St Tropez - Cote D'Azur....an that!!

[bongodonkey]

Starting to examine options of a couple of weeks down on the Cote D'Azure near St Tropez, Nice and Cannes.

Having had a quick look at the road atlas I'm looking at an approximate trip of 1600km each way working out at around €220 in gas and €130 in tolls each way before.

We'd take 2/3 full days getting down there.....no point going mad, as we'd spend the holiday recovering then dreading the return leg!

What I'm after is a bit of knowledge of previous bongo explorers with information on the following:

Best route - autoroute v minor roads - trip duration from Calais if poss!
Good transit Arie/stop over campsites
Good spots to explore/wild camp/camp/beaches etc when we get there.

Is getting a ferry (where from/to) better?

Oh, not got any specific dates yet (summer holidays) but happy if someone wants to convoy it!

Cheers dudes.

[Muzorewa]

A reasonable guide to your ferry options for getting sausage-side is HERE

Slightly out of date with the Sea France options, must do something about that

[briwy]

We went down to Provence earlier this year and stayed off the motorways. Takes longer but you see more and in a Bongo it's not that much slower as you don't tend to rush along anyway on the motorway.
This map shows the free motorways, quite a lot of them actually, and most round big cities tend to be free so we use the RN roads and hop onto the motorways to save going through city centres.
http://about-france.com/routes-from-calais.htm
One place not to miss is the Millau viaduct on the motorway (free) down towards Montpelier.
Re the ferries, depends what you want and where you are going. We have started using the Tunnel more as the prices have dropped and it's easier, quicker and more reliable. Just a pain getting over the river at Dartford.
We also use the Portsmouth LD Lines a lot to get down to the Pyrenees, overnight on the boat and then 9 hours to the mountains.
The Michelin planner is one of many but is in English and has plenty of options.
http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/
Hope this helps.

[francophile1947]

I've always used the autoroutes via Rheims, Troyes, Dijon, Lyon, Valence, Orange and Aix-en-Provence - I always just hammered down there in a day, but that was in a car at 130kph. I would think that one overnight stop would be adequate. I tried the N roads once and vowed never to do it again - the constant stream of villages, with speed restrictions, really got on my nerves when I had a booking already made.

[bongodonkey]

Thanks for the replies peeps so far

John, I'm of the opinion of getting down as fast as possible. Olive sits at 75/80mph and returns around 450kms on €62 ish of gas. That was with a full camper load and the 4 of us this summer!

Problem I've got are my girls. They will be 6&4 respectively and despite being brilliant travellers, get cabin fever after 8 hrs of DVDs etc. so I reckon that a couple of steady days will have to do.

Can't do the tunnel.....LPG Vehicles verboten!

Did a bit of cross country driving and didn't really dig it over there. The speed restrictions are a pain along with agricultural traffic on the odd occasion. Also I found HGVs on the routes, with over taking a pain!

Would like to do an over night ferry, but the cost against driving from Calais is non existant. Looked at St Malo and the mileage is still approx 75% driving from Calais.

Dunno will wait and see for any more info. Also do a route planner to give us an idea of distances.

[bongodonkey]

Just been on viamichilen.co.uk and checked mileage etc

62100 Calais – 83990 Saint-Tropez
A26 A7
Costs
208.68 GBP
Toll 77.13 GBP | Petrol 131.55 GBP

Time
11h43 wich 10h32 on motorways
Distance
730 mi wich 700 mi on motorways



Makes life a lot cheaper that way.

Thanks for the viamichilen link

So, now it's finding a good airie as a mid point.......any pointers or campsite to over night.

Then it's picking some nice sites, printing loads off on works printer and putting the pack together.
Oh, and tell the wife she's paying......
Basically looking at the figures, it's 2 weeks on the French cote D'Azure for about £1100 all in. Using a world class vehicle to boot

[briwy]

Try to avoid the French holiday start & finish days especially. Hell on earth then, mixed in with other foreigners from further north as well.
http://about-france.com/school-holidays.htm
This is handy for checking live traffic conditions as well if you can get wifi, lot of the cafes at the aires have it now.
http://www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.f ... ?langue=en

[BongoBonkers]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Aires-Franc ... b_title_bk

We bought a guide to French aires a few years ago. It is the business and has helped us out many times now.

Unfortunately for you (if you want to buy it) it seems to be hard to get hold of now as you can see from the Amazon link. There are some on Ebay but making a lot of money. There do seem to be some alternative aire guides on Amazon and they may be as good or better....well worth getting hold of one of some kind or other though.

Good luck with the trip