Driving to Germany - where to stop?

[Thereunion]

Hello!
We are planning to drive to Germany in the summer, near Freiburg. Can anyone suggest somewhere nice to stop either way please? I like the look of Troyes. My husband is interested in going via Luxembourg- has anyone done this route? I need to use the loo frequently so have to factor that in! Thanks all.

We drove to the alps via a stop over at stuttgart last summer. We are based in Derbyshire so drove down early in the morning and took the Eurotunnel. We had a night at Luxembourg to break up the journey. Stopped in a hotel just outside the main city. It’s a lovely place to stopover. Free public transport in the city, lovely relaxed feel and loads of place to eat/drink so would definitely recommend it.

Luxembourg would be a great place to stop. Depends what you're into, but lots of lovely towns with castles, Luxembourg city is a great little city if you fancied more of a city stay. Fuel is also significantly cheaper then other countries in Europe, so would be a good place to fill up.

Thank you both! We are definitely interested in stopping Luxembourg one way and love history! @Mummydoctor how did you find the driving? Did you happen to notice whether there were decent service stations/similar? Thanks very much for replying.

We would do Reims for this trip...

I'd prefer to go through the Ardennes and Luxembourg. The scenery is far more interesting.

Luxembourg is lovely - we stopped there coming back from Heidelberg once.

I haven't been to Troyes but my SIL loved it there when they stopped off coming back from the Alps.

We have stayed a couple of nights in Reims and booked a tour of a Champagne house and stopped off at some smaller ones, I would probably (definitely) go back that way and buy some champagne to take home...

Freiburg and the surrounding area is great we went last year, would love to return.

Service stations are very very regular in France there are no issues finding them!

I loved Nuremberg, brugge, Spa, cologne

Troyes is really pretty.

Agree the services were frequent and very good quality compared to UK services. We drove back via Reims and did a champagne tour as well as seeing the old race track!

The obvious route from Calais is A26 to Reims, then A4 to Strasbourg, cross the Rhine to Kehl, and then take the German A5 motorway down to Freiburg. This will take about 7 hours of driving time and cost about €60 in tolls (only in France).

Going via Luxembourg (Calais - Lille - Namur first, then from Luxembourg either Metz - Strasbourg on the motorway or via Saarbrücken and Saverne on the N4 to avoid tolls altogether) will add 2 or 2½ hours, but you will get a cheap petrol fill-up (although don't expect miracles — it's 10c cheaper than Belgium and 20c cheaper than France). Luxembourg is a fun place to visit in an "I can't believe a whole country can be this size" kind of a way.

Both routes will have regular service stations. But when touring that part of the world we tend to pull off the motorway and go and find McDonald's, which has branches on the edge of almost every French town of any size. The loos are cleaner and the coffee is cheaper.

Is it just you and DH, or are there DCs (ages?) or others along with you?