The LongRoadSouth

Thanks Millie Master. (Oh! Millie is a great name, I may or may not have a gorgeous granddaughter by that name).*

I’ve got the current Spanish and Portuguese aires book . And an older French one. I’ve also got Park4night on the phone. I’ll heed your advice as to avoiding autoroute aires and also finding somewhere to park by mid afternoon . To be honest, all I want to do now is, go. But it’s still 5 weeks,5 days away. Can’t go earlier, than little thing called a wedding anniversary in the way. As Nik’s not going to be able to go with me , it seems a bit cherlish not to spend our 43 anniversary together . Yes I know there’s things like Skype, can’t see any brownie points being earned that way. I’ll be gone ASAP after that. Whoosh, there I was.... Gone. We’re hoping that she can fly out when things settle down here.
Re Lucky. I’ve got a Polish mate at work,whose favourite English phrase is,” You lucky, lucky, LUCKY B...... So you’re in good company there. If you ever see me type, quote Wes. You’ll know what I mean. ?

(*Four months old now , I hope she recognises me when I get back)
 
Trotter said:
“LongRoadSouth. A motor home route through France to Spain.”

I read this on another site, “ OutAndAboutlive.
This will be my first time in the van into France,Spain and Portugal. As a result I’m looking for as much help as I
I can get. The author is giving their chosen route from the ferry port at Calais into Spain.
It would be a great help to me, if someone with recent experience,would read the piece and give me the nod, or suggestions as to a better route and associated stopping places .
I’m not sure of the etiquette of putting up pieces from other sites on here. If I’ve made a mistake, I’m sorry, but I do need the advice, if only to ease my mind. The road trip is getting ever closer, and scarier. First solo over the water.
I’ve put this on another thread on MH. Just giving it its own thread and a “bump “.
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I always try and do the Rouen bit on a Sunday or as a last resort over night.
 
WellWornTraveller said:
I always try and do the Rouen bit on a Sunday or as a last resort over night.
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Over the years I must have passed through Rouen way more than 100 times and to date I have never experienced any problems with traffic flow, but of course it does help to know exactly where you are going.
 
I hate you :)

You and that PaulJenny character :) :)

Have a whale of a time you lucky, lucky B xx ;)
 
I'm leaving this week (need to book the ferry!), and doing the same - heading for Spain again and sun. :)

Ferry: My preference is Newhaven-Dieppe. Only 4 hours, and with my van, £88. (under 80 with a club discount)

Aires books - we spent most of last year cursing the Aires books - pretty much every single aire we visited the information was out of date, or just plain wrong, and the number of aires we passed which weren't in the books, while looking for the one in the book was a joke. We gave up after about a month and switched to P4N, which has far, far more locations, all up to date, with reviews and comments, so you can see which locations are still good (look for a recent comment*) and were happy for the rest of the year. :)

Tolls - avoid - there's plenty of alternatives.

Driving per day - I'd say stick to a TIME limit rather than a distance - don't push yourself to do more than an hour or two a day, and check the estimated time on your nav-app the night before while you're picking the next location.

Take photos as you go, and make notes of where you stop - helps to remember the good places and your adventure. :)


Life is a journey, not a destination, so enjoy each journey. ;)


* - tie in with a translation app and you're laughing. ;)
 
Be careful Rockburner, Marie’s gonna hate you to. Hope your wrong about the aires book. Haven’t even opened it yet.lol.
 
If I can I cross reference all the sources to check out my planned stops. Have a Plan B and possibly Plan C for your overnight.

Need to book our crossing for March ... the open road is calling us too.
 
We usd the aires book and camperstops in France but tended to use p4n last year
 
Clunegapyears said:
If I can I cross reference all the sources to check out my planned stops. Have a Plan B and possibly Plan C for your overnight.

Need to book our crossing for March ... the open road is calling us too.
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Sorry,just got up. Not with it yet. Are you offering to send me your planned route? If so,you could PM me.
 
