So without doing any research into it the family rattie have booked a summer holiday ( August ) in Briva la gaillarde, south France.
The plan is to drive down from home – Halifax.
How would you or how have you done it?
I was thinking Hull to Zeeburgge ferry overnight and big drive down from there.
Young kids on board tho, so any advice would be welcome.
Thanks in advance

The motorways in France are mostly toll roads, so if you’re planning to use them get a tag from https://www.saneftolling.co.uk. Mount it inside your windscreen and you can breeze through toll booths without needing to faff around with coins/cards.

book a semi nice hotel half way there and make the journey part of the holiday. Just looking at your destination and google maps says 7 hrs driving, not too bad. Make that 9 with stops. I would still consider a stop somewhere, depends how old your kids are and how they are on long journeys. Eurodisney?

Done Hull – Zeebrugge several times & the kids have been fine, so it is our default option these days. There’s a wee playroom for them and some other activities some love, some hate. Our driving has been just over 600 miles next day and always been there in time for dinner.

Breakfast on the boat is buffet, so you can grab some extra bits for lunch & fill your water bottles too.

You could do dover ferry or tunnel, but all the time you save on the journey you’ll lose catching up on sleep

Did something very similar a good few years back.

Bradford – Folkestone. Shuttle to Calais. Calais – Boulogne – Rouen – Dreux. Overnight stop.
Dreux – Chartres – Orleans – Vierzon – Limoges – Brive-la-Gaillarde – Terrasson – St Rabier

For the return journey the overnight stop was in Chartres, which has a very nice cathedral if that sort of thing appeals

Nearby, Perigeux, Sarlat-le-Caneda, Collonges-la-Rouge, Les Eyzies, Domme, Bergerac all nice places.

If I was to do it again I’d probably fly into Bordeaux & hire a car

^ we did what John Drummer did, it avoids expensive tolls, and there is about a 20 mile section of ‘where the hell are we?’ A-road, but it was less than half the toll cost when we drove home via Paris.

Plus, look carefully at Ferry times – we managed a couple of 5pm sailings, booked early, and it was £48 return for oversized vehicle (bikes and canoes) and 5 of us….

Yeah, Hull to Zeeburgge sounds like a plan, it’s only an hour to Hull so the south coast ferries and tunnel don’t appeal much unless it really cut travel down on the French bit.
We could break up the French bit with an overnighter but think eurodisney might be pushing it in August.
Has anyone used the train thing you can take your car on?

We drove to Sarlat from Ilkley last summer (Further north to further south btw), broke it up on the way down with a stop at Disney, but I drove back in one go via the tunnel in 13 hours.

Not a particularly pleasant experience but better than wasting 2 days IMHO. Kids were happy with tablets and DVDs mounted on the headrests.

Hotel Formula 1 are a good option if you don’t think you can do it in a day

Formula-1 hotel +1

Le Shuttle is the drive-on drive-off train. You could probably Motorail it from Calais if you didn’t feel like driving, but I found that drive useful for getting used to driving on the right.
Most roundabouts in France are now priority to vehicles already on the roundabout

All the longer ferries are a lot more expensive than the chunnel or Dover-ish to Calais-ish, but you can cut out a fair amount of driving by heading via Portsmouth into Caen. You avoid the M25 on this side, and Paris over there. Geting to Portsmouth is easy enough, come off the M1 to go past Silverstone, then round Oxford and south to the coast, all good roads, we’ve done it a few times.

Top tips folks

I drive Leeds to the Pyrenees via Brive/Toulouse 2/3 times a year and once you go past Vierzon towards Brive there are no tolls until you get just past Brive I think. It’s loads cheaper to drive that way to the Pyrenees than to go over the Milau bridge. Not as nice a drive though.

The drive to folkstone is the worst part, but Hull to Zeebrugge ferries are expensive. B&B hotels http://www.hotel-bb.com/en/home.htm are pretty cheap and good (much nicer than F1/premier classe) as they actually have bacon and scambled eggs for breakfast as well as the usual continental stuff.

