Stresses & strains.

All the stress started the day before. Online check-in is supposed to make things easier. Didn't help (in so many ways) that the booking was from Liverpool and the flights had been changed to Manchester. Initial attempts on the app were met with the disconcerting statement that no booking existed. A number of phone calls in amongst bike building eventually established primarily that there were flights and that patience would be the key. Eventually tried checking in on my lunch & dawned that passport info was needed. Cue Liz texting. Boarding passes sorted - travel day stresses to come. As it happened the main source of concern was numerous delays. M6 decided to add 20 mins to the journey - Warrington is such a joy. Thankfully an extra hour was built in so plenty of time to play with. Drop and go parking was a breeze and just a 5 min walk to the terminal. Got through easy enough to find the Frankfurt flight delayed firstly till 12.10 & then 12.40. A claimed arrival time suggested an hour to get across Frankfurt airport. Normal sized airport - that would be fine but Frankfurt is a beast. On arrival discovered that passport control had to be negotiated within the hour or so remaining. EU queue - nothing. Brexit idiot queue - massive. Sent Liz to negotiate with the passenger assistant. So happened he was Irish. Much ducking and diving out of the queue & just had to wait for the Spanish school party we'd been sat amongst on the plane to clear & happy days. Irish passports are great. Think we might just have been ok but probably would've involved running. Flight to Nice went smoothly - Liz is a firm fan of Lufthansa - 'free' choccy. Nice airport was much smaller & the hotel was walkable, though even at 6.30 the heat was still there. Checked in, quick sort and a little walk to the beach via the supermarche for a baguette. Bizarrely all the parks on the way were locked up & closed but found a spec and watched the world go by. Kids pretending to be superheroes & bullfighters. Teenagers preening and posing.Leggi altro