Alison and I left Aylesbury in the morning and had to aim to be at the Folkestone Eurostar terminal ready for the 2pm shuttle. This is a journey I had done many many times over the preceding three years or so, and was very much used to it. Therefore, we decided that we would alternate the driving with me taking the first leg to Ashford til we got to the first fuel stop; she would take the leg from Ashford to Folkestone and I would take Calais to Luxembourg.
In the boot was the dustcover, folded up neatly, an emergency spares kit from Dave Clark of odds and sods, two hi vis vests, a warning triangle (as per French driving laws), a portable battery compressor (in case we got a flat tyre/slow puncture or had a flat battery and a holdall each of our clothes and stuff for the week.
Also, the most important thing, and the purpose of the entire journey; a small varnished wooden box with a brass plaque on it which contained the late Mrs F’s ashes, as given to us by the Crematoria back in October 2011.
So, we set off and the journey to Ashford (A41 to M25, to M23 to M20) was routine and the first top up of the tank was done, from memory at about £50 or so, to keep us the high side of ¾ of a tank. Our ethos going forward would be that once we got to a quarter of a tank, we would look for a suitable fuel stop and then take advantage of it and get ourselves back to the plus side of ¾. This tactic served us well.
We also spotted a couple of elderly (1970s era) Porsche 911’s who appeared to be on a road trip themselves, to Monaco. We didnt talk to them, although I did grab a couple of pictures and they took no interest in the XJS, so on we pressed to Folkestone. No reaction from the checkin staff; we stopped and visited the terminal for some snacks to sustain us through the first leg to Luxembourg.
We were luckily routed to the downstairs/lower level part of the Shuttle’s car carrying capacity. Anyone who has done that trip will know that the car carrying wagons are on split levels and depending on the whims of whoever is loading these wagons, depends on whether you end up being on the upper or lower deck. It wouldnt really have made any difference which we were on, but what with the XJS’s ground clearance not being particularly high, I was more glad of us being on the lower level.
The shuttle journey, as it does, more often than not, passed without incident. Once your train reaches its destination at the Calais terminal, if you’ve never driven in France before, you are brought into it quite gently; your exit lanes, as you are marshalled off the train and towards the exit of the complex onto the eastbound E44 towards Dunkirk and eventually Bruges and Brussels, you are gently fed into the slow lane of the E44 and from there on in, its very much like it would be anywhere else, except when you are in a right hand drive vehicle you have to have your wits about you that little bit more for what is going on around you. I had found it quite straightforward to get used to in all honesty and the initial part of the journey, which I was doing the driving for, passed without incident. We had arrived in Calais at about 3.15-3.30 and were expecting to make Luxembourg at about 7pm. There was no rush to get there, the objective was to take it steady and get there in one piece without bending the car.
© Google Maps 2025
As an accomplished Grand Tourer would, the XJS quite happily sat at 2000 revs at 70mph in D1 and just burbled along without complaint for mile after mile. We reached the outskirts of Brussels where we started to see the exits for Ring 0 by about 5pm-5.30pm and its once the lanes start to get about 6 lanes wide and the local nutters who make British drivers look like paragons of virtue start wandering across multiple lanes at the last minute, there are lots of opportunities for your heart to be in your mouth. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, particularly when both are used to the somewhat arse-about-face entry and exit points that afflict the Coventry Ring Road; this is the same way that the continental motorways are designed and sometimes, like in Belgium, those entrances on are within less than 100 yards of the exits. So, you have people coming on to the E44 from Ring 0 a high speed, cutting across your lane to get to the fast lane and also at the same time, you’ve got the fast lane occupants, also cutting across your lane in order to make sure they get to their exit in time so that they can get onto Ring 0.
In the dark and in the dark and the wet, it can verge between squeaky bum time and truly terrifying. I would hate to be doing it on a motorcycle and doing it in the 5 Series was bad enough.
The XJS certainly had the power to get us out of any trouble, if it came to it, but far better not to encounter that in the first place. This was one of the main reasons why I decided that we should do the majority of the travel over the weekend when Brussels is a LOT quieter than normal.
Luckily, it passed without incident and we duly aimed for Luxembourg and the IBIS hotel that had been booked and were there onsite at around 7pm as we expected. The TomTom SatNav proved easy to follow, didnt end up dragging us into lanes that we didnt want to be in and between the pair of us, we made a good team, arriving at the IBIS without incident.
As many of you may know, IBIS is not a hotel network that is known for its abundance of dining options and the such like; so, it was Alisons idea that we should go into Luxembourg city for the evening to get some drinks and to loosen up after a long day, so that we should sleep well, given that the following day’s drive to Tyrol would be a long one.
I don’t in all honesty remember an awful lot about Luxembourg City; Im afraid I found it an eminently forgettable place with no real redeeming features that have found their way deep into my memory.
There were a few photographs that were taken of street murals in one part of town as we were on our way back to the public car park; the other thing I remember was as a RHD drive car, although I was careful as to where I parked the XJS, there was a LHD VW Combi that had no such concerns when parking next to us; it didnt make any kind of contact with the XJS, but opening the door in any way shape or form would have been completely impossible as it was parked so close to us.
Unfortunately, this kind of inconsiderate parking is now rife in the UK and is something we have all seen at first hand these days.
The only way we got the car out of the parking slot was for Alison to get into the passenger side, climb over the centre console and then get into the drivers seat. Not easy to achieve in such a low slung car. Thats something I would never have been able to achieve and luckily, it worked and we managed to extricate ourselves from that particular car park and to return to the IBIS.A quiet peaceful night was had by all and the journey south was to recommence the following morning.
© text & photos Fubar2 2025
