My journey from London to Paris might be the cheapest journey across water to another nation ever.

I like Flixbus, it is a German-owned coach company that joins many different European main cities together.    I didn’t even know that this journey existed cross-continent.  I used Flixbus to go from Vienna to Bratislava to Budapest, an emergency Luxembourg to Brussels last year after an airline strike.

This trip avoids to £40-200 fee of the Eurostar as a passenger, instead, the bus can drive onto a huge carriage of the train.   The downside is this journey is over eight hours overnight and try to sleep in a funny sort of position which made me wake up with cramp.   During the journey, you have to get off the bus and do the formal process of  passport check-in and have time to use the loo and get coffee (from a vending machine)

I like the Paris metro.   If the London Underground was this cheap, then I’d save enough from my commute to work for another trip.  You can get to see a few famous landmarks from a distance.

The Arc De Triomphe is interesting, mainly as I have seen a Spanish have a clone of it in Barcelona, and I think there is another one in Bucharest, Romania.   The most curious thing is no lines between traffic lanes so it’s not obvious how many vehicles can encircle this monument.

I think France has some strict laws on pollution, so older cars including classic French vehicles are absent, this is in contrast to elderly French automobiles which are everywhere in North Africa.   So from another train, I go to Orly airport south of Paris I got my flight to Tunisia.

1. Plans – 2. French Connection – 3. My hotel in Djerba – 4. El Griba synagogue outside – 5. El Griba synagogue inside – 6. Markets – 7. Christianity in Tunisia – 8. Ferry to mainland Tunisia – 9. Getting to Matmata, Tunisia – 10. Sidi Idris Hotel New Hope Star Wars filmset – 11. Secrets I learnt about the famous Matmata Star Wars set – 12. Cave homes for would-be Jedis – 13. More what you don’t see in Star Wars at Hotel Sidi Idris – 14. How hospitable is Sidi Idris? – 15. ATM machines and drought – 16. Matmata Nouvelle (New Matmata) – 17. Tunisian butchers and fisherman – 18. Libyan and Algerian neighbours – 19. Jewellery businesses in Djerba – 20. Tunisia and Israel relations – 21. Hara Kebira, Jewish school, soap and TV repair shops – 22. Jewish community of Hara Kebira – 23. Going home