briwy

We have just got our bank statement which has the peage charges on from our Easter week trip. We have a peage doofah (which is great) but I cannot see where the charges are coming from. Our route was from Boulogne to our place at Cauterets in the Pyrenees via Rouen, Le Mans and Bordeaux. The Michelin route planner gives a toll charge for this route of  46.1 Euros. The autoroutes.fr site gives a total of 27.5 Boulogne to Le Mans and 40.7 Euros Le Mans to Cauterets. Has to be done in stages as it plots through Paris and wont accept vias. I have been charged a total of 223 Euros by Sanef for the two trips. We did not use any other tolls during our stay. What is going on here? Are the calculator sites miles out  (they give differeent ammounts anyway for the same journey) ? Do we pay more for using a doofah? Am I being charged for being English? Do the other autoroute companies charge more for using a Sanef doofah on their roads? Or is it a rip off? Has anyone had a similar experience or any explanation please. Brian

 I have used the English Warmup in the UK and I find excellent. Comes as a kit with the heating element, thermostat and floor paint etc. Looking at the French site it seems identical and the English link goes back to the UK stuff so I assume its the same Europe wide. Easy to install and works well.

Jet2com also fly to Toulouse from Leeds and the flight is a much more civilised hour We are looking at this as an alternative to Stanstead to Pau which is the nearest airport to our place in mountains. Plan is fly out from Leeds and return to Manchester, this way we make most use of the time. Fortunately we can get lifts from the kids to and fro. (time to get our own back) We live in the Peak District so getting to Stanstead is a bit of a pain. Prices dont look too bad either but seems to depend on when you book. Brian

 Thanks Nick. Ill get one next week when we're over.

Here in the UK we have a an electric wall mounted bathroom fan heater operated by a pull switch which gives instant heat. In France we have the usual convector heater which takes ages to heat up. Is there any reason why we cant use one of these fan heaters in France and just wire up to it via a wall mounted terminal box and trunking from the convector feed? Existing convector is 1Kw same as the fan heater so existing wiring should be OK. Thanks Brian

 Has anyone any experience of the BF Travel Club. We will be going to the Pyrenees probably four or five times a year and it would make it a much more feasible option to go Portsmouth to Northern Spain if the fare is reduced by 33%. Living in Derbyshire it is easier for us to get to Portsmouth rather than Dover. Last year we benfitted from the AT Ferries setting up and got areturn for £350 which certainly made it worthwhile rather than the long drive down from Calais but his year these prices are now more in line with the BF costs. Any comments please, good or bad. Brian

 Thanks for the replies. Ill give it go over Easter when we are there. Brian     

    We have a small chalet within a group of 16 or so in the Pyrenees and the guy who does all the admin etc lives on site and is a plumber. He has a horror story of having mains sockets in a bathroom and tells of how he was working on a bath with some water in and the lead lamp he was using to see by fell in the bath and nearly killed him.  He has the scars and a dicky heart to prove it. He strongly approved when I told him that mains sockets are not allowed in the UK and said he thought it should be the same in France.

 OK, thats what I had thought. Thanks for the replies Brian

That look good. Ill certainly give that a go Thanks for the info Brian

This page in English from the same site that Clair has mentioned seems to make it fairly clear that GPS systems with camera locations are OK. I was stopped last year at a routine check at a peage near Tarbes and the police asked what the unit was on my dash.  Explained that it was a GPS system and they were quite OK about it. Having said that I have yet to see a really good database with French cameras on. Ther doesnt appear to be one that is as comprehensive as the UK one. Brian

I have recently posted in another forum here asking about French car hire for my 18 year old daughter. It seems that it is impossible to find a hire firm that will hire under 21 (understandably) and the reason is that the minimum driving age is 18 with a 3 year probation period. My daughter is 18 and will have held a full UK licence for over a year when she goes later this year. Could someone please explain the probation period and will it affect my daughter (if so how) or does it juct refer to French nationals. Many thanks Brian    

Thanks Val Bears out what I thought. Looks like she'll have to stick to the bus   Brian  