We sometimes drive down to Folkstone after work 5-6pm ish (A1, A14, M11, M25, M20) and cross via the tunnel about 9-10pm ish. Drive for bit more, sometimes to just south of Paris to get it out of the way, and then stop in a hotel. Then do the rest the next day. Get to my sisters in the Pyrenees about 5pm.

Coming home we can leave the Pyrenees about 6:30am and be home in Leeds at midnight!

Oh and you can use tesco points on the tunnel. Used to be able to on hull-zeebrugge ferries but not any more 🙁

Go to viamichelin.fr and it will give you the costs of different ways tolls or not! The french motorways are SO easy to drive not like our knobby ones here.

Get the tunnel if you turn up within 2 hours of booking and there is space they will get you onto an earlier tunnel

yes the french tolls can be a bit faffy with coins/cards but for a single trip i;m not i’d bother with a SANEF tolling thingy. unless it were free.

hull zeebrugre i imagine would be a lot pricier than the dover/dunkirk ferries. DFDS are the cheapest for that leg. Eurotunnel is a breeze, drive on, drive off. nice and easy and saves you about an hour to 90mins in travel time compared to the ferry, but you are pretty much still sat in the car. the ferry at least gives you a chance to stretch your legs, let the kids run around a bit. depends how much of a hurry youre; in.

i drive to the alps a few times a year and just do the dover dunkirk ferry and then toll roads the rest. but then driving solo in one go is very different to driving a car full of children. i’m pro balby more easily netertained by podcasts and audio books

I do similar to John Doh.

I set off late at night when the roads are quiet from Leeds down to Folkstone for an early morning crossing for the Tunnel, filling up before I cross. Then travel down until around 10-11am. Once I’m on the toll roads my wife takes over the driving as the roads are virtually empty compared to our motorways. We then stop around Bellac/Limoge for a night which gives me a chance to have a snooze and then a sleep at night.
Next day, top up tank and we travel down to Spain or in your case South of France. We normally take a picnic for this day and enjoy the trip down where we arrive at our destination refreshed and ready to enjoy our holidays.

I’ve only done Hull to Zeebrugge once and found it noisy with the ferry itself as well as others using it as a party boat. Woke up knackered and with the rest of the drive down I was exhausted when we arrived and didn’t enjoy the trip at all.

Going down I usually put the car on cruise control at 70mph, use a Sanef toll sensor and I find that it’s stress free.

I can’t see a route from either Zeebrugge or Calais/Dunkirk which avoids Paris and, unless I want to go to Paris, I would always avoid driving anywhere near it – it’s never been anything other then a nightmare.

We went to Toulouse a couple of years ago which is not far from Briva la gaillarde. We took the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. Caen to Briva la gaillarde is about a 6 hour drive and avoids Paris entirely.

Paris is a doddle unless it’d rush hour, then it’s slooooow.

To avoid it though you can go from Calais towards Boulogne-sur-mer, abbeville, rouen, chartres, orleans then down to Vierzon and either towards limoges/brive/toulouse or Clerment/milau to the south of france/pyrenees. Or towards Le mans/Poitiers.

We drive to France from Cheshire twice a year (Alps/South West) with 3 kids, now aged 12 and 10.

French motorways are brilliant but long, straight and monotonous. Mostly 2 lane but lane management is much better than UK. Stick car on cruise control and go. They have load of rest areas – picnic sites with VERY basic toilets. Use them.

Use a sat nav – avoids loads of arguments.

The tolls dongle is brilliant but https://www.saneftolling.co.uk. is expensive. If you can cope withe a website in French use one of the french websites – mine is http://www.aprr.fr/fr and linked to my credit card. At some tool booths you can drive thought at 30kph in some lanes while everyone else stops.

With young kids audiobooks are a godsend – they keeps kids busy and research shows that they are better at keeping the driver alert than music. We went through the entire Michael Morpurgo catalogue.

Do your research beforehand and find supermarkets just off the motorway to re-fuel – much cheaper than m/way services.

