After an uncomfortable night sleeping in the Land Rover, on the 7th March 1975 we crossed the English Channel by hovercraft landing at Calais:

For me this was quite exciting: First, the crossing was by hovercraft – an excellent way of travelling across the channel (why don’t they still use hovercrafts?). Secondly, it was my first time abroad…
We had to divert to Belgium to get some visas before we headed down to Paris. It was interesting the effect to Land Rover had on the notorious Paris traffic. Strapped across the front were 2 large perforated steel sheets (made from ex-military landing strips) which caused the traffic to part when they saw it coming…

We did some of the usual touristy things such as a visit to the Eiffel Tower:



After our short visit to Paris we headed south towards Andorra to cross the Pyrenees.