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French Motorway Service Stations


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Hi,

Just a quick question which I am sure a lot of you will know the answer to? What opening times do they generally have, is it 24hours for most of them? The reason why I am asking is that we are travelling down from Calais to Cahors this weekend over night and just need to know whether we will be able to get food/coffee etc..

Thanks

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Yes, I think you will find that they will be open. They do not sell cigarettes or any headache pills. And if you just need hot water no to that aswell. After a certain hour you have to go inside and pay before you can serve your fuel.
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But they are clean, bright and welcoming and there is usually someone who can explain how to operate the fiendishly complicated coffee machine - which then delivers a refreshingly good cup of coffee ... At 3am, when we are flagging, that alone is worth its weight in gold.

Sue

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Oh yes forgot. They probably do not do hot meals. This facility shuts around 10pm. So its Sandwiches crisps etc. If you are a vegetarian forget it. I am, so I always take my own food. The coffee machines are OK though. The vanilla coffee is nice. I prefer the Nescafe brand as there are some brands of coffee here that will put hair on your chest.
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The service areas are always open but the attached restuarants are not, so vending machines only at night,  if they are working.  You should fill up in Calais if you do not have a French bank card as some stations only do CB card sales after 22-00.  Never used a petrol station where you had to pay for the fuel first, when the caisse on the forecourt is shut you just pay in the shop after filling up but remember your pump number.  If you are using the A20, come off at Brive Centre and head for Carrefour, its only just off the motorway, the petrol prices are far less than on the A20, but you will need a CB or pinned visa to use this staion after 20-00. 

After many years of doing these overnight runs that leave you drained for the rest of the week, the best thing is to get over to France, find a hotel,  there are loads of them at really cheap prices,  B&B, Premier class,  FI,  Campanile etc etc and get a really good night's sleep, then enjoy the drive down.

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Yes, cash OK, but that takes a person for the transaction. The supermarkets close around 7pm, they are the cheapest. Moterway fuel prices vary. The places where I have had to go inside and pay first are very common, even on the motorways.
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"The places where I have had to go inside and pay first are very common, even on the motorways"

Sorry Trumpet to be pedantic but so common that I have never seen this system in operation, certainly not en route from Calais to Paris or down and all around the South and south West and I drive around France a lot, anyone else seen one of these?

 Is this a NW France thing, you don't say where you live in France.

 You're not getting confused with CB activated machines that only allow up to a fixed amount are you?  I just cannot see how any pre-pay system can work, how you can pay before filling up when you don't know how much you will putting in, or without some form of token or limit on a pump and then which pump do you use, how does this work?

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There are some 'unmanned' service stations that have the facility to take cash directly on the pump. However where these are who knows?

Last time we did Caen to Figeac nearly run out of diesel just before Le Mans. Luckily the service station at Le mans is 24 hour. It was there that a UK van driver we had been following gave us the nugget about the cash pumps as he had seen us driving out of the 1 station where we had tried chip & PIN not realising the problem!!!

Next time (as we now always fly) as there will be next year we are ok as we have a french card. however will warn visitors, fill up UK side (never mind the cost) and try and keep at least 1/4 tank at all times.

Maybe worth using the Michelin route finder an looking for service station info.

Disagree with Ron in the A (just personal choice Ron), found the overnight drive better as you tend to avoid all traffic. Once went via the chuennl and around Paris was no problem. Yes tired the next day but hey enjoyed the afternoon siesta wife et al!!!!

Bon voyage

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Hi Ron , The routes I have had to pay on are Caen A13....Rouen A28...A21 Lille....There are others. When I left Boulogne last year, The first station I came across I had to go in and pay first. When I mean pay first you have to go inside and say how much you want. Either leave your card, or the cash. I travel often along these routes I might add.  Mostly this is through the night. I learnt this lesson after standing at a windswept pump 3 in the morning and wondering why it wouldn't work. The do have notices which say after certain hours you have to pay before.
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I agree that the rule with travel in France is never to let your tank get below quarter full.

I was stuck last year with an empty tank in Saintes in a supermarker car park after hours, with the pump refusing my French credit card. A kind French driver took my cash and filled the tank up by using his card, but it was an unnerving few minutes untill he turned-up.

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[quote user="trumpet"]Hi Ron , The routes I have had to pay on are Caen A13....Rouen A28...A21 Lille....There are others. When I left Boulogne last year, The first station I came across I had to go in and pay first. When I mean pay first you have to go inside and say how much you want. Either leave your card, or the cash. I travel often along these routes I might add.  Mostly this is through the night. I learnt this lesson after standing at a windswept pump 3 in the morning and wondering why it wouldn't work. The do have notices which say after certain hours you have to pay before.[/quote]

 

Hi Trumpet  So its a NW thing then.  I must say I prefer the CB only machines we have down here for outside "normal" hours even if you do sometimes have to use the pump twice or more to help people who only have cash.  Mind you with that sounds very dodgy to me to have to leave a card with the kiosk. With those old paper credit card transaction machines they could run of quite a few "payment" slips off your credit card whilest you were filling up and/or copy your card details including security number........

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Hello Ron, yes it seems so a NW thing. Belgium also in places. There really is no risk as you actually go into the service station to do this. If you pay cash and say you want 50 euro's worth but you can only get 45 Es in the tank then they of course give you the remainder 5 Es. I can see where the old clunk clicker machines might temp the attendant. I have never had any bogus transactions. You can of course use the CB method as well. 
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We usually get the midnight Norfolk line from Calais to Dunkerque and then head straight on down (also to Cahors) and with a coolbox full of grub we stop only for fuel, coffee and the toilet and although it is tiring we take it in turns driving and catnapping. As trumpet says, during the night all you will probably get is snacky type things so you might as well take your own.

I must say that we've yet to encounter a prepay petrol station but I do have a French CB card and if you plan to be doing this trip regularly then I would strongly advise you to get one too as soon as possible. Also it's a very old habit of mine to carry a 2 gallon can of fuel which to date I've never had to use, at least not for myself !

As we are still in the process of moving over we are usually towing a big box trailer so for us the journey can take up to 14 hours yet it doesn't knock us two mid 50 somethings out for the rest of the week (sorry Ron !). We arrive at our house early to mid afternoon which gives us time to get a bit of shopping and settle in and have an early night to catch up and we're off and running bright and early the next morning. Each to their own of course but it's the way we prefer to travel such long distances.

We did the trip one time with a second vehicle towing another box van but we only discovered on the journey that the other driver belonged to the "must stop every hour for coffee and to stretch my legs" camp, as a result of which it took us nearer 18 hours, never again...!

I don't know which route you plan on taking but we do Rouen, Le Mans, Tours, then across to Vierzon to pick up the A20 and it's plain sailing the rest of the way, it's certainly good to get past Rouen in the early morning.

Bon voyage [:)]

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Le Mans,Tours seems to take you a long way out of your way-have you considered the N154-Dreux,Evreux,Chartres-most of it excellent road(they're spending a fortune on it)-turn left at Rouen onto the Paris autoroute for a few miles,then onto the A154 which becomes the N154 all the way to Orleans.In fact I use the N20 rather than the A20 down to Vierzon-they run nearly parallel.
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I know the A154 route and have used it but towing a large trailer I tend to prefer to stay off single carriageway roads.

Coming down last week the initial plan was to stop off at Le Mans but in the event we didn't. However, now the trailer is empty, I'm considering going the 154 on the way back tomorrow.

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