Over the years we’ve had varied experiences travelling with Leger. For part of the journey today, our tour guide was Danté allowing us to view the gate of Hell, with the inscription  "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".

All went well until just after the interchange at Folkestone Services (Stop24). We had left home at 4:45am picked up our on-time Luxuria feeder coach and arrived at Stop24, stress-free around 10am. We boarded the tour coach before 11am joined by Danté and set off for the ferry, certain to make the earlier crossing. We were so wrong!

The last week of the school holidays and a Bank-holiday weekend meant that half the population of the UK and every available HGV had descended on Dover, heading for France.

Normally, from Stop24 to the ferry boarding line is around 45 minutes. Today it took 4 hours.

Police (always helpful with traffic) were controlling all the junctions, closing some and blocking off lanes for specific vehicle types. Entering the port, the hi-viz jacket patrol were “helping” by similarly closing and opening lanes (at random, it seemed). French border control were on a go-slow (we didn’t think they could ever be slower than usual - but they were). UK border control weren’t much better. Check-in lanes were similarly clogged.

We made it to our scheduled ferry with minutes to spare!

Irish Ferries were, however, up to their high standard with plenty of space and good food and wine in the Club Lounge.

We arrived in France on time, but for reasons known only to themselves, Leger had selected an Ibis in Chalôn-en-Champagne for the overnight stop. It’s south of Paris and Saturday night traffic in the Paris area… Enough said. Also, why so distant, when the next day’s journey was at worse around 7 hours. We arrived around 9.30pm

This hotel is the one that houses Danté’s fellow travellers. We’ve stayed there before and, once again, the city square on which it’s located was hosting an event. Bars, discos and all the noise you’d need for a good night’s sleep after 15 hours travel.

We’d been allocated a room at the front, with an excellent view of the event. After a long discussion mixing my limited French with reception’s limited English, the room was changed to one facing the rear - a little quieter but the fireworks could still be both seen and heard, along with the rhythmic beat of the disco’s bass speakers.

Thankfully, the next morning, our Italian guide had departed. Breakfast was pretty good and we set off around 9am  for what turned out to be a peaceful, uneventful journey through monotonous French countryside, visiting an assortment of fascinating service stations.

Arriving at Challes-les-eaux around 5pm we set off for our rooms. The hotel is spread across four buildings and most of us played a game of “find-your-room” as there was little signage. However, once you’d found your room, no further problems. A lovely room in a beautiful property.

Dinner at 7pm made every thing right. Dining outside enjoying food of the highest standard.

All’s well that end’s well.