Traffic in France around 15th August

[hillbilly]

Is it to be avoided at all costs? It's our first trip driving through France and we were going to take Eurotunnel on 15th August and get a few hours drive in before a stopover, and the following day carry on to Sarlat area (SW).

Should I have a complete rethink of the dates?

france is a very big place, with much better roads and much less populated than the UK.

It will be absolutely fine. You will likely be pleasantly surprised if youre used to UK roads

Thanks that's reassuring. We live in London Branleuse so we are used to traffic!

Try to avoid 'Black Saturday' which is the busiest travelling day of the year as holidays start. this web page. I am hoping the PDF will link to the busy days for travelling, we use one every year to decide when to stay put and when to travel! Saturdays in August on the busiest routes can be horrific I'm still blanking the journey we did two years ago, I've never been so scared in a car. Plus there are lots if jams. Most of the time the toll roads are fantastic though, as was said, much better that Britain.

I've driven from Calais to Nice many times, quite a few of them around the 14th/15th August and to be honest it's no different from any other week in August. Busy, but not dramatically so. It's not like the roads empty miraculously on the 16th

Ah, I get it now, the big religious festival. We were in Spain last year and just made sure we were stocked up on food etc for that day but didn't really notice anything different tbh.

If you open my link and switch to English on the side there is a tab for 'forecasts' that will show you best and worst travelling days. 15th is green so looks good.

Thanks for the PDF and reassurance, that's very helpful. Possible congestion for our return on 23rd August but we will be splitting the journey over a couple of days I think.