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Twas the weekend before Christmas, when all through northern France not a creature was stirring. And the reason for this peace and tranquillity ? An enormous dump of snow that had paralysed most of the road network. Normally Calais before Christmas is manic as hordes of Brits descend on shopping centres (below middle). Not this year. On the Friday the ferries operated normally (above and middle left) until the snow arrived in the late afternoon (below left). As a result Calais was shut overnight for health and safety reasons due to ice on the ramps, stranding thousands of passengers on board boats which could not disembark. Remarkably LD Lines sailings from Boulogne (left) continued uninterrupted while chaos ensued at Calais. So when Saturday dawned there was an enormous back log of tourist traffic for the port to deal with. The situation was further exacerbated by the Channel Tunnel closing due to a train getting stuck in the tunnel. By night fall operation stack was in place in England while in France trucks were being parked all over the terminal (below right), as only cars and passengers were travelling (below middle). It may have been picturesque (below left) but it was a land fit only for reindeer and sleighs.
