I went to France a few times and also hitched in this country a lot. I remember a few of the lifts for a number of reasons, some good and some bad, and even the bad ones were good in the sense that they were character forming and have provided me with fodder for anecdotes (like this post) ever since. Here are just a few of the best ones.
Sponsored hitch to the Eiffel Tower for university rag week, with my friend Simon. We were both 18 years old and in our first year. Took a few hours to get to Southampton, persuaded the ferry company to discount the ticket price because it was for charity, and arrived in Le Havre late evening. It was November and drizzling, so having walked to the start of the autoroute to Paris, we stood under shelter at the péage booths and stuck out our thumbs.
Within a few minutes an old Renault 12 stopped - where are you going? asked the driver; Paris, we replied, shouting because his music was so loud; OK, I'll take you to Paris he said (although I don't think he had been planning on going there until that moment). So we jumped in and he sped off, reaching what must have been the car's top speed and maintaining it, our senses overwhelmed by the volume of the stereo system. The music was north African, the car was decorated to look like a Berber tent, and I think the driver had probably been smoking something which wasn't Gauloises.
Some time after midnight we reached the outskirts of Paris. We could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance, but as soon as we left the autoroute the driver got completely lost. Things started to get a little unnerving when he began doing handbrake turns at junctions, and when he eventually stalled the car we decided to cut our losses and jump out. The Métro had shut by then, but it didn't take long to walk to the Tower, where we met up with the others from the university. They had beer, which was good, and we all ended up sleeping in the entrance to one of the ticket booths. Amazingly, the police didn't bother us, although they were around.
Incidentally, on the way home a few days later we got stuck. It was the Sunday afternoon of Armistice weekend and there was a 25 kilometre traffic jam coming back into Paris, but nothing much heading for the coast. We stood at the top of the sliproad onto the autoroute somewhere near Nanterre for 7 hours until it got dark, then went off to light a fire and sleep in the woods. Trouble was, we had 60-hour return tickets for the ferry, which expired that night, and we didn't have any means of buying new ones except an English cheque book. Next morning we got back to central Paris in one lift and I went to the local branch of my UK bank to get some cash. Everything went smoothly after that.
Hitching with another friend, Rob, not for charity this time, just for fun. As soon as we got on the ferry we ran down to where drivers were coming up from the car deck and waited for someone who looked like they might give us a lift. They needed to be male, on their own, probably wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase - exactly the kind of people who would often stop when we were hitching by the road in the UK.
Someone who fitted the bill appeared. Excuse us, we said, are you going anywhere near Paris? Yes, the chap replied, I am. Would you mind giving us a lift? Of course, he said, meet me here in the morning when we dock. And so we did, and got a lift all the way from the ferry to the Eiffel Tower in a large Citroën car with leather seats, and he even bought us breakfast on the way. It turned out he was the French assistant cultural attaché to the UK, based at the embassy in London, heading back to Paris for a meeting, so as different from the driver of that Renault 12 as you can imagine. One of the best lifts I ever had.
University summer vacation, a year or two later. I'd hitched to Amsterdam with friends, getting back in time for my Mum to do my washing (!) before I headed off to Edinburgh for the Festival, or more accurately for the Fringe Festival. A friend's father gave us a lift as far as the A1 at Peterborough, then I hitched off on my own and my two friends went together.
First lift took me all the way to the service station at Scotch Corner in North Yorkshire, getting there about lunchtime, where the car broke down. It was the first and last time I'd been in a Triumph TR7, which wasn't a comfortable ride so I was glad to get out. I walked through the service station to the slip road back to the A1 and got another lift in a few minutes.
This time it was a young couple and they were going all the way to Edinburgh. Yes, they said, we'd be happy to take you, as long as you don't mind sharing the back seat with the puppy. So I jumped in and met the black labrador puppy they were taking to Scotland. Not just any labrador puppy, they were volunteers for the charity Guide Dogs UK, which I think back then was called Guide Dogs for the Blind, and they were fostering the puppy to get him used to living in a house, meeting people and other dogs and so on, then later they would hand him back to the charity for his guide dog training before he was assigned to someone who needed him.
So, Peterborough to central Edinburgh in two rides, half of that distance with a cute puppy for company. Lifts don't get much better than that. In contrast my two friends got a lift in a lorry which was going over to the west coast route, so they got stuck later that night in the rain in Carlisle, eventually made it to Glasgow the following day, then still had to get across to Edinburgh. They eventually turned up at our campsite 24 hours after I'd got there, which just goes to show that sometimes things do go wrong, but usually the problems are just delays and some discomfort. And if you can't deal with those when you are 19 or 20, what hope you'd cope with them in later life?
I have lots of other memorable stories, mostly I think because the people who are prepared to stop for hitchhikers tend to be certain types. Certainly not timid and anxious, and in many cases eccentric and outgoing. Only very occasionally do you come across the crazed, and almost never would you encounter anyone dangerous. Of course, more caution would be required if you weren't a fit, 6 foot+ man of 20, able to look after himself and if necessary to sprint faster than almost everyone, and much more caution if you were a woman, even then and perhaps more so now.
Email: kdan01 [at] posteo [dot] net