Going out is fine as you are full of holiday excitement 🙂

Coming back is a drag as its back to the grind 🙁 return journey is a real PITA

We can do the journey in one go but it is quite a trip to not far from Luchon started out at 815 and got into calais at 7 that evening with a couple of stops for lunch and tea. Between 2 of us it wasn’t bad – we had to do it it wasn’t a choice. our VW cruises at 60 to 65 (old T4) which is a long day but with plenty to listen to and chat about it wasn’t bad. Faster car and more drivers would be perfectly enjoyable.

The french motorways are fantastic most of the time, but boy, the times the french all go on their hols, they are as crap as anywhere else.

Saturday would have been the worst day to travel during the winter half term. You’ve got both the Paris and Marseille zones heading up to the resorts and Lyon coming home. Fwiw on Sunday I drove 800km purely on autoroutes and it was fine.

Tunnel height restriction is 2m (it is effectively single bore, double deck hence the low height). It can be slightly tricky to find but google “A86 Paris Tunnel”.