We arrrived back yesterday after a gruelling three day journey with our 7 year old grandson who had never been abroad before.
On the way down to Dover we stopped at the motorhome home stop next to the stop and ride at Canterbury. This was very good, and will defo use again, and Canterbury is a great place to visit.
To avoid some French tolls we went from Calais to Orleans vior Rouen and down the N154. I found this route to be much better then going around Paris, and was quicker, and there was more opportunity to stop and eat, and of course cheaper fuel.
Once north of Orleans we used the motorway to Clermont Ferrand, and then the toll free motorway (A75) to the med and spent 100E on tolls, including the Millau Duct both ways. Last year I went vior Paris on the motorways and spent around 300E on tolls and the Millau Duct.
We did an overnight stop on a 24/7 aires half way between Orleans and Clermont Ferrand which was abruptly ended as a mother of all rain storms soaked us as we had the roof vents open and water cascaded ontop of us (grrrr) so as we now had wet bedding we decided to carry on to drive out of the storm. The storm and us was something like the wacky races as we seemed to have this dark cloud from Mount Mordor following us for hours down to the A75 as we attempted a race to the sun:biggrin:
A few hours later, and with the sun up, we stopped for breakfast, and so stopped at an aires (picknick aires) as we got out of the RV, my grandson Tom, looked at me with disbelief on his face as he realised how hot it was, and at my un-aclimatised face as it leaked buckets of liquid. When my son told him it was going to get even hotter, he informed us that we was winding him up, as it was not possible to get hotter as we would all melt :laugh:
We arrived at Agde without any problems, unlike last year, but did develope a problem with the water pump that I will have to look at now we are home.
the weather was very hot, but like the the North of Europe it has been prone to storms, but the storms down there are over in a few hours. For three days it was 104 in the shade, and never dropped below 94.
We used £500 of diesel and 100E on tolls using this route, which is a saving of around £170 compared to last year
If I was doing this trip again, I would probably take a ferry nearer to Rouen to reduce some of the driving hours, and always try and use a manned toll booth because we did generally get a reduced class this way.
If anybody is goiung to the South of France soon, stock up on mozzy spray because the wet spring, and winds from the mountains have caused a lot of mozzies this year.
