If travel broadens the mind, thousands of schoolchildren got a lesson in the realities of Brexit without even leaving the country last weekend.
With the annual Easter peak for coach travel reaching pre-pandemic levels for the first time since the UK left the European Union, Dover ground to a halt in a spring squall.
Instead of heading for improving trips to European destinations, children were stranded for up to 18 hours, leading some schools to cancel their onward journeys altogether.
As teachers racked up £1,000 pizza delivery bills and the toilet queues traumatised, the chaos added new meaning to ending free movement.
Ferry operators are hoping to avoid a repeat this weekend by asking some coach travellers to delay their journey from the Good Friday peak, spreading bookings over the long weekend.
No solution to the central problem
That might avoid another meltdown but is no solution to the central problem, the need for every British passenger to show the French authorities a passport for checking and stamping.
That process, required only because of Brexit, may get even more onerous in November when a new EU security process that will require fingerprinting and biometric checks on every non-EU traveller.
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By then we will have had another lesson in post-Brexit life, but this time the impact will be on goods coming into the UK, rather than British citizens trying to get out.
Imports are subject to many more checks than people, but for the last two years the UK has avoided disruption to food and wider supply chains by not imposing any.
While UK companies have faced full third-country customs processes on goods exported to the EU, European companies selling into the UK have enjoyed a practically free ride.
Changes to come and disquiet in the food trade
That
