It was our last day and after breakfast we said goodbye to Judy and Geoff who had their car waiting for them and were driving home to the UK. Alain and Leigh loaded our bags and took us to Tours. officially it was supposed to be the railway station where we were picked up, but they dropped us in the old town by the river. This was near the end of the long straight pedestrianised road that only the trams can use. We stopped for a cool beer at one of the tram side cafes and then walked to the centre of town to find somewhere for lunch.
After a leisurely lunch we walked to the railway/bus station to check the time of the only bus to the airport and then found a bit of shade to sit and wait. While waiting we decided to take a taxi out to the airport, that way we would be checked in before the crowd arrived and it turned out the taxi fare was only 2 Euros more than the bus would have cost and we had air con thrown in.
The airport is not the largest of establishments and the baggage book in opened about 5 minutes after we arrived so we got shot of them and went for coffee and cake. Once through passport and security there are no facilities other than a toilet.
We had our passports checked 5 times before we boarded the plane, first at baggage check in, then as we went to security with our hand baggage. At security before we could put our hand baggage through, the person who put the bags through, these three can actually see each other and then again before we could board the plane. but those four checks were 50 times as fast as the single check at Stansted when we arrived. The automated passport control seems to reject about 20% of the people using it and I was one of them. By the time I got through Diana had collected the bags and was waiting to go.
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