Driving to South of France with 1 year old - advice on stopovers on the way welcome

[sucram]

Plan to take our time driving to South Of France mid-June. Advice on 1 year old friendly places very welcome. My husband and I would love to enjoy a meal once our boy is settled, is this possible ..?

I can recommend Le Val Moret which is just off the autoroute south of Troyes. However, the rooms are in a separate block to the restaurant and you may feel that you would not want to leave a baby in the bedroom.

Whereabouts are you heading for as that will kind of dictate the actual route you take. Let us know and we can then hopefully come up with somewhere perfect!

If you looka the Sawdays site, there are lots of lovely b and bs who make dinner for you. We stayed in this one in the Loire:
www.sawdays.co.uk/search/display.php?FileID=FBB5432

We are heading for St Maxims. Arrive in Calais at 2pm. Plan to take 3 days / 3 stopovers to St Maxims then spend a week in St Maxims and then take 3 days driving back to Calais but by a different route. Thanks for advice to date.

How come you want to take 3 days each way to get to and from Ste Maxime? We drive from Calais down to the Languedoc (similar distance) and arrive in Calais around 4pm and the get to the villa the next day at a similar time. Coming home, we do it all in a day - leave the villa at about 6am and get back to our house in the UK late that same day. I guess it is all personal choice, but it seems you are going away for 10 - 14 days and spending 6 of those days en route??? I know you are travelling with a little one, but so do we and it is fine! We have some friends who also drive to the south of France but they do it in reverse to us - leave home at 5am but get to their destination very late on the same day and coming back do it across two days.

Our thinking is we're going to spend a week in an appartment, so do our own cooking, hopefully spend most days on the beach. Don't really fancy doing this for two weeks.So by taking our time getting to and from south of france we can take in a few more places and enjoy some french cooking, once our son is settled for the evening.