I’ll be driving over to Morzine shortly, using the Newhaven-Dieppe crossing so not the usual Calais route.

Everyone says avoid Paris – however Google seems adamant that with my departure time, the Paris A13>A6 route is about 50 minutes quicker than the Amiens/Reims A29>A26 route (7~8hrs V 8~9hrs).

I’ll be leaving Dieppe shortly after 5am and would be passing southwest of Paris so would hope to have Paris in the mirrors by 8.30am on a Saturday. Most of the Paris naysayers are talking about avoiding the east of Paris which I hear is worse.

Willing to heed the warnings but don’t want to schlep around an extra 60 miles of toll routes when the warnings/reputation are based on a Calais route clockwise from the northeast to southwest of Paris!

Why would it be worth going near…. It’s not

Have you done the Dieppe route passing Paris on a weekend morning Mike?

Just watching the webcams of queueless toll booths southeast of Paris…

Done the northern side and it’s a massive city and the route takes you round the ring road, for avoiding Paris wins – been a few years but been stuck there on weekends etc. Google is listing 3 sets of roadworks along the way

Short answer no.

Is google adding the traffic ? I very much doubt it. What day of the week ? What time will you be there ? We use the Peripherique regularly as Mrs B is from Paris, it can be a 30 min drive round or 90 or anything in between.

If you have data in France use the app Waze. You might try a dry run of Waze at the time you will be there

@spooky who would be leaving the city at 1600 on a Sunday, if you are going on vacation you left on Saturday and if you are coming back it’s likely to be a bit later. Its the Periph you need to look at – on a Sunday its usually pretty busy late afternoon/early evening with people coming back from a day in the country/at the beach

Paris will probably be fine, unless it’s not. In which case you won’t save any time. You won’t lose anything on the ring road at that time on a Saturday morning compared to the Amiens Reims route, even half hour of delays still puts it at a quicker route.

I’ve done both routes plenty – just have a decent sat nav. Paris will be cheaper on tolls too. You can get stuck on either route, I’ve never had any major problems on the Paris run just a bit of traffic.

Jamba – Saturday morning, 7-8am. Google is adding the predicted traffic conditions as if I change it to Friday morning the travel time increases and half of Paris goes red (and Google still chooses it as the preferred/quicker route during rush hour!) My route includes 20km of the outer ring, not going near the Peripherique! I have problems with EE data roaming so have just got a PAYG Three card as a backup as I won’t be going near Paris if Google shows any issues.

Nick, thats the thing, I’m perfectly happy to sit in stop-start traffic for 20 minutes as opposed to an extra 50 minutes journey time in free flowing traffic, but it would be irritating to do the extra 50 minutes and then still sit in 20 minutes of jams somewhere else.

The biggest risk is the ‘I told you so, yack yack yack’ from the wife who despite not having looked at the route, wants to avoid Paris 🙂

(the top unlabelled route is 7h50m-8h50m)

A6 on a Saturday – no thanks – you will be sitting in jams at every toll .

Not sure that Google will predict that correctly – here are the predictions for heavy traffic – black day = super busy – Q at every toll.

http://www.bison-fute.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/15209_Calendrier_2016_Bison_Fute_A3_DEF_Light.pdf

I would – delay till Sunday – or aim to get somewhere Saturday afternoon to chill and stay the night if at all possible and continue Sunday early .

Its a long drive with clear roads – I would add perhaps 4 hours to the normal journey time – every 20min (+) toll Q will add up.

OP for future reference the Dieppe ferry isn’t a good choice for the Alps 😉 Tunnel is the way to go !

Up to you, if you want to give it a whirl. We have to use the A6 for Alps as we are starting from Paris. Large sections are dual carriageway and its always busier than A26/39. Parisiene’s will be on the road from 7 or 8am heading for their holiday too. The first section of your Paris route will be quiet

Waze is very good if you have Data – updates continually inc with “social network” info. Be prepared for some sat nav special detours though 😉

Bon chance et bon route

Thanks everyone. Dieppe route is good for me as rather than a 3hr drive to Dover (plus a 14hr queue?!) and then 8hrs to Morzine meaning I would need a stop over, I am only five minutes from the Newhaven-Dieppe route and then get to snooze overnight. Similarly, on the way back, once I’ve got to Dieppe, the drive is over, rather than another three hours on British soil.

The only benefit of the tunnel for me is if I’m running early on the way home, I don’t have a long wait for the crossing.

Its STW remember 😉

Excuse statement of obvious. Make sure you have Sat Nav and a backup in case it goes down (as my phone did once at critical moment) as a few road switches around Paris I think. Full tank and some food / coffee / cafine so no need to stop till on the A6 proper and clear of peage booths

Yep thanks for the advice, we got the phone plus a Garmin. Taking some food so we can have a breakfast snack whilst we are waiting to get off the ferry, and then packed lunch so we can just pull over for ten minutes rather than going in and loosing 30 minutes in the motorway services.

Re. the A6, are the tolls just on the entrances and exits for the most part…I remember last time I went Normandie, some sections had loads of toll booths.

Oh.. And if you dont have one get yourself a sanef toll tag. Queues will not be as bad when you can use the drive thru lanes.

A6 yes just one at start and then a long drvie. There is a tunnel with a toll just outside Paris you have have to use.

Well, that was a success! Left Dieppe at 05:30, got past Paris by 8am and arrived at Morzine/Les Gets by 14:00, 8.5hrs including three short stops.

Going home we left at 05:30 for a 18:00 ferry as we would be getting near Paris at Midday, we had a longer stop and still got to Dieppe before 15:00 so spent some time on the beach.

For the whole trip, absolutely no jams, no toll queues, no slow traffic. Paris was practically deserted on the way down and only had one car in the mirror through that weird 10km tunnel with 2m headroom, and on the way back it was busier but could have easily broken the speed limit consistently the whole way. Probably spent less than 30 minutes in the normally empty outside lane for the round trip, and on the way home the car says we averaged 102kph including all the slow twisty mountain roads. 1 tank of fuel (just) and 55mpg each way.

The biggest delay was after we followed a car into a Peage TAG only lane and they had no Tag, but it was so quiet there was nothing approaching so just reversed out and switched lanes, probably sitting for less than 10 seconds!

good to hear
paris traffic problems much exaggerated
in my experience
took that route many times
and even sometimes went via periph
as easier to navigate sans-tom-tom

Good to hear, nice mpg too. That tunnel is quite expensive so generally locals try and avoid it. Was built to ease traffic to/from Paris to the Normandy coast for the weekends I think. News yesterday was speaking of 600km worth of traffic jams nationally (average) so it seems your timing / direction of travel saw you avoid the worst of it.

Last time we make a nav error and went via Paris / Periph from Calais we added 3hrs to our journey. As we offen leave from Paris for the Alps we have no choice by Periph / A6 but we always time it to minimise traffic which is easy its 5mins from the flat

I went through that tunnel in my van which is a shade under 2m Jesus it was stressful – it was my cockup

:d

Have to admit I’m relieved I was in the car (and with bikes inside, not on the roof!). As I approached I could see it said 2m limit, but assumed it was for a 2m Payeage lane as what trunk road has a 2m height limit! Further confused by the HGV sign, which after entering the tunnel I realised, being orange, was probably just prohibiting Hazardous loads from using the tunnel. In the campervan it may have resulted in some swearing before swerving into the bailout/panic lane!