Driving to south west France

[KittyFoyle]

Hi a friend has just invited us to her mum’s place in Angouleme near Bordeaux and with 6 of us we’ll have to drive. Dover to Calais ferry around £180 + £200 return petrol. Love idea of train but seems it would be over £700 - although there might be rail cards etc. So any hot tips for rail discounts (2 adults, two teens U16, 11 and 7 year olds)? And any other hot tips for places to stay/stop on the way? Want to avoid driving round Paris - have spent hours on the Peripherique before...Arg! We don’t have to hurry so want to make the drive part of the holiday and the accommodation is free so can afford a couple of nice stops en route. Anyone know that route, roughly? Any good hotels/restaurants/lovely towns etc? Thanks!

We tend to use Portsmouth crossing as seems more relaxing for us than driving to Dover. The overnight ferry is good as you then have more time the next day for driving.

We tend to break it up into smaller chunks, often staying overnight in places to see more of the country rather than rushing through. I would recommend staying at Le Chant d’Oiseau in Mouliherne as it’s a great site with camping and gites.

The route we use for either ferry is Le Mans - Poitiers and on to Bordeaux. Another route to look at is to get the ferry to Spain and drive back up!

If you’re going the same way that we go via Le Mans and Tours, I’d definitely stop at Futuroscope. It’s hardly off your route at all and a really good full day out for all ages. There are several hotels within a stone’s throw of the park. There’s also a good campsite called Camp Futuristic which has some three bedroom mobile caravans which sleep 6. We’ve also stopped at Papea Park in Le Mans which turned out really well.

If you have a child under 12 you can buy a carte enfant and all the people travelling with said enfant get a discount. They cost €70 when we got one last year though, so it may not be worth it.

We always drive via Rouen and Chartes rather than Paris.

I got first class train tickets for 2 adults and 3 kids (12-8) from Paris to Avignon for about £100 , SNCF have a subsidiary called idtgv which are carriages of the same SNCF train but are much cheaper. Was double decker too which was great fun. Took 2.5 hours!

There's also the autorail where you drop your car at Paris Bercy station and then pick it up from Bordeaux the next day, saver fare is E120. Means you can have a car free day/night in Paris then get TGV down the next day. Or overnight train if there is one to Bordeaux.

Finally, if you do drive spend an extra tenner and get a telepeage from aprr. Gets you through all the tolls without queuing/paying (and even stopping for some) and then charges your bank card the following month. Tolls are charged the same and the device costs E10 to buy (refundable deposit) and then E1.70 per month you are actively using it. As only DH drives has saved our marriage many times over.

Enjoy, driving in France is fun

Puy du Fou is worth a detour for a night or two. It’s near Cholet.

We booked flights last night to Poitiers. Return flights from Manchester in August this year were £135.00 for 3 of us. I think we may get a train to the coast. Would that be possible for you?

As Kahlua4me said I think it would probably be better going from Portsmouth to Caen or St Malo. Then driving from there to Angouleme would be about a 5 hour drive.

You can also get an overnight ferry so that you get some sleep and drive. The ferry crossing from Portsmouth takes about 6 hours.

We stopped outside Le Mans in a great B and B called La Lune Lake. They have a small above ground pool and extensive grounds so the kids loved it. They do a great evening meal so no need to go out looking for a restaurant. Highly recommend it😊