on the road less travelled in Ireland and france

FRANCE

It is October 2023 and Fran and Conal are bound for Paris. The City of Light had been calling to them since 2019. On a cold rainy day in Dublin the siren sound of the French capital was beckoning to them.

By Conal Healy

Friday, October 20, 2023: Our bed for the night was in the Canal St Martin area in Paris, France.  It’s a lovely part of the French capital, close to train stations, nice bars and restaurants. Lonely Planet describes the area as “funky” and “hip”.

We had been there before, in 2019. It was one of our favourite places in City of Light.

The problem was we were in the middle of traffic jam.

On a ring road around the Irish capital, Dublin.

And it was raining, raining hard. It was also just after noon.

The Irish Met Service had issued an Orange Storm Alert – basically it’s a Severe Weather Alert, a “Stay Indoors” kind of warning. And we were in a hire car, trying to get to the airport in the middle of a storm and it was aftern noon.

Google Maps told us it would take us 25 minutes to get to Dublin Airport. In the pouring rain, with traffic grinding to a halt, I was busy doing mental calculations, working backwards: The flight to Orly (Paris) left at 2.20pm, we had to check in by 1.20pm, we had to drop the hire car back and then ride a transfer shuttle bus to the departure terminal building.

Fran and I were travelling with a Spanish budget airline, Vuerling, and had no idea where their check-in counter was. Usually, budget airlines get shunted to the furthest most point of any airport … so I had to allow time to get lost, get re-directed and then check in our luggage. Would we make it in time?

I was thinking all of this as traffic crawled along and overhead notices warned of more Traffic Congestion Ahead.

We had been in Ireland for almost two weeks and now we were ready for the second part of our trip – a month in France.

All we had to do was to get to Dublin airport in time. Irish bloody weather!

Of course – despite my anxiety – we made the flight. We had seats on a plane bound for Paris. The seats should have been a premium. People should have been fighting to get on board this (or any other) flight to the French capital.

So, why weren’t they?

Paris was the hosting the 2023 Rugby World Cup, and Fran and I had timed our arrival for the closing games of the tournament.

Nine months earlier, Fran and I had booked our flights, and accommodation in Paris, knowing that rugby fans from around the world would descend on the country and prices would sky-rocket.

In October 2023, Ireland was ranked as the Number One rugby team in the world. An awful lot of Irish people were expecting the Boys in Green to go all the way and to bring the Holy Grail of Rugby to Ireland … for the first time.

Irish rugby fans would have marked their calendar with the Pool Games, then the final rounds. Ireland was drawn in a tough pool but it was expected the Best Team in Generations would play in the Semi-Finals of the Rugby World Cup in Paris on the weekend of October 20-21.

I wasn’t planning on going to the games (tickets were around $300) –  I planned to watch any Irish game in a nice bar in France.

And I am sure there were many Irish people who planned the same thing, have a cheeky weekend in Paris and soak up the atmosphere in the City of Light.

Sadly, an encounter with the New Zealand All Black shattered the dreams of (probably millions) of Irish supporters across the globe by beating Ireland 28-26 in the quarter-finals.

What was the point in going to Paris when your team isn’t playing?

So, Fran and I were on a half-empty flight to France, with only a few die-hard rugby fans for company.

I suspect if Ireland had been playing the plane would have been full and had a party atmosphere.

On that wet Friday afternoon, the ambience on plane was subdued – “World Cup … is that on? No, I wasn’t aware of any matches. Rugby World Cup? What are these strange word you use?”.

On the plane Fran and I relaxed – there was a Friday night in Paris to look forward to, to enjoy. After Paris, there was a road trip across France – from the Atlantic to the Alps. Dublin was done, the destination was Dijon, and beyond.