How the hell do I get to North East France?

[soopermum1]

Visiting very long long relatives in the summer in Charleville Mezieres, in the Ardennes/Champagne region.

The way the dates work out, we'll have to try to squeeze it into a weekend, as DS will still be at school.

We live near Heathrow so would love to fly there, but think the nearst airport is Paris.

DH has never driven on the right hand side of the road. I'd be happy enough to hire a car when we're there, or even take our own car there, as I imagine it's a fairly sleepy kind of place, but I do worry about the motorways to get across France, and also worry about driving out of Paris, if we got a flight to Paris.

Can't check train fares for July yet, but the return train fare, in March (i looked just to get a rough estimate of cost and journey time) would be nearly £300 for DH, DS and myself

Has anyone done this journey before or have some tips about how the hell to get there, reasonably cheaply, in one piece, and preferably with marriage still intact?

Check out some smaller regional airports. If you look at the arrivals boards you can see where they originate.
Tell your DH to man up, it's not that difficult to drive on the other side of the road. Generally there is a lot of traffic that you can follow.

Honestly, driving in europe is less stressful than driving in the UK!!
We drove from N Lancs to Italy and it was the least stressful, most fun holiday I have ever been on. Never flying again!
I appreciate time is an issue so driving the whole way isn't an option but don't worry about hiring a car, you will wonder what you were worried about... promise!

Motorways in France are all toll roads so are usually much less busy than our motorways. The two Paris airports are not in central Paris so you wouldn't need to drive through the centre. The other option is the ferry or eurotunnel - would get you to Calais which would probably cut down your driving on that side but would increase it on this side. I've driven a lot in France and after the first couple of roundabouts it really isn't too stressful.

To reduce the cost on toll roads, you could go via Belgium. I use Dunkerque-Dover regularly.

Sooper, driving on motorways in France is not difficult. It's much easier than driving on wee roads with lots of turns because once you're on the right side of the road you just keep going!

Have a look at the ferries, there is dover-dunkerque, dover-calais, and various other routes. It's worth having a Google and seeing if any of the times suit you. They are likely to be far more flexible than flying and once the car is packed you don't have to unpack it til you get there.

There's also the channel tunnel, but we've found it to be far more expensive than the ferry in recent years.

Yes, look at ferries, it's v. easy - you can use tesco vouchers for eurotunnel and it's fast.

Otherwise you could fly to Brussels (or somewhere else in Belgium - it's a 2hr drive from Brussels and would mean avoiding Paris.

Take the car through the tunnel,the roads/motorways in France are half empty in comparison to ours. Not expensive if you book well in advanced and avoid a Saturday.

Another vote for driving. It really isnt difficult. The roads are set up for it so there is no going. the wrong way round roundabouts or anything similar.

Sat nav will also help

thanks, guys, for the recomendations, looks like we (he) will be driving. he's a very safe driver so i suppose i shouldn't be so nervous. Will also look into Eurotunnel with Tesco vouchers as I do have some vouchers kicking around.

You'll be fine, I love driving in France, sooo much quieter and more relaxing than UK. That being said do warn your DH that the French will drive right up behind you (& almost tailgate you) before overtaking......just their way of doing things.