Driving to South of France from North of England

[Moonagedaydreem]

We are a family of four planning to drive from Yorkshire to the French Riveria. Has anyone done this? We're thinking of driving to France via the tunnel and stopping over somewhere maybe an hour or two from Calais. Then setting off early next day and driving to another destination for another night. Maybe Lyon? But that drive seems like it might be too long.

I'd like to know how others have done this. How you broke up the journey, where you stopped for the night, interesting places you stopped at for a coffee/toilet break etc. Any hints and tips welcome. DC are 10 and 14.

TIA

oh and lots of interesting places, but depends what you like.
We went to Belgium last year for a few nights prior to heading to the Alps.
we have been to oradour sur glane , world war two history , loads of chateaus to visit. you could break the holiday up and go to the gorges ( du tarn etc) on the way.
we generally do one week near the beach and one week in the mountains.
have fun.

Thanks everyone. Loads if brilliant suggestions. I'll have a proper read through, but like the idea of stopping in Reims and Lyon, or stopping at Folkstone and then Dijon. Kids are good with travel as long as they've got films and games. Definitely don't want to fly as I want to load the boot with all our stuff. Tunnel appeals most as it's quick! Is it reliable? Does there tend to be delays?

Would love to stop in beautiful places or places of historical interest. Keep suggestions coming 😊

We do this every year - from southern England though. I would recommend you avoid the A6 south of Dijon and A7 south of Lyon on a Saturday in August - try and do a different day of the week, or be prepared to sit in traffic. You may also want to investigate a toll tag to make getting through the peages quicker. There's a link on the Eurotunnel website here

You could easily get to the WW1 battlefields and memorials and find a Formule 1 or Ibis to stay in. Actually , saying that , we often look for logis de France type places when we are travelling. It means the stop off is an experience rather than an identikit stop over although there are arguments for both. Reims/ Epernay/St Omer/ Arras have all got something to offer for a night and a look round in the north.
My advice would be to drive further on day one, when you are fresh and it's more of a novelty and to try to avoid obvious bottlenecks eg Lyon on certain Saturdays in August.

About 20+ years ago we drove from Yorkshire to Northern Spain and I'd love to do it again, but it seems a bit of a waste in the days of low cost airlines as it's probably more expensive and obviously takes 2 days rather than a few hours.

I remember that we stopped in a very basic motel on an industrial estate near Clemont Ferrand somewhere in central France - it was completely automated, you had to put a card in a machine to book and enter a room, but it was very cheap.

I also remember that France was very beautiful and the driving quite easy, except round Paris. I also remember the Pyrenees adn this was before the Millau bridge was built so if we did do it again, I'd want to go over the bridge one way, and still do the mountains the other way. That might be a bit off track for the French Rivera because I'm not sure where that is.

Barbara If you do decide to go over the Millau bridge (spectacular) do make time to stop & go to the very interesting information centre/small musem underneath it!

We used to get the motorail when we were kids - not sure if it's still a thing? It meant the worst bit was the drive to Dover and then fun after that.