DEALING WITH EUROTUNNEL TRAVEL

I must confess I am finding it a bit difficult to write anecdotes about the current travel situation between the United Kingdom and amber country France. The plight of rationally minded Afghans attempting to leave their country in the middle of a pandemic and violent Taliban fanaticism is rather a prominent feature in the news, and therefore puts any middle class difficulties one faces travelling via Eurotunnel to the Pas de Calais in some kind of perspective.

Nonetheless it may prove useful to some who might be considering venturing across the Channel to France. On looking at the current requirements for the fully vaccinated (one must have the proof of vaccination letter from the NHS)  it was of some importance to sort out having a test in France as well as one on day two of our return. After searching through the various explanatory paragraphs, I found a list of approved private test providers (one cannot use the NHS testing facilities for travel - I still ask myself ‘Why is that?’ - it must be done and paid for through an approved facility). Although each company seems to claim a cost of £20, it is in fact £99 per person tested. The government have apparently realised the rip off nature of this requirement and have just started to impose price restrictions.

There is a very long list of such merchants and I eventually chose a group in North London who promised to post the test kit to be with us on our return, and to email me the appropriate ID numbers for inclusion on the Passenger Locator Form one has to fill in during the 48 hours leading up to one’s return date to the UK.  This was easily done on line. I next had to book a covid test in France to take place within the two days before our return to the UK. It’s a test two days before and two days after return. Very symmetrical. Again, after some searching, there is a list of test sites from the French government, that one can book. The French are not worried about their National Health test sites being used for travel. Indeed if you have a valid European Health Insurance Card or the new UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) for travel abroad, you do not have to pay for the test – otherwise it costs 40 Euros, about £34 or about a third of the price in the UK. Again I ask myself “Why is that?”.  After a couple of false starts, I duly found a site in France at Soyaux about 30 minutes from Keith and Emma at Fontpeauloup where we would  be staying, I spoke to two different ladies, the second one of whom understood exactly what was required, information was exchanged and a rendez vous marked in the calendar, followed by a bon voyage, a bientot.

The next step is to upload all these documents onto your passenger ticket information account along with the Advance Passenger Information. If you repeat this enough times, you soon memories your passport number and expiry date etc. One need only be moderately computer literate to accomplish this and it is pretty well explained on your Eurotunnel account website. I made hard copies of all the documents as well, just to be safe.

When we got to Folkestone (very early as advised by Eurotunnel) we were offered an earlier shuttle than the one we had booked and virtually raced through the procedure with only a cursory look by customs officers at our passports, although the British scanned and the French Stamped. No one asked to see any of the documents so painstakingly copied and uploaded.

Moving swiftly on, once in France,  after the test in Soyaux, we received emails from the testing centre attaching the Verified Test Results – negatif - and it only remained to upload the French documents and complete the Passenger Locator Information to facilitate our return.  A simple task you may think, and indeed it was once one interpreted French computer speak (telecharger = upload) and understood the layout of the forms. What I thought would take 5 minutes took nearly two hours of faffing around. Next time it should only take five minutes.

On our return, arriving at the terminal in Calais, we were again offered an earlier shuttle and on passing thought the chicanes set up to control traffic, the electronic signs warned us to have all our documents ready for inspection and passports open to the appropriate photo page.

There were long queues to get through the French Customs kiosks so a bit of a wait. Again no one asked to see our documents and barely bothered to look at passports, but did stamp them. After a further very long wait, by which time the earlier shuttle we were now book on had already taken off, we got to the UK Border Control Officer who quickly scanned the passports, checked the photo against face, and waved us through, without so much as a glance at the carefully held documents and mobiles exhibiting our passenger locator forms for which we did not have paper copies. We boarded the next available shuttle. We presume the long waiting times were for the most part due to people who had not uploaded their documents.

So after involving oneself with a fair degree of paperwork, administration and phone calls the problems of travel through the Eurotunnel were much the same as before, although the queues getting through the French Terminal were far slower, though this was due to a lack of staff to deal with the numbers. Who would want the job?  However, the French now stamp your passport, as we are foreigners once more.

So if you’re thinking of travelling across or under the channel, grab a coffee and a phone, sit down in front of your lap or desk top, have your passports to hand, find and book your tests, gather what paperwork you can, book your tickets and upload the relevant forms. Print everything out, just in case. Oh and if going by car, do not forget to get your Green Card from your insurance company. Order it at least a week before travel. Bureaucracy can be fun. Just imagine what hoops exporters and importers are now going through on top of Brexit.  

All this may seem very boring and tedious, but the time in between passport controls was a glorious array of fabulous food and wine provided by the very beautiful and extraordinary generosity of our hosts. Emma’s cooking is as outstanding as ever and the Keith Cellars are as good as any three star Michelin establishment. Buster, the dog, did very well and the weather proved to be sunny and warm for the most part. As the French say “Chapeau”. 

The Charente can be very lovely when the country side is so tidy, lush and green. Four blissful days.  I should add that the French, in general, are better as wearing masks that the British. We also inspected a house near Aubtrerre, but more of that anon.

 

The French have not quite given up on cars and therefore the roads are impeccable. Since our last visit, most of the roads, and I am including very small roads through villages, have been resurfaced, and are smooth and quiet. There is very little tyre noise. Returning to the UK and getting on the M20 was quite a shock. It was equally distressing to drive through London which has allowed its thoroughfares to deteriorate to a dangerous degree. The effect on tyre ware and the general condition of cars is clearly adding to the costs of maintenance of vehicles generally, even those which are totally electric and carbon neutral. Not a good state of affairs as in the future people will not be giving up cars, only changing the manner in which they are propelled, and that will still involve tyres of some kind and roads to drive on.