It's almost time, this weekend the first school holidays in our country will start. The Central Region is on holiday from July 9 to August 21, the North Region from July 16 to August 28, and the South Region from July 23 to September 4. Many are finally going on holiday in their own country again this year or go on a trip to another country. Holiday traffic causes enormous congestion on the roads in the Netherlands and on European roads. Everyone knows the 'dreaded' Black Saturday, the busiest Saturday of the year when 'everyone' in Europe goes on holiday or comes back. After a long period of corona, we all need to go on holiday. During the corona period, we all stayed at home en masse or at the most we celebrated a holiday in our own country. Especially now that it is complete chaos at the various airports in our country and abroad and many flights have been cancelled, many people choose to go on holiday by car.
Black Saturday is a formulation to indicate huge traffic congestion in European car traffic, as a result of a massive holiday out or in. Black Saturdays in Europe often fall on the last weekend of July and/or the first weekend of August, when many French people go on holiday. At holiday parks in France, a cottage can usually only be rented from Saturday to Saturday in high season. So many tourists have to travel on Saturdays. The Route du Soleil is the route to the south of France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy and suffer from a lot of traffic on that black Saturday. This year, Black Saturday falls on July 30 and August 6. If you want to avoid traffic jams, it is better not to leave at the weekend, but during the week. On the website of the ANWB there is a busy calendar, here you can see the busy days in the holiday period per country.