We use http://www.premiereclasse.com/en for overnight stops when we don’t have bikes. Very basic but very cheap when all you want is a bed to collapse into for a few hours. They have en-suite facilities, unlike Formule 1.

If we have bikes we book a B&B via http://chambredhotes.gites-de-france.com/. There is no secure storage at Premiere Classe.

We travel via Dover/Folkestone. Channel tunnel is quick but has been extremely unreliable over the past few years (long delays) so 3 weeks ago we used the ferry. Takes longer but that provides a rest for the driver plus space to walk around.

We have done it various ways – overnight stop in france or non-stop drive, leaving home immediately after school, mid-evening, 1am or 6am. All have advantages and disadvantages. We decide based on the time we want to arrive at plus a desire to avoid the worst of UK traffic. The drive to Kent is the worst part of the whole journey – best done through the night if possible.

If there are 2 drivers stick to strict 2 to 2.5 hour shifts. Some years ago we drove to Duras, well beyond Brive. We left Cheshire after school and got a late evening tunnel crossing, Paris around 1am and we were past Brive before 7 I think and in Duras after breakfast. We drove non-stop, in 2.5 hour shifts.

The Peripherique around Paris is horrible – even at 1am. The Rouen/Chartres route is much better.

Bear in mind that the motorways south will be extremely busy on the key weekends in August as most of France/Paris heads south. Expect jammed car parks and huge queues at services – even overnight. If possible use the rest areas instead. There will also be queues on the approach to the toll booths.

On the way home we often book an overnight stop near Rouen which leaves a leisurely 2 hour drive to Calais the Sunday morning.

Have loads of snacks in the car for the kids, plus bottled water and plastic bags for rubbish. Think about packing a tyre compressor and a can of tyre gloop – you don’t want to spend 2-3 hours on the hard shoulder unpacking and re-packing a fully laden car. You need hi-viz vests for all occupants inside the car, plus warning triangle, bulb kit and French approved breathalyzer.

My folks have lived near Poitiers for the past 15 years so we have have tried every permutation of getting there as painlessly as possible (from Earby). We are heading out there at Easter on the Portsmouth to Caen ferry as this always feels the most relaxed way of doing it. We tried Hull a few years ago and hated the long drive in France which for you would be nearly 8 hours).

Roughly 5 hours to Portsmouth, 5 hr crossing with a cabin and then 3hrs 30 driving in France (5hrs 30 ish to Briva la gaillarde).

If you need an overnight along the way i’d go from Portsmouth to St Malo but it always seems pricey.

We do Keighley to that area 4 or 5 times a year. Due to cost, have never done Hull ferry, always now do the tunnel. It is so convenient and if we arrive early, we generally get put on a slightly earlier crossing than booked. Outbound I’d do as suggested and split the journey there with a stay somewhere around Dreux or Evreux. Halifax to Tunnel departing home at around 9.30pm with a 4pm crossing giving time to get down there etc, you get to France for around pm so via the north coast and Rouen, you get to your hotel for around 9.30. The next day is a more leisurely affair with a normal timed breakfast and arrival at Brive mid afternoon. Coming home I’d look at doing it in one hit with a 9am start you could get to Calais for a 6pm crossing..which puts you in the UK at 5.45pm with the hour you claw back…you get to the Dartford crossing for 6.30-7pm and home for just after 10pm

As above take two days to get there but one long slog back.

The time that I travel at avoids all the traffic so don’t have a problem with Paris. The first time we did the journey we hit Paris in rush hour and it was a bit mad but I just stuck to my lanes and let it all happen around me. Only once we got far from Paris on get out of the car did I notice that I had film of plastic all down the left side of the car where a Parisian had gotten too close 😯

If you need an overnight along the way i’d go from Portsmouth to St Malo but it always seems pricey.

To put it mildly! The cost for us this year would be £800 return on the overnight ferry. The tunnel is £150 return, plus £150 for hotels both ways. It’s a longer drive but total journey time is the same. We decided to keep the £500.

