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Travelling in style!
One of life’s truisms is that pleasure from travelling develops throughout one’s life in inverse proportion to one’s age. Do not confuse this with being somewhere else other than at home. What I am talking about is the unmitigated torture called ‘getting there’, or, in the case of travelling in modern Britain, ‘not getting there’.
There is however one exception. That is getting across ‘La Manche’, the English Channel. Believe it or not this does not necessarily involve entering Dante’s inferno otherwise known as the Channel Tunnel and nor does it mean offending every human sense that has been honed to cultural perfection by forty thousand years of civilisation and succumbing to a flight on one of Ryanair’s flying cattle floats. There is the last bastion of civilised transport, Brittany Ferries. Particularly aboard their flagship ’Pont Aven’.
It is sad that the British are less adept at lateral thinking than our Froggie Chums. The usual criticism of travelling on Brittany Ferries is that it is expensive. No it isn’t. By the time the costs of car fuel, tolls and tyre rubber have all been taken into account it is generally far cheaper to take the ferry. The next criticism is that it is a long, boring crossing. How can it be boring when you are asleep in bed in your cabin for most of the trip? Also, in my case at least, saving the cost of one night’s hotel accommodation in the process and thus making it even cheaper! Being asleep for most of the time also means that with careful planning the journey is effectively made that much faster than by any of the other choices.
Notwithstanding all of what I have just pointed out, buying a ticket for a crossing on the ’Pont Aven’ offers you the opportunity to dine in one of France’s finest restaurants. It is worth the cost of the ticket for that alone.
The French ‘haute cuisine’ menu is varied and comprehensive, the wine cellar is exceptional and the staff are to a man and woman, immaculately turned out, smart, pleasant, helpful and efficient. It is also reassuringly expensive. Certainly enough to deter the traditional ‘Whinging Pomme’ with screaming half term children from daring to enter but not so much as to require a second mortgage. In any event, given the quality, variety and quantity of delicious and beautifully presented food it is very good value.
No, I am not an agent of Brittany Ferries (though sometimes I might wish I was) and I
do not receive a ‘kick-back’ of any description for writing this, my opinion. An
opinion based upon a lifetime travelling many, many, too many times to every
conceivable corner of the planet. By every possible mode of transport from dugout
canoe east of Java to on one occasion, a nuclear submarine (but I am prohibited from
telling you where to!).
Long may Brittany Ferries continue their good service. A service that one day, and hopefully a long time in the far distant future, will be fondly remembered with nostalgia by those fortunate enough or bright enough to realise it is by far the best and most civilised form of transport. Just as the original Orient Express is remembered today.
One criticism though (nothing is perfect!). To the Catering Manager or perhaps the
Maitre‘d. I think you should put the salt in the little pots with one hole in the top
whereas the ground pepper should go in the other matching little pots with many little
holes in the top. Not le contraire! I couldn't find anything else to find fault
with but as I'm sure you will appreciate, being British, I will do my best!
I've finished gorging myself now.
For the day anyway.
