We were up fairly early yesterday morning, there were last minute things to pack, we intended to have our last breakfast ‘out’ and we had to leave the apartment by 11am promptly.

Oliv, where we had eaten breakfast is closed on a Sunday, so we walked about 20 metres up the street and tried Queen of Muffins . It was a shame we hadn’t had breakfast there before. Their croissants were lovely and Susie had a bowl of granola that was packed with fruit and delicious. We chatted with the charming young guy behind the counter, whose English was just about perfect and found the whole place warm and welcoming.

Anyway, we pottered about in the apartment till we bit the bullet and looked for a taxi to take us to Schonefeld for the flight home, despite being way too early. It’s about a 40 minute ride and the airport is on the small side and very busy. We were checking in cases (all the smuggled out pierogis took us over the hand luggage limit) and the screens in Terminal A showed that our Transavia desks were in Terminal D. A shortish walk and we were there, but of course the desks weren’t open. We settled for two large plates of “Daisy’s Diner” fries to while away the time and secure two seats.

Eventually check in opened and after depositing the cases, we headed off through security, which was super quick thanks to Susie’s stick. It seemed a very small departures lounge, with only five or six gates. Eventually our gate flashed up on the screen, #69. Now where do you think that was? Yes, miles away, back in terminal A. I’m not sure any other nation on Earth has the same attitude to queueing as do the British. Breathless, we joined the large scrum forming at the gate door. We had already booked seats so it didn’t matter too much when we boarded, though somehow we managed to be amongst the first few.

The flight was quite smooth and I even managed to snooze. After landing at Nantes, we had a long wait for the luggage (no doubt the sniffer dogs were working overtime on those pierogies) but eventually our cases turned up on the belt. We stopped for a quick drink and bite to eat before walking along to an area where we were collected by the parking shuttle. Some three hours later we were home….

Observations on Poland and Germany to follow as soon as my brain gets back into France mode…