DRIVING TO MONTLUCON - UPDATE

[scotslassie]

Our trip was delayed but we're back!!  Many thanks to all who posted replies to the appeal for directions and advice.  Having originally been adamant about avoiding Paris we did Dover to Calais and hit Paris at 3am.  Sailed through (kind of - its hard to read the map in the dark by torchlight having been asleep until a few minutes before we hit the ring road !) and having stopped for a nap somewhere a few hours out of Paris we arrived at St Amand about 9 am. Not bad for first timers.  My OH ended up driving first off the ferry so had no one to follow for the first little bit, much to his horror.  Return journey much the same but hit Paris at 3pm on a Saturday.  It wasnt that bad (rather tense but not hysterical) and again, somehow we ended up through in about 35mins.  Next time we will get SatNav and hope we dont end up making things worse rather than better!  On the way down many a time we thought we were on the wrong road and then ended up filtering onto the same one we had just come off again.  Homeward we just kept heading for Charles de Gaulle and Lille- A1 .  The journey from or to Calais is def about 6 hours or so and  we did an extra  500 miles driving  between new barn, villages, builders merchants and our campsite.  In total we did about 2000+ miles from Scotland to destination and spent about £350 in diesel which was almost to budget.  Those we know that have done Paris route  and ended up lost cant believe we survived and that we would do it again!  Again, thank you all for your words of wisdom!