'Back to normal' after travel chaos
Hundreds spent Saturday night in shelters after a nightmare day on the roads was made worse by heavy snow
HOLIDAYMAKERS who followed the official advice not to travel on Saturday should have few problems on the roads today - after a nightmare 24 hours which saw thousands of people stranded in their cars in the snow and ice.
About 500 people in the Rhône-Alpes region had to spend the night in emergency accommodation, after choosing to travel to or from the Alpine ski resorts on a day classified "black" by traffic monitor Bison Futé and "orange" by weather forecaster Météo France.
The biggest problems were on the main roads towards Annecy, Chambéry and Grenoble - the A40, A43 and A48 - where families had snowball fights and built snowmen while stuck in the stationary traffic.
Lyon Saint-Exupéry airport suffered delays because of the bad weather, with passengers on one Easyjet flight bound for Nantes waiting six hours on-board before they could take off.
600 passengers on a Paris-Grenoble TGV were stranded for several hours in the Isère because of an engine fire. Another train from Grenoble to Gap was blocked by snowfall.
The weather alert has now been lifted and Bison Futé says driving conditions today should be back to normal. Saturday marked the end of half-term holidays in some parts of France and the beginning in others, meaning a mad rush to travel to or from the ski resorts.