    Does anyone know of a car hire company in France that will hire a car to my 18 year old daughter. She is studying French at university and had wanted to spend some weeks at our place in the Pyrenees over the summer with a couple of friends. Problem is that her own car is an old Astra and its VERY expensive to get breakdown insurance on it. Her idea is to fly to Pau and hire a car for at least some of the time but it seems impossible to find a company that will do it. Any help much appreciated Brian

Thanks Cassis. Its spiky at present so Ill try the roller first   Brian

    Thanks Cassis. I assume I can just use a float to apply it over the top of the existing crepi. Im not bothered about it being totally smooth, just not rough and knobbly like it is now. Are there different kinds of crepi or is it all the same? Brian

 We have bought a small chalet  in the Pyrenees last year and are slowly doing odd jobs and decorating as time allows when we are there. One of the main things we want to alter is the finish on some of the walls. The whole interior is covered in what I assume is Crepi, a bit like Artex, and its a bit too much on every wall. Is it possible to plaster over this or recrepi it with a smooth finish as opposed to the rough finish we have now? Any ideas much appeciated, Brian    

       Hi Andy Glad to hear you have got everything working OK now. I find the IGN maps more difficult to use on MM than the OS ones. I think it is probably that they seem to be more 3D than OS and possibly in the mountains all the contours run together. Certainly useful though,  I tend to print off just the bit I need and stick it an A4 transparent pocket. Beats lugging a complete map around on a day walk (even though I still take them with me just in case) Ive just inherited my old works laptop and loaded MM onto that so its even more use now that I can take the laptop with me to France rather than downloading everything onto the GPS before I go. Cheers Brian

    Thanks patf Looks just the job. We are going over at Easter so Ill give them a ring in a couple of weeks Brian

    Thanks for the replies. Looks like a 600mm dish is pretty borderline going by the map as we are about 10 miles from the Spanish border. I have already got a sat finder which I have used OK in the UK. Found good  signals in France but couldnt seem to grab onto the Astra satellite. I suspect another problem is that, as at home in the UK in the Peak Distict, we are halfway up a SW facing hill.  We can get a belting signal in the winter but as soon as the leaves come out we lose it completely.  We are in the same situation in the Pyrenees so I have a sneaky feeling that the Astra satellite may be too low for us to get. Could be a good thing,  make me inprove my French. Thanks Brian

I  am trying to get my  Free to View Sky box set up in the Pyrenees and not had any luck so far. We took the system, together with a 600mm dish with us when we got the house last year and Ive played around a couple of times when weve been over there. I think I might need a bigger dish, possibly about a metre, but Im reluctant to spend any money money if it still wont work. Some of the neighbors have French sat TV OK and the dishes all seem to point roughly the same way as the Sky Astra satellite so I assume its not a case of not being able to get a signal at all. What I would like to do is get someone in who is familiar with setting up the Sky system in France to check to see if we can get a Sky signal OK and then ask them to supply and fit a dish. Can anyone help with a name, address etc of someone in 65 who could do this please. Thanks Brian

Andy. I too had problems trying to load Carto maps and in the end I gave up and bought the Memory Map Premium set for the Pyrenees.  Got it for  £80 which I didnt think was bad. I have used Memory Map for a few years now and really like it. Im not sure what you mean when you say that you cant save anything. All my downloaded (from the GPS) tracks, routes, waypoints etc always come up on the relevant maps when I start MM. I saved some tracks from the Pyrenees last year and they have shown up straight away on the IGN maps. Brian

Thanks for the replies everyone. Strange thing is it worked fine in October when we drove down to our place in the Pyrenees in our own car. Went early December and flew to Pau and hired a car.  The doofah worked fine on the trip from the airport to our house but not a peep on the way back. We will be driving down at easter in our car so perhaps it will work OK with a bit of percussive maintenance, otherwise Ill swap it ASAP. Brian    

Thanks Gardian Going over at Easter so Ill try it at the first peage after Calais which I assume is classed as a major one. Brian

Only had our peage doofah for about 6 months but tried to use it about 6 weeks ago and it wouldnt play at all. What is the general lifetime for these things and is there any way to test it before looking a complete idiot at a toll. Assuming its conked out what is the easiest way to get it changed. Thanks Brian