O, DFDS and Irish Ferries. Our P&O was first in and we had to wait for all of the ferries to arrive. There were lots of coaches which meant lots of people and, as usual, there weren’t enough seats. It was nearly 3 hours before we left on, thankfully, a Luxuria coach back to Cardiff, which, with assorted stops, took until 20:50.

We’d ordered a taxi online, en route, which met us to complete our journey home.

There’s no bed like your own bed!