# Three Day Route - Calais to Carcassonne



## babyrhino (Oct 19, 2006)

Hello all you France experts!

Going down to south west France from the tunnel in August and want to spend three days each way - 200 miles a day and two overnight stops.

Requirements are for no peage, nice scenery en-route, stopovers in pleasant aires.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance

Brian


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## MikeCo (Jan 26, 2008)

My initial thoughts are that the shortest way is straight through Paris and that is around 650 miles. If you want to do a senic route with no tolls then you may well end up doing nearer 700 miles.
Sorry can't help with any useful info as I tend to use motorways and campsites.


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## babyrhino (Oct 19, 2006)

Thanks for the reply MikeCo

Time and distance travelled not really an issue for us - the aim is for maybe half a day driving and half a day stopping along the way. 

Didn't do the research before asking the question and immediately found a post to a newspaper article about best routes through France - this was a more frenetic drive than we envisage but raised an interesting point - August traffic!

When we have driven through France before we have been "off-peak" and find we can progress just as quickly at our chosen speeds on the ordinary roads. Should we be wary of heavy traffic off peage / motorway or is this just on the really popular routes?

Brian


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## MikeCo (Jan 26, 2008)

The only advise I can give is that if you do not use motorways for much of your journey then you will average around 30/35 mile per hour. So if you are doing around 230 mile a day then it will take you between 6 & 7 hours, and thats without any stops.
In case you are wandering where this figure comes from I can tell you that on our last trip to France we travelled 2500 miles, used a lot of motorways and averaged 43 mile/hour. This was travelling at around 60 quite a lot of the time.


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## Ian_n_Suzy (Feb 15, 2009)

babyrhino said:


> *Didn't do the research before asking the question and immediately found a post to a newspaper article about best routes through France - this was a more frenetic drive than we envisage but raised an interesting point - August traffic!*


Hi,

Could you give me a link to the newspaper article please.

CHEERS


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## Mike48 (May 1, 2005)

There's a nice Aire at Trebes a few miles to the south of Carcossonne along a canal. The town is nice as well and there are a couple of bars nearby. You can play around with routes here:

http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/viamichelin/gbr/tpl/hme/MaHomePage.htm


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## StAubyns (Jun 4, 2006)

Don't know if this will help.

We are going to Carcassone from Calais starting next Monday but I don't know if I will do it in 3 days but it will not be toll free.

At the moment it looks like

Day 1 Calais to Troyes

Day 2 Troyes to Oradour Sur Glan

Day 3 Oradour to Carcassone


But we may get distracted enroute :?


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## DABurleigh (May 9, 2005)

Brian,

http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/
entering Calais to Carcassonne clicking more options, selecting no tolls, and clicking on map. Total 675 miles (half on motorway), stopping after 280 miles (half on motorway), 5hr 43m at:
http://www.motorhomefacts.com/modules.php?name=Campsites&op=display_results&csid=590










then after a further 254 miles (187 motorway) 4hr 17m stopping at:
http://www.motorhomefacts.com/modules.php?name=Campsites&op=display_results&csid=593










leaving a leg of 171 miles, 4hr 12m to Carcassonne.

Dave


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## babyrhino (Oct 19, 2006)

Thanks to everyone for their assistance - it's interesting that three of the places suggested for a stop are ones that we have used before - Trebes, Rocamadour and Oradour sur Glane. Presumably everyone recognises a good spot when they see one!

Thanks to MikeCo for the bit about average travelling speed, I can see that my idea of travelling half a day and sightseeing half a day is over optimistic if I want to do 200 non-motorway miles a day. I should have realised this myself as I currently commute between Cardiff and Nottingham on Mondays and Fridays and do local miles around Nottingham during the week. Despite the fact that most of my miles are on the motorway at high speeds, the trip computer in the car is showing a long term average speed of 37mph.

Regards

Brian


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## babyrhino (Oct 19, 2006)

Forgot to say - the newspaper article Ian 'n' Suzy asked about was in a thread on here very recently from mgb entitled Faits Vos Choix.

Cheers

Brian


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## teensvan (May 9, 2005)

Hi.

A few nice aires you might like to try if you pass these are.
Broglie Honfleur, Trebes, Le-Mont-St-Michel, Le-Treport, Niort, La-Rochelle Marina, St-Georges-De-Didonne, to name but a few. If you are using N or D roads average speed will only be around 40MPH.
Enjoy your trip.

steve & ann. ---------- teensvan.


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