France - Driving across France on the first weekend of August

Well, my family's plan for our trip to France is coming together. One leg of the trip will see us driving from Clermont-Ferrand to Pornichet on Saturday August 4th.

I'm trying to figure out the best route to avoid the major traffic jams, and also looking where to stop for a couple of hours so the children can release some energy.

What routes do you guys recommend and where would you guys avoid?

Also, we're heading back from Pornichet to CDG to try to catch a flight to FRA at 18:00, how much traffic time do we need to add to the estimated 5 hours driving time?

I'll also be chatting with my French family and using a GPS that provides realtime traffic information and re-routing (TomTom 2535) but on those long of trips I like to do some advance planning.

Thanks

The bad roads for that day would be the autoroutes especially to/from Paris. I don't have my Michelin atlas (it's in YVR and I'm near YLW) but I'd say a mainly direct secondary road (yellow) thats avoids large towns would be best. Lots of tertiary roads once you get to the Vendee. Cross the Loire on the bridge near St Nazaire should help you avoid Paris traffic though it may be slow going from there.

For the trip to CDG, remember top speed on the autoroute is 130 km/h and CDG is on the otherside of Paris. An average of 80 km/h would be good to use.

The bad roads for that day would be the autoroutes especially to/from Paris. I don't have my Michelin atlas (it's in YVR and I'm near YLW) but I'd say a mainly direct secondary road (yellow) thats avoids large towns would be best. Lots of tertiary roads once you get to the Vendee. Cross the Loire on the bridge near St Nazaire should help you avoid Paris traffic though it may be slow going from there.

For the trip to CDG, remember top speed on the autoroute is 130 km/h and CDG is on the otherside of Paris. An average of 80 km/h would be good to use.

Okay, that about matches what my feeling was for the trip across. I did take a look at that bridge and figured it would make a lot more sense to take it.

Thanks for confirming my ideas.

Also, I'll use 80kph as the estimate, that sounds reasonable. I was also looking at the routing google maps was giving me, it included the peripherique; that strikes me as a bad idea! I'll be sure to take the outer ring road, it should be better.

Here (http://www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.fr/fr/le-calendrier-bison-fute-r41.html) you can download the calendar with the traffic forecast for the year. Saturday 4th August is a 'black day' for travel towards the holiday resorts, and is one of only 3 black days in the year. This basically means that the motorways will gradually come to a standstill. When I do my annual holiday drive on this black Saturday I set off at 6:30am to arrive by 11:00am and just miss the traffic. Any later and the jams are absolutely hideous.

Avoid the motorways if at all possible!

[QUOTE=flyingbee;18469934Avoid the motorways if at all possible![/QUOTE]

From Clermont-Ferrand towards Bretagne you should not have too many problems. The main traffic flux will be in the other direction. Take the A71 and A85 until Angers. If you encounter heavy traffic, it will be from Angers towards Nantes and especially at the Nantes ring road. If you want to avoid the motorway take secondary routes north of Nantes, avoid the South (Vendee) as that region is much more touristic than the northern part.

For your trip back to CDG, it depends on what day you are travelling. Usually there is no problem on the freeway until the toll station before Paris (i.e. avg speed around 130km/h). Afterwards you have 3 possibilities: outer road (N104), outer ring road (A86) or peripherique. It's very hard to say which of the 3 options is the fastest. At the time you will probably pass there, I'd aim for the A86. You may check real-time Paris traffic on www.sytadin.fr. I would not exclude the peripherique from the beginning, sometimes this is faster than the outer ring roads. Look at the car plates around you when approaching Paris. If there ary many Belgium or NL cars, they will take the A86, in that case the peripherique may be faster. Be also aware that you can enter CDG airport from "behind" when coming on the A104 from the south, however, this is very badly sign-posted. Add a time reserve of 90 minutes for Paris traffic jam.

Here (http://www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.fr/fr/le-calendrier-bison-fute-r41.html) you can download the calendar with the traffic forecast for the year. Saturday 4th August is a 'black day' for travel towards the holiday resorts, and is one of only 3 black days in the year. This basically means that the motorways will gradually come to a standstill. When I do my annual holiday drive on this black Saturday I set off at 6:30am to arrive by 11:00am and just miss the traffic. Any later and the jams are absolutely hideous.

Avoid the motorways if at all possible!

That is a very helpful link, I remember seeing the Bison-fute reports on the TV when I was living in France, but I had forgotten about it until now. Thank you.

We were thinking of leaving early, as in 6:00 or 6:30, partially so we could avoid most of the traffic.

From Clermont-Ferrand towards Bretagne you should not have too many problems. The main traffic flux will be in the other direction. Take the A71 and A85 until Angers. If you encounter heavy traffic, it will be from Angers towards Nantes and especially at the Nantes ring road. If you want to avoid the motorway take secondary routes north of Nantes, avoid the South (Vendee) as that region is much more touristic than the northern part.

For your trip back to CDG, it depends on what day you are travelling. Usually there is no problem on the freeway until the toll station before Paris (i.e. avg speed around 130km/h). Afterwards you have 3 possibilities: outer road (N104), outer ring road (A86) or peripherique. It's very hard to say which of the 3 options is the fastest. At the time you will probably pass there, I'd aim for the A86. You may check real-time Paris traffic on www.sytadin.fr. I would not exclude the peripherique from the beginning, sometimes this is faster than the outer ring roads. Look at the car plates around you when approaching Paris. If there ary many Belgium or NL cars, they will take the A86, in that case the peripherique may be faster. Be also aware that you can enter CDG airport from "behind" when coming on the A104 from the south, however, this is very badly sign-posted. Add a time reserve of 90 minutes for Paris traffic jam.

We will be travelling on Saturday, August 11 - only a red day on Bison fute. I'll have whoever the passenger is monitor that site and help figure out the best route. We'll have the GPS and I'm pretty confident in it's routing so we can deal with poor signage if need be.

I don't have specific help to offer but I would really research this question. While the off highway roads are tempting, we have found many in France that go thru small towns very 10-15 kilometers. Great for charm, real tough for making time. Another issue is getting stuck behind an 18 wheeler on a two lane road, which can make for a very long, tough day.

I don't have specific help to offer but I would really research this question. While the off highway roads are tempting, we have found many in France that go thru small towns very 10-15 kilometers. Great for charm, real tough for making time. Another issue is getting stuck behind an 18 wheeler on a two lane road, which can make for a very long, tough day.

Agreed. It does take time, but may be faster if the autoroute is stopped (happened to me once on a snowy autoroute between St Etienne and Clermont-Ferrand).

I find the red (primary non-autoroute) roads are the ones that get clogged up with traffic. The secondary (yellow) roads less so and the white tertiaries even less so, but you need good map-reading skills to actually use them, not to mention trying to find the often-unsigned turnoffs (the locals don't want les grands camions and others who don't belong to use them either!).