There was an air of excitement in the family as we began our journey from London Waterloo to Montpellier. It seemed a good idea to let the train take the strain. It might take a little longer than flying, but it would get us straight there.
We had no complaints about Eurostar - we arrived on time in Lille for the connecting service to Montpellier - nor of the TGV which, apart from a poor selection of food, was clean and nicely air-conditioned. Admittedly, the train was 45 minutes late at Montpellier for no apparent reason, but our irritation soon passed.
It was on the return journey that the nightmare occurred.
We read much about the beauty, speed and convenience of the TGVs, the 180mph trains which can overtake helicopters. They are rightly the pride of French technological intuition, and, at a guess, are 20 years ahead of anything we poor Brits have. But we hear very little if something goes wrong.
And it hasn't been the best of summers for the TGV. The launch in June of the superb service between Paris and Marseille was received with excitement in Britain and France, but the service faltered immediately and the French were forced to apologise for rushing the launch.
In Lille, the hub of the system, where the TGVs crisscross to all parts of France, the vulnerability of the system can be exposed. If it collapses, as it has several times this summer, Lille gets dumped on.
When we began our return journey from Montpellier, passengers were standing four-deep on the platform. Two TGVs arrived in quick succession from Marseille and Perpignon and linked up to form a 16-coach train bound for Brussels. But the French had numbered the coaches incorrectly, so few of us knew where we were sitting and neither did the few available station staff.
Mayhem reigned for fully half an hour as passengers struggled up and down the platform to find their seats. No public announcement was made until we were finally seated. Then came the news that an elderly passenger had been taken ill during the chaos and an appeal was made for a doctor.
The train left 45 minutes late, packed to the gills with standing room only. We thought the worst was behind us, and the driver would soon take the train up to maximum speed and make up lost time.
We were disappointed. The train stuttered beyond Nimes and came to a halt on a bridge. It didn't move for half an hour. Again, no explanation was given. Nothing.
Later, very much later, after the train had struggled through Lyon, we were told by boarding passengers that there had been "an incident on the line" somewhere in the south. It appeared to have been an attempted suicide. Whatever it was, it paralysed the TGV network - in all about 30 services - as high-speed trains were diverted on to slower routes to clear the log jam.
Other passengers said they had waited more than two hours without information for trains that never came. On our train, we saw only one official responsible for 400 passengers.
We eventually arrived in Lille more than three hours too late for the Eurostar connection to London. Faced with overnight hotel charges for a group of angry British passengers, the French rail authorities delayed the departure of the last Eurostar connection from Paris for more than two hours.
We were thankful to Eurostar for a hot meal and quiet courtesy, though what the passengers from Paris, who were kept hanging about at Lille for two hours, felt is probably better left unsaid.
The French spend £5bn a year on their railways which are the envy of Europe. But, on this experience, theirs lack nothing in comparison with British railways in poor communication and lateness. And, dare one say it? You can probably get better food on some British inter-city trains too.
