Cheapest Route To Get To South-West France By Car

EViS

Hi,

We need to get across to Vendee in South-West France this coming June 2012. We are travelling from London. Ideally we would like to drive as the car will be of use for our week stay there.

There seems to be alot of options from ferries to various ports in France (Saint Malo, Caen, Le Havre, Roscoff, Cherbourg and Dieppe), the Eurotunnel to Calais, and obviously we need to account for all the toll roads over there.

Has anyone done a similar route before and know of what the cheapest route is? Any deals around at the moment which we can take advantage of?

knightstyle

We go Newhaven-Dieppe for the best deal and Portsmouth-Caen if need an overnighter.

travelgran

Go into Google maps and go to 'Get Directions' . Enter your home address or where you'll be landing in France and your destination. It will tell you the route, toll fees and length of time taken. The Michelin website does something similar. I think there may be choices for motorway/toll/sightseeing routes etc
Enjoy the planning!

mgdavid

cheapest road journey can be hard to compute; if you avoid the autoroutes and their tolls you may well need an extra night in a hotel somewhere as the A/B roads are much much slower.

EViS

knightstyle wrote: »

We go Newhaven-Dieppe for the best deal and Portsmouth-Caen if need an overnighter.

A Newhaven - Dieppe ferry is in the region of £300, you then still have 300+ miles to drive. What sort of deals have you got on that ferry route?

EViS

travelgran wrote: »

Go into Google maps and go to 'Get Directions' . Enter your home address or where you'll be landing in France and your destination. It will tell you the route, toll fees and length of time taken. The Michelin website does something similar. I think there may be choices for motorway/toll/sightseeing routes etc
Enjoy the planning!

Where does Google Maps show the price of toll roads?

Bogtrotter

If you travel from Cherbourg, Saint Malo or Roscoff there's no real need to use the toll roads, it wont really make much difference on your driving time.

From Cherbourg follow the signs towards Saint Lo on N13. Then follow A84 towards Rennes.
When you get close to Rennes take orbital road (Rocade) following signs for Nantes on N137.
Likewise close to Nantes exit on orbital road (Peripherique) towards Poitiers.
Exit onto the N249 heading towards Cholet.
Vendee destinations exit off N249 probably somewhere between Nantes and Cholet.

From Roscoff or Saint Malo follow signs for Rennes and then as above.

Driving time from either Cherbourg, Roscoff probably 4.5-6 hours depending on destination within Vendee. Maybe 3-4.5 hours driving from Saint Malo.

Can't comment on any tolls etc for ports further east than Caen but I'd guess if you use the Eurotunnel you would be facing a substantially longer drive from Calais including toll roads.

If you want to see how much the tolls may be try the route planner at the Viamichelin website... it also estimates fuel costs

sunshinetours

If you are going for one week only from London area, then I would say Eurotunnel (have any Tesco clubcard points you can exchange??) - then use the autoroutes and pay some tolls, otherwise your travel time for one weeks holiday will be quite large.

We have done Charente area inland from la Rochelle which is further down, in a day, getting 5am ish tunnel and then getting there late afternoon. Folkestone is about 1.5hrs from us at most so possibly similar depending where in London you are

Fill up in France if diesel or in UK if petrol.

Play with the viamichelin site as above as very useful. Some roads you can use the N road that often runs alongside the autoroute, but us the autoroute where its free especially as much much quicker. Also easier to use it to go through places like Rouen for instance which can be tricky.

The more westerly ports can be cheaper despite higher fares where you may be able to miss out a nights stop over for instance when heading further south or to actual south west France (towards Biarritz and south of Bordeaux for instance)

travelgran

Sorry, Google just tells you there are tolls. Via Michelin tells you how much they are!