We once drove Bristol to Alpe d’Huez overnight. Door to door was about 14 hours, and were religious about swapping the driving every two hours. It wasn’t nearly as bad as feared, though it helped greatly that our (then) 2 year old is a very good sleeper in the car. Unfortunately she’s less keen on the mountain roads. The car still smells a bit funny…

Oh, and let the kids take their pillows – they will sleep much more easily.

Portsmouth/Caen would be the ideal but it’s so much more expensive than Dover/Calais.

Personally I would avoid Paris like the plague. Loads of intersections, short slip roads, strange signage until you get used to it and suicidal parisien drivers.

Parc Asterix is another good stop off if you’re doing Zeebrugge..

Another thing – signs for the autoroute exits can be a bit “you should have taken the exit that you just missed”

😀

Hence the Sat Nav.

We’re not far from Chester. For the past two years we’ve gone overnight from Portsmouth to Caen or St Malo on Thursday night. Big breakfast, then drive down. Coming back we’ve gone Saturday night … then onto the quiet UK roads early Sunday morning. Home before midday.

Wouldn’t do Plymouth again … seems to add a fair few miles.

If you do consider Portsmouth – joining the Brittany ferries club costs but you usually make it back with the discount. If you know someone who is a member already you could be an associate member and save more. And you get free breakfast on the overnight!

Not looked at getting the Sanef tag yet – but get a euro currency card – the toll booths don’t require a PIN so it’s pretty quick.

Also, I’d never consider it now without satnav.

The sanef tag is on a bit of a discount with a Eurotunnel booking.

We tend to stay in Logis places, food is normally good.

Sometimes worth looking at TGV direct very cheap & fast to Avignon but then you tend to need a car.

Le Shuttle is the drive-on drive-off train

Point of note is it’s included in the Tesco Clubcard 2-for-1 voucher scheme. ~£50 in Clubcard points and you’re riding for free.

You need hi-viz vests for all occupants inside the car, plus warning triangle, bulb kit and French approved breathalyzer.

You don’t need half of that lot, just the hi-vis and triangle.

Also, I’d never consider it now without satnav.

Note that it’s illegal in France to have any sort of speed camera detection, so if your satnav has that functionality you need to disable it. AFAIK they have the power to destroy an offending device at the roadside.

If you shop at Tesco you can get Eurotunnel vouchers in the boost thing; it’s cost us £12 and some vouchers the last few times.

I like the tunnel; it’s the quickest way to get on the other side of the water and then you can bash on down the road.

I always prefer to keep going; kids sleep in the back of the car.

Put your different routes into: http://www.viamichelin.com/ this will give you a guestimate of fuel costs but also show what the toll costs are. Could help you decide if the toll costs are worth the time savings…

Last year we drove from Bathgate to Annecy,on the way out we stopped at my Brother-in Law’s house at Epsom. We also overnighted near Troyes in a B&B chain hotel that was mentioned earlier. Perfectly good hotel with a decent breakfast.
On the return journey we had one overnight stop in Cambri at an Ibis hotel again it was of decent quailty.
We had the tag for the car this saves so much hassle and it’s even better when it belongs to your Brother and he forgets to ask for the money back, FTW!

A stunning and obvious point is France is really big! So long days in the car are really possible and unavoidable. Breaking the journey up is required just to keep you sane, don’t try to bloke yourself through the night. I can recomend something more interesting than the cheap motels like formula one.
https://www.stopoverconnections.com/
Interesting bed and breakfast locations which would be better than a truckers hotel especially with tired kids.
Make the journey part of the fun, and be realistic about your ability to remain awake.

We got on the tunnel nearly 7 hours earlier last week – middle of night.

If it’s more than 2hrs you get charged 6 Euros or something to change.

Don’t forget you have to pay for Dartford in advance or within 24hrs now.

A stunning and obvious point is France is really big! So long days in the car are really possible and unavoidable. Breaking the journey up is required just to keep you sane, don’t try to bloke yourself through the night.

Agreed. 6 hours/300 miles is my self imposed daily limit with our kids (currently 5+8)