Bernard Levin - From the Camargue to the Alps: A Walk Across France in Hannibals Footsteps

IT BEGAN INAUSPICIOUSLY. Orly-Sud is not the most romantic of places from which to take off in search of adventure, particularly at six o clock in the morning, but that would have mattered less had it not been for the rumour, which speedily proved true, that the pilots of Air Inter had greeted the dawn by going on strike, so that it looked as though I would not be taking off at all. Joining the mob at the Information desk, I discovered that there was no Information to be had; my breakfast rendezvous in Aigues-Mortes was rapidly receding, and my adventure more rapidly still.

First, then, to telephone the news of my plight. I hurried off to the airport shop for some change, only to discover (not, alas, for the first time) why the French are not the most passionately loved of all the earths peoples. Behind both cash registers sat ladies familiar with Greshams Law and patriotically determined to prevent the collapse of the French economy through a run on the franc caused by importunate travellers seeking solid coin in place of insubstantial paper. Ah, non, we have no change; ah, oui, we know there is a strike; ah, non, we cannot think how then one may telephone. While the argument continued, a genuine customer approached, and as the till flew open, I saw in it at least a dozen paper-wrapped rolls of coins of every denomination, for change; the tricoteuses did not even blush.

The British, of course, are at their best in mutual adversity, presumably because they love adversity so much. For the Germans, the Austrians, the Dutch, the transaction would be effected without comment or surprise. The Italians would ask after your family while counting out the change, and the Americans would jostle one another for the privilege of giving you the coins. As for the Swiss, before the strike was ten minutes old they would have set up a bank of emergency telephones for stranded passengers. (The Swiss, though, wouldnt have had the strike in the first place.)

I solved the problem by buying seven newspapers, one by one, and proffering a banknote each time. As I finished telephoning, I heard shouts coming from the Information desk. A riot? A lynching? Things were definitely looking up, and I hurried off to join in the fun. There was none to be had; the excitement had been caused by the announcement that a plane would shortly be going to St Etienne. But where is St tienne?

The day wore on; occasionally a blockade-runner left, for Quimper, Prigueux, Clermont-Ferrand. More and more unsuspecting travellers were arriving for flights that no longer existed, and Orly was beginning to silt up with the lost, until it looked like one of those scenes, familiar from television news programmes, of refugees fleeing from earthquakes or persecution.

See, see! A plane is going to Toulouse. That, surely, is in the south, is it not? Or am I thinking of Toulon? All I could remember of French geography was a riddle from my youth; why are a sailors trousers like two French towns? Because they are Toulon and Toulouse; but that gave no clue to their whereabouts, besides being less funny now than I used to think it.