Driving from Cherbourg to Port Grimaud - where to overnight?

[JohnPrescottsPyjamas]

We’ve allowed two days travel to get to the south of France from the ferry at Cherbourg - although someone told me yesterday that that’s not long enough!

Tbh, we’ll probably stick to the main toll roads as this is our first trip to Europe with our car and just travel steadily until we are more familiar with the country and the roads.

Whereabouts would make the best sense to stop? As the total journey is around 12 hours, I was thinking about somewhere like Tours, which is about 4 hours in on the first day. Is it easy to find somewhere like a Premier Inn/Travel Lodge that we can just walk into without booking should we have had enough driving?

We are travelling at the end of next week.

Not the same route but we’ve always found when driving from Calais to the Alps that needed to book in advance - but we would use booking.com or somewhere like that where you could cancel same day before 6pm as then would have a good idea of where we would want to stop.

We would always try and stay close to the motorway / main route - we would look at google maps and follow the route down looking out for symbols for hotels near motorway junctions to find somewhere. Typically an IBIS / Novotel

Thank you - that’s really useful to know.

Just wanted to check that we won’t be wandering around unfamiliar countryside late at night trying to find somewhere to stay. So, it sounds like the road/chain hotel system is pretty user friendly?

What days of the week? If you’re travelling on a Saturday, you might not be able to travel as far in one day as say a Monday, due to congestion.

As PP I’d book something with booking.com or direct through the Accor website (ibis, Novotel) wouldn’t risk returning up without a booking, unless you’re not travelling in peak holiday time. Port grimaud is lovely, traffic on the approach can be horrific though.

i think you’re right - thank you.

We’ve gone ahead and booked a night in an Ibis in Tours so at least we’re guaranteed a bed for the night. Looks like a fairly standard travel motel, but good reviews re cleanliness and convenience.

It’ll be a long second day travelling, but hopefully we can pace ourselves.

Port Grimaud/Sainte Maxine is a new area for us so looking forward to discovering it.

Are you getting the overnight ferry to Cherbourg and arriving in the morning? If so, I would try to go further than Tours for the first night.

Unfortunately not. We’re docking at 3pm French time.

Tours is probably about right then. We did Cherbourg to the Loire Valley last year and it took about 4 hours (including a rest break I think).