Minisorella said:
Just had another thought... there's a great series of books by Dorning Kindersley Eyewitness books called "The Back Roads of France", Spain etc. They highlight and guide you through routes that take you off the main tourist tracks to see things that you'd otherwise miss. I bought one for Lee and Linda when they first went to France years ago and they loved it so much, they returned the compliment by buying me the same one for Germany last year. Fabulous books.
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Agree great books we carry them for Spain, France and Germany. Some great roads and places to see.
 
Another vote for P4N as well as the WC POIs. Thinking of booking Portsmouth to Caen overnight around the 10th March. Route will depend on the weather. Probably Croatia in April.
 
Linda said:
We hope to go on 6th Feb, driving rapidly through France until we reach Spain. Done this for the last 3 years. The ‘back roads of Spain’ is a good book to add to the lovely beautiful library.

When are you leaving/returning?
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I'm going over on 5th, so may bump into you somewhere. :)
 
We are off Thursday via the tunnel, friends to visit on route so arrive in Spain beginning of Feb, heading towards Almeria.
7 weeks of bliss
 
Trotter said:
Hadn’t thought of Caen, scared of meeting the mother in law’s family perhaps. I’ll check ferry prices.
As for “ Hi via best “, I think I know what you mean. You’re having a touch of the Nabsim’s
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If you are driving through Caen the streets have overhanging houses and are very narrow, and even very very narrow!! We almost got stuck in a bottleneck there, one way street got narrow, then saw lorry sign pointing into a car park, thought that's odd, right after that road came in and with cars parked on both sides, I stopped, looked at it andthen looked in the mirror at the cars behind us and we had to wind down the windows to check the distance from the cars on both sides, we had to pull in both mirrors and squeeze through. If we could have reversed back a bit she would have been able to get out and see me through but couldn't as we couldn't open the doors.

Remember that you have to give way to the right, (unless there is a sign saying you have right of way), watch out especially in towns as they will just pull out at speed, because they have right of way, NOT YOU!!! Bumped into a English couple in their MH who didn't know this rule and I think it was their 3rd holiday over there. I think after saying how mad this rule was they realised why people had been hooting at them at junctions, had only avoided a crash as they were driving extra slow in towns.

Don't forget to get the over the limit testers, keep your high vis in the front of the vehicle, Good luck.
 
chas142 said:
Remember that you have to give way to the right, (unless there is a sign saying you have right of way), watch out especially in towns as they will just pull out at speed, because they have right of way, NOT YOU!!! Bumped into a English couple in their MH who didn't know this rule and I think it was their 3rd holiday over there. I think after saying how mad this rule was they realised why people had been hooting at them at junctions, had only avoided a crash as they were driving extra slow in towns.

Don't forget to get the over the limit testers, keep your high vis in the front of the vehicle, Good luck.
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Sorry @chas142 but I think your advice in two of the above is wrong

When driving in rural France (normally only) on secondary roads, if you see a 'X' sign at the side of the road you have to give way to any vehicle entering your (more major) road from the right and at time that can even be some broken down old farm track! explained here https://www.france-pub.com/forum/2012/04/14/priority-to-the-right-2/
Up until 1984 these signs were even in common use on major roads (excluding autoroutes) and was the main reason why France had at that time the highest number of road deaths per annum of any European country!
The 'X' signs can be used at all kinds of road junctions.

The second item you raise is the one about carrying breath testers to show alcohol. Sarkozy introduced this law, but although it is still in stature, it isn't one which is implemented. https://www.drive-france.com/faqs/france-breathalyzer-law/
The main reason why this law isn't implemented is because it was considered by the rural French public to be so against their way of life, where the most important meal of the day is at lunch time and when having lunch, most French people wash it down with a few glasses of wine!! Bonkers I know, but that's the French for you.................. To explain this a little further, when I lived in France I had to go on a 2 day long Naughty Boy driving awareness course, the second day being all about drink driving.
Although we were told about the alcohol limits, quite amazingly we were told about what foods to eat when drinking so as to reduce the likelihood of the alcohol showing on your breath!!! BONKERS OR WHAT ?
 
In villages near where we lived in France, all the signs at some crossroads were removed so that the 'give way to the right' rule was used instead. It made it much safer because everyone approached the crossroads expecting to stop.
 
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