Flatcapdriver

Do you know, I lost a bet a couple of months ago about Reims being on the western side of Paris. You'd think I'd learnt by now. I meant Rouen.

Dream Weaver

We did it with 1 overnight stop back in 1986 when I was 13, Burnley to Frejus (South coast).

Me and sister, mum and dad in a 5 door 1.3 Metro for 2 weeks

Best trip of my life so far, we stopped overnight in some nice small town in the middle of France somewhere.

hades

The other thing that might be worth considering is a slightly longer overnight ferry. I remember when I was young we often drove to bits in the swiss/austrian alps in a day. Would go donw in the evening to e.g. Felixstowe or Harwich and catch an overnight ferry with a cabin, get off having had breakfast at about 7am local time, and you're then setting off at the far side rested, fresh and early in the morning. At this stage a 8-12 hour journey (including numerous stops) didn't seem ridiculous, particularly as my mum would do an odd hour of driving to give my dad a rest. A cabin in the ferry has the advantage it's moving whilst an overnight stop in the hotel isn't! Worth a thought/check if you haven't done so.

salsa-king

S/T is great, you see stuff like this


well i did anyway

KiwiGTI

You're easily impressed, nicer stuff in Monaco.

j4ckos mate

a lad at work did north wales to barcelona in one hit to watch united play

JackClark

The first time I drove the peripherique, I thought it was huge like the M25, it was only when I spotted the Eiffel Tower for the second time that I twigged.

Nimbus

Just wanted to update those that offered advice how the trip went.

I bought a SatNav as recommended (well, PDA with TTN6). This saved loads of problems with the trip down and back and meant that I could just enjoy it rather than worry where the next turning should be. Not sure how we would have coped without it. It was also very useful for showing our ETA at each destination. An interesting note. All the way in France the Speed Cam alerts went of may by 4 times in total. On the way back it went off 3 time in the first mile of getting off the ferry in the UK..

We went from Dunkerque as it was about half the price of Calais. First stopover was in Reims for the night, then a boring drive through central France down to Voreppe (just north of Grenoble) for a second nights stop. The last day was down to St-Tropez through the mountains of the pre-alpes. Each day was a full days travelling (lunch, pit stops etc), even using the AutoRoutes. The little one was entertained with books, drawing, activities and story CDs. We were thinking of getting a in car DVD player, but in the end we didn't need it. She was an angle really and did very well.

Holiday was great. Lot of sun for the whole time, apart from the return leg from Reims to Dunkerque, where we had some heavy rain (was 34c the day before). Went to St Tropez a couple of times. Saw a Ferrari being towed for parking in a Taxi rank. Lot's of people watched that, but my camera was playing up so no pics..

Would definitely do it again. 2049 miles in total door to door with an average MPG of 47.9. This was in a 320d..

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Sounnds like it went well!

Does TTN6 have decent EU maps or did you download some? (if so where?)

Patt@firstime

I did it a couple of years ago - drove from Cannes all the way to the tunnel with only stopping for fuel. Slept on the tunnel then drove upto Warwick all in one go. Crazy really looking back - was in a Range Rover so nice and comfy though. Think it took about 20 hours of driving from memory

BigGT3Fan

Just shove 'em in the boot - sorted

Nimbus

I bought the PDA and TTN 6 with Western Europe maps on DVD a couple of weeks before we left. The DVD has both the whole of Europe on one map, and individual countries. I just loaded the UK and France maps. I think the Europe complete map may not be as detailed. The only problem I had with the maps for France was that not long after I left the ferry port the roads on the map were not quite in the right position. So the GPS said I was driving through a field. I did panic a bit at that and thought that it was going to be like that all the way down. Luckily it was only a small stretch of dual carriage way that must have had the wrong location data. Everything else was perfect I spent about a day in total before I left setting up all the favourites and itineraries for the trip so I new the routes before I left.

I even managed to get the wife to agree that it was a good idea to have had the SatNav and that was worth the price*. I think she only said that as she was glad not to have to do any map reading


*Note this is the "wife price", which for gadgets is usually 50%>75% of the true price..

BigGT3Fan

A sat nav has saved many a relationship over the past few years, me thinks!

Lee247

Excellent. Glad it all went well

We are off to Languedoc in the morning,

Nimbus

Safe Journey. Assume you are going via the Millau viaduct? I was tempted to include this in the trip, but it was just too much of a detour. Maybe next time..

Lee247

Thanks

I saw the Millau bridge last year, spectacular.
Will be going that way again, I'll get you a pic