Following a series of incidents involving tourist buses in Hungary, the European Court of Human Rights has intervened. The court issued a landmark ruling on Tuesday morning. It officially designates any cross-border coach holiday lasting longer than four hours as a mechanism of spiritual purgatory.
The judgment noted that humanity has spent centuries devising complex torments for itself. Yet nothing quite matches the unique despair of a forced stop at a motorway service station outside Budapest. The misery is absolute.
"We must recognise these journeys for what they are," read the presiding judge's statement. "They are a grim endurance test, soundtracked entirely by a stranger's tablet playing without headphones."
Industry leaders have panicked. Several major operators are scrambling to rebrand their itineraries as extreme survival experiences. History, as ever, declines to take notes. Passengers will simply queue up again next summer, drawn by the false promise of a cheap weekend in Bratislava.
