Driving in France in August - Black Saturday?

[snowgirl1]

We're thinking of driving to the South of France (possibly spending a few days in The Jura on the way) for our summer holiday. We have to go in school holidays and were thinking of going for the first two weeks in August to try and avoid the travel chaos from the major work that will be going on at London Waterloo in August. We've never driven to the South of France before, but I can vaguely remember someone saying that there was a 'Black Saturday' in France when the traffic is horrendous as everyone in France takes their annual holiday and drives south. Anyone know what dates are likely to be worse for traffic/driving?

We drive to La Rochelle regularly. Never ever again will I do it in a Saturday in summer. Utterly horrendous, 16 hours from Calais. Queues for fuel / toilets / food at services and just sitting bumper to bumper even on the paeage. We have an automatic chip for the tolls and were still queuing for 30 minutes.
DONT DO IT!!!

We have driven back from Spain on black Friday and the queues on the other side going south were horrendous. Miles upon miles.

We get the ferry to Spain now so avoid that nonsense.

We thought we were being smug... drove to about 2 hours from our villa, stayed in a lovely campsite in a pop up tent, lounged around in the morning splashing in the pool, drinking coffee admiring the view then hit the road, couldn't check in before 1. At one stage the Sat Nav told us we had 8 hours to go!!!!! Luckily it only took us 4 hours to do our two hour journey... The roads were busy all the way down and even coming from the Jura, you hit the main arterial routes as some point! Next time we will plan our smug lounging nearer our end destination!

I did this last year! Drove from the Loire Valley to the Tarn.

I was really worried, but the timing could not be changed for various reasons.

My family did as others have suggested: were on the road by 6 or 6:30, took back roads most of the way, and had pretty much everything we needed in the car with us.

It went very smoothly -- so smoothly that we actually joined the autoroute traffic just to say we'd done it. Not for very long, mind you.

That Bison Fute app was very helpful.

Have to agree - use the tags on the autoroute. Sanef are setup in the UK so you are charged in £'s once you're back in the UK.

A very easy system. Sanef have pinned a small video I put together from one of the booths last year.

You'll also want to check this site out.
www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/en/

Certain French cities now require you to have a pollution sticker in your car. I think it's only Paris, Lyon and Grenoble currently. Going to Jura should mean you miss Lyon, but do be aware the toll road south goes through the middle of Lyon and you will need a sticker if you're heading further south.

Posting so I can mark this thread to come back to, and panic about driving near Bordeaux around then!😱🙏

Heading down to the Dordogne on the 17th/18th August. Anyone done this previously? We've never gone in school holidays before and I'm debating the Le Mans route to avoid Paris but it's a lot slower in practice as the 150 miles is single lane.
I'd like to be one of those families who can hit the road at 5am but realistically we're probably going to one of the last folk to the breakfast buffet if we stay over en route.

You'll be going opposite the traffic on the 18th. Most people will be heading home. I would avoid Paris though. Use the Rouen -Tours route.

Make sure you have plenty of drinks / water/ snacks in the car. Service areas are manic and toilets are grim, take anti back hand gel and loo roll !!!

The toilets in the aires with petrol stations are fine, always clean, but the aires without service stations are best avoided unless desperate.

The last time I went to a service area with petrol station on an august Saturday it was horrific!!! 50 women queueing for 4 toilers, I stand by the loo roll and anti bac hand ge recommendation!!