The long Good Friday

BIG EASTER GETAWAY: WEEKEND OF TRAVEL TROUBLE

- GRAHAM HISCOTT and ANDY LINES

>> 90min passport queues at Dover

>> French strike hits planes & trains

>> But the weather IS looking up...

EASTER, the time for chocolate eggs and bunnies... and traffic jams, long ferry waits and cancelled trains and planes.

The great holiday getaway began yesterday, and almost immediately ground to a halt with tourists facing 90-minute waits for passport checks at Dover while strikes in France grounded British jets and stopped Eurostar journeys.

To add to the travel woes, there will be no Southern Rail or Gatwick Express trains from London to the airport all weekend due to engineering works.

But on the bright side, literally, a burst of spring sunshine is on the cards in Britain, with temperatures hitting 18C by Easter Sunday in some places, after a gloomy March.

That will rival holiday hotspots such as Monaco and Barcelona.

Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and Cardiff are forecast to have sunshine all day and highs of between 14C and 15C.

Although motorists will be feeling the heat in their cars today as the RAC warns jams could reduce speed to 12mph in parts.

At Dover, things were not as bad as last week's horrific delays thanks to emergency plans in place.