worried about driving in france

knightstyle

Lots of good advice on this thread, we live in France and we and our visitors find driving here no problem, have all the car documents to hand and a reflective jacket within reach of the driver. Roundabouts etc are no problem as there are arrows pointing the way. The most dangerous time for UK drivers is when pulling out from a layby or minor junction as you instinctively go to the wrong side of the road, have your passenger keep an eye open for this. Look at the motorway tolls, if you take the Caen or Cherbourg crossing it will cost more but the motorways down to Rennes, Nantes and then to Cholet are free and you can get down to Limoges I think on reasonable roads, May have to take a Payage from there though. The saving in tolls will offset the extra ferry cost. If you fly have you thought of hiring a car from a supermarket? Both HyperU and Leclerc do them, you can pay with a UK visa card and they are cheaper than hiring from the airport.
If you take a Brittany Ferries crossing PM me and I will send you our owners club code so you will get 10% off as our guest.
So whatever you decide, have a great holiday and don't worry too much about driving here.

twokatz

DMC75 wrote: »

As nervous Have looked into flying to beziers from my local airport and hiring car.

We have also a trip planned to eurodisney on way home and so this would invove train to Eurodisney from beizers and train back to london , and train back to home from london.

This does seem a bit mad with two kids lugging luggage on 3 rail journeys (just to avoid me being nervous of driving) .

Option now is either fly and trains to eurodisney
or calais ferry (ferry previous evening and stay in france after couple of hours evening driving) or caen / le havre overnightferry.

Depending on where you live and which airports you're near, Perpignan is an easy option. It's about 1-1.5 hours to Serignan on the autoroute and a really easy airport to use. Other alternatives, though a bit further are Carcassonne, Montpellier & Nimes.

Boxman

Just got back yesterday after driving over two days from Aigues Mortes via Calais and my BIG tip would be to avoid driving round the Chartres ring road at about 5:00 on a Friday afternoon. Especially when said ring road is being resurfaced as it was last Friday!

It was interesting to note that at that location, along with another couple of places, where two lanes of queing traffic are filtered into one, they generally do so in an orderly "zip" fashion with none of the British thing of one of the lanes being empty and anyone who tries to take advantage of this by going to the front of the line being blocked from switching into the other when they reach the cones (come on admit it, how many of us have done that).

Having given the matter some thought I have now realised that unlike here the average French driver just doesn't notice when you're coming up to a situation where you are likely to want to change lanes - say you are coming up behind a slower lorry in the inside lane and want to move out - and won't make any adjustment in his speed to let you out. However if you just signal in good time and move out anyway then he won't take offence. Thats just how it is in France should you happen to get blocked, there's usually no anti British thing going on.

So in short, without being stupid just be a bit more assertive but decisive on the road over there than the normal UK driver would be, but remember to change back when you come home.

dangers

If you fly to Beziers airport, good luck with trying to find a hire car company that is open when your flight lands! I've looked for the last couple of years to no avail. We therefore have flown to Toulouse and then had a two hour car journey down.
Having said that, Beziers airport is really local to Serignan - would take you about 20 minutes to get to your campsite.

DCFC79

DCFC79 wrote: »

how many years have you been driving in the uk

should have said reason i asked that was id been driving for at least 6 years and found driving in france easy to do(helped im at ease when driving in the uk ), in fact the person with me had never driven in france before due to a certain person wanting to do everything, so yes take a map and a route printed form the internet,

DMC75_2

Thanks for all help , I have been driving for 3.5 years and a fairly confident driver . Think I am going to bite bullet and go for caen / le havre ferry as everyone tells me im a good driver and will be fine.

Flying would have cost so much more , keep the tips coming all

DCFC79

DMC75 wrote: »

Thanks for all help , I have been driving for 3.5 years and a fairly confident driver . Think I am going to bite bullet and go for caen / le havre ferry as everyone tells me im a good driver and will be fine.

Flying would have cost so much more , keep the tips coming all

i think you will be fine, if it would make you feel more comfortable just drive a little slower, i dont think we drove through many towns maybe a couple,

DMC75_2

Thanks for all help ,

Have booked to go to cherbourg (arrive 7.30pm) and going to stay night in france , anyone reccomend any place to stay (or town) within 2 hrs ish from cherbourg on way to south of france? was thinking domfront or alencon

knightstyle

B&B hotels have one in Cherbourg, family room, en suite, 39€. Take a kettle and tea/coffee stuff plus French plug adaptor.

DMC75_2

may go for the belle valee in domfront seems quite nice and quite reasonable (and gives me good start ready for next days drive)? for the next stop was thinking of clermont ferrand or Millau , as both would give quite short drive following day to serignan plage or any other places ?