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A Stress Free Route To The Languedoc


Kieran
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Having just experienced a couple of stressful marathon road trips to our house near Carcassone, does anyone know an alternative route perhaps avoiding Paris. Our usual route consists of A16 to A26, A26 to A1, A1 to A3-A86-A6B-A10 (Paris), A10 to A71, A71 to A20, A20 to A62 and the rest is easy enough. We would still prefer to use the Autoroutes and would as per normal complete the journey in a day. At the moment it is taking us anywhere between 11 hours and in heavy traffic maybe 15 hours.

Cheers

Kieran 

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From Calais Viamichelin recommends a route via Paris as the shortest at an estimated (best!) of 9.75 hours.

Route1

Via Troyes it estimates at 11 hours.

Route2

Via Le Mans it also estimates at about 11 hours.

Route3

So theoretically Paris is the best.  But the alternatives may be less stressful and may, in the real world, not take much longer than the Paris route.

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"We would still prefer to use the Autoroutes and would as per normal complete the journey in a day. At the moment it is taking us anywhere between 11 hours and in heavy traffic maybe 15 hours"

Ah, but the best way to relieve the stress would be to stop off for the night after about 6 hours driving at a relaxed and friendly CdH just off the A.20[;-)][:D]

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Having tried both routes (through Paris and through Le Mans), we are opting this time to try the motorail (encouraged by the posts I have found on this Forum, I should add).  I will report how that works out when we return next month!  I certainly hope it will be less stressfull than driving the usual 11 - 15 hours.

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Hi Kieran

The car height restrictions vary.  On the route from Calais to Brive, Narbonne, Avignon and St Raphael the maximum overall car height (including roof rack) should not exceed 1.80 m (5'10").  For some reason, though, on other routes from Calais the height of 1.55 m is accepted (this is information from the leaflet they sent us).  They also mention that some people carrier and "off road" vehicles may not be accepted, but you need to check with them (I don't know where your Landrover Discovery fits into this).

I shall definitely let you know how we fared and whether we were broken into on the way (I understand from previous posts that this can happen, unfortunately).  After a few exhausting drives to the South of France we were desperate for another option.  We'll just have to see if this is an improvement.

Anna

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I had not heard of motrail before so I thought I'd take a look. They quoted £990 To take the car down and back on my travel dates.. Am I doing something wrong with getting the quotation or is this how expensive it really is?

By the way I normally go via Evreux and Dreux, it doesn't save that much time but it's much less stressful.

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I find the best way to negotiate Paris  is to follow signs to Bordeaux until you  eventually get to the A10. It's less stressful than looking out for the road numbers,  A3-A86-A6B etc. On the way beck follow signs for Lille.

According to viamichelin, going to Carcassonne via Rouen to the A10 is  only about 15 minutes and 15km longer, and on average you would expect less chance of jams.

 

But then non-Paris routes are for wimps!

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[quote user="Smiley"]

I had not heard of motrail before so I thought I'd take a look. They quoted £990 To take the car down and back on my travel dates.. Am I doing something wrong with getting the quotation or is this how expensive it really is?

[/quote]

The quote you got was right, I am afraid.  It is very expensive (although comparable to fly-drive for 5 people, with the cost of hiring a car).  Driving all the way, with one overnight stop works out about half the price of going by motorail.  We thought we would try the motorail once, however, to weigh out the advantages of both ways of travel (more expensive and less stressfull vs. cheaper but long and tiring journey).

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We have used motorail on a couple of occasions. Both times we were given a compartment [not a carriage!] just for our family of four [compartment holds six]. I got the impression that whenever possible they will try to allocate one compartment per group/family/couple. Obviously this depend on the number of people who book. It is a few years since our last use of the service, but at that time the service could only be described as impeccable.

Patrick

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I  find the A28 to Rouen the best and quickest way.I turn off before Rouen to the airport (also signed Pont de l'Arche)N15 right round Rouen. I then pick up the N154 which is a fantastic road. It is autoroute standard to Dreux ,between Dreux and Chartres is mostly dual carriageway then a short hop after Chartres an you're back on the A10 .Mappy shows it as 10hrs 35 mins to Carcassone  but it also shows 5hrs 40mins to my house and it is always 5 and1/4 hours. The tolls also work out about 20 euros cheaper aswell.
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Sorry Bixy - Compartment !

We did it once, some years ago, in August. We travelled to Bordeaux and back. Going we managed to swap with others so that we were in the same compartment as our friends, but they were travelling back at a different time to us so on our return we had two strangers in our compartment. We were luckier than another family of four we met who had been split up Father and son in one compartment with others and mother and daughter in another compartment that also contained an elderly couple and their grandchild who was a young baby plus a cat complete with litter tray (the cat was let out when the train was moving and if it stopped at a station the grandfather took it for a walk on a lead.)

I was surprised there were not better catering facilities but this may have been upgraded by now.

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Well, I am looking forward to our motorail trip even more now!  Sounds wonderfully weird and I intend to keep a journal of this trip (especially if our family group gets split up and ends up with other families, their babies and pets!).
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We tried going round Paris once - it was slower - huge jams - and expensive and we saw the N road was less busy and took that.

We can't afford motorail and take the £50 Speedferry to Boulogne, then Abbeville, Rouen, Chartres etc and across to the A20 which is mostly free.

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This year we decided to take the more direct route down through the centre of France and over the Milau Bridge.  In previous years we took the wide sweeping eastern route.

We bought a sat nav system because we have had previous bad experiences trying to circumnavigate Paris, ending up in some dodgy areas.

Unfortunately this attempt faired no better.  Despite the definite advantage of the sat nav system, we still managed to get caught up in a Parisien traffic jam and delayed for about two hours in nose to tail traffic.

So it will be back to the drawing board for next years attempt.

 

 

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Stick with it - the route via Paris and Massif Central is infinitely less stressful and more interesting than the alternatives, PROVIDING that you can navigate Paris.  Unlike most people who post here, I have always used the Boulevard Peripherique and it usually takes less than the 10 minutes viamichelin say it should need from the A3 to the A6.  It will depend always on the time of day, but I typically go south on a Saturday evening, around 6pm and come north on a Sunday morning, getting to the BP around 10am.  This is at Easter and in the summer. Worst ever was something like 35 minutes, but on that occasion the whole of the Paris region was snarled up and people using non-bp routes were also delayed.
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