We are driving to the South of France

[ADealingMummy]

in June with our 3 year old. We are planning an overnight stay on the way there eg Lyon or Macon area.
Can anyone recommend a good place to stay over .
Thankyou

Watching with interest

Novotels Macon Nord, or Lyon Nord are both fab. pools, kids menus, sofa bed and free breakfast for dcs. Macon had an indoor play room, both had play equipment in the garden. Both just off the A6 with secure parking.

You can get some good dinner, b&b deals when booking in advance. website

we always use novotels too, there's a long drive between macon and lyon, distances in France are huge, so you may need 2 stops

I wouldn't say the difference is huge. Maybe an hour? First time we stopped at Macon then wished we had gone further. Next time we stopped at Lyon. Last year we left Lyon at about 8.30 and were in montpellier for lunchtime. The year before we left Macon about 9 and arrived port grimaud about 5. Traffic and of course your. Final destination makes a difference. Languedoc is a doddle compared to the cote d'azur.

Thankyou Thankyou , some really good advice.
I have just showed DH all the replies.
We have booked for June, and staying in the cote d'azur area.

I think we will book a Novotel and not a ''little country b&b of the beaten track'', so to speak.

Portofino , may I ask which month you travelled?

For B&B (Chambres d'hotes) have a look here

We travelled at the beginning of July. The queues for the tolls were quite big heading towards the Riviera. I know the little b&b sounds excellent when you are planning, makes more of your holidays and all....

The reality is that you could get stuck in traffic, whatever, you will be tired, stiff and hungry. You need somewhere to just pull off the motorway, have a glass of wine and chill out, followed by food and a good sleep. Ibis, Mecure, Novotels all meet the criteria, but IMHO the Novotels are more family friendly.

We are heading to Italy this year - I am very disappointed that none of these places are en route.

I can definitely recommend pre-purchasing a toll RFID thingy. Saved us loads of time last year. Basically you stick it to the windscreen, you go through the express lane at the tolls and the fees get charged to your credit card. No stopping to pay etc. Can dig out details if you are interested.

I agree that Novotels (and most Accor hotels are good for long distance travel.

Watching this with interest...

We are doing the Languedoc beginning of July & were planning to stop in Bourges...

the RFID idea sounds fab - can we have the details portofino? Ta

here you go

Let me know if stuff is in french and you need help.

For the tolls we use liber-t We paid a deposit then every month we use it it costs 2 Euros plus obv the tolls. It goes on to the credit card automatically. It is brilliant, we just sail through. Slight nervous moment on the first day of hols though as to whether it will work or not.

That's what we had OYBK. Fab.

It is great. Very amusing too with an English number plate. Drivers behind us tend to hang back - we think they assume we are confused and have got in the wrong lane and are giving us room to reverse.
Tis a very smug thing to have

You just need a bit of heads up! lol

Thanks for that useful info. Do you know if you can do the liber-t thing with bikes on the roof? It says it's for cars that are under 1m, but the bikes raise the height.

I don't think you can - sorry.

Oh, that is fab, the toll thingy. Will go and get myself one right now, I am always panicking that I don't have any Euros when we get to the toll booth.

We stayed in a Formula One hotel in Beaune, about an hour north of Lyon. Went for a meal in the lovely town, slept in hotel, then had breakfast in the town in the morning, wandered around the market then headed off again.

Ooh we stopped in Beaune once MmeLindt - it is lovely.

Have signed up with the liber-t scheme. Thanks for that, it will make our trips much easier.

How do you sign up
Couldn't see how to do it on the link. How fluent in French do you have to be?

Sign up page Let me know if you can't understand anything.

Basically you pay a 10 euro fee. They send you the RFID badge. In the months that you use it you pay a 1.5 euro admin fee. Otherwise you pay nothing.

Plus you pay the toll cost of course....

thanks Portofino, I've tried signing up but it keeps saying that my postcode is invalid...?

Try writing your postcode in the "complement" box and type a 0 in the postcode box.

Thought I read somewhere that there's a 30 euro deposit? Refundable on cancellation though?
Any idea how efficient they are at sending the cards out in order to arrive in the UK in the post? We're leaving for skiing a week Friday.