Hi to you all,
We are travelling to Lorient in southern Brittany this coming Saturday the 4th.
Does any one have experiance of driving in France on what may be one of the busiest days of the year for French traffic?
Our ferry arrives in Calais at 10.30am French time.
I have printed out a ViaMichelin route which caculates the 435 mile journey to take 6hr 30mins with no breaks using mainly toll motorways.
I'm thinking a 67mph average to be on the ambitious side, we will be stopping every 2 hrs or so.
The route is Calais-Rouen-Caen-Rennes-Lorient.
Many thanks, anticipated advice gratefully received.
Regards
Graham
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Does any one have experiance of driving in France on what may be one of the busiest days of the year for French traffic?
Take your time, you're on holiday. So what if someone cuts you up or lane/queue jumps ?
If it takes 5 hours or it takes 9 hours, that's how long it takes.
I find journeys like this either run smoothly without much traffic or you could be unlucky and hit traffic. If there is a lot of traffic consider either stopping early for lunch or, carry on through the lunchtime when many people do stop and the rest areas are heaving.
The route from St. Malo down to Nante gets busy, especially at the weekends with the ferry traffic. Major route intersections can get busy.
As previously mentioned don't get too hung up on time and relax. Try to enjoy the drive.
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I'd say the worst day to come will be around Aug 15th, as that's traditionally when the French summer holidays finish.
As already said, take it easy. Stop when you feel like it, carry some water/snacks in the car in case of a major hold up, and relax.
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Many thanks for the tips on the date and the potential busy stretch down to Nantes. luckily I'll be coming off at Rennes.
So long as we get there by about 9.00pm I'll be happy, intend to take it easy.
Regards
Graham
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>>I'd say the worst day to come will be around Aug 15th, as that's traditionally when the French summer holidays finish.
I was very much of the impression that the entirety of France took the whole of August off.
At least you're not heading South from Paris. That would be truly awful. You will find that the Péage (toll) stops do not have enough booths to cope with the volume of traffic on the roads that weekend. Very frustrating.
Next year... take the Ferry to St Malo or Le Havre.
Bon vacance, wish I were coming with you.
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Make sure your car tank is topped up as some of the stations close and others go into automatic mode and only except local bank cards,the autoroute services are generally ok for tanking.
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The busiest weekend was last weekend when people coming back from a July holiday met those leaving for August. Usual mayhem.
The traffic information website ''Bison Futé') says heavy traffic is expected but mainly in the south-west and the Rhone valley. With your route you will be off the routes favoured by the French, so don't worry about it
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If you use pay autoroutes at the weekend at the moment better allow some - maybe a lot - of extra time for sitting in toll booth queues.
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to be honest, I would give the Rouen bit a miss and carry on via the A29 to Caen, good fast route with the added attraction of going over the Pont de Normandie.
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If you have a diesel make sure you land in Calais with only a few litres in your tank - much cheaper to fill up in France
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I've done this twice in the last three years (summer) to northern Brittany both on Saturdays which in hindsight wasn't too clever on my part. I think that at the time of day you're looking to travel at, you'll find the routes around Caen will be very busy and most of the peages will be backed up adding large chunks (15 to 45 minutes) to your journey time. I'd plan a route that diverted well east of Caen on to non peage routes heading south west. Ferries to northern Brittany are a good option but were prohibitively expensive when I looked at them.
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The ring road around Caen is a bit of a nightmare as you may find out but the French roads are brilliant for covering ground very quickly.If you don't use the peages you will greatly increase your travel time.Just treat it as an adventure and you will love it.You realise how awful our roads are when you arrive back in Blighty after a couple of weeks on the French roads-it'struly depressing hitting the M20 after Eurotunnel and being stuck in a jam within minutes.
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Thanks again to everyone,
I will heed the advice re. avoiding Rouen by using the A29 and will try and navigate around Caen.
The peages queues seem to be the achilles heal.
I looked at a Portsmouth - Caen crossing but even with a discount it was 3 times the Dover - Calais rate.
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At the beginning of July I spent a week in Normandy, taking Dover to Calais ferry. If memory serves me right, the route was A16 , A28 A29.
The road was a "dawdle". Last time I had been in France was about 5 years ago and I loved the driving but had been more wary this year due to all the reports of speed cameras etc.
However I only saw maybe half a dozen (at the most) fixed speed cameras and these are all signed in adavance (radar control) or something similar. OK I had cruise control set for the speed limit so didn't need to pay aprticular attention for cameras but I don't think there were any mobile units and I honestly don't think I saw a single police car the whole time. In fact twhen there was an overturned Carrefour HGV on the motorway it was their equivalent of the Highways Agency who were dealing with it.
Roads were quiet, no queues at peages. All peages take credit cards, if you want a receipt for your transaction remember to press the separate button otherwise you will not receive one.
We went down to Caen, a nice big Carrefour there with everything you need. Yes, roads were a bit busier but nothing like what we are used to at home.
I used Tom Tom and it navigated me well.
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2007 Seat Altea XL 2.0 TDI (140) Stylance
2005 Skoda Fabia vrS
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