We are heading down south from zeebrugge I'm confident I can hit Poitiers sort of area in one day am I being abit too ambitious. We both drive so I think we can do about 400 miles in the day.I know you guys have a lot more experience than me .Is this realistic
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We've done 393 in one day - but mostly stick to between 250 and 350 miles. We share driving, have no children with us, and use mostly non-toll roads. I've no doubt it's possible to do 400 miles (and there are others on here who do much more - see How far ) - but is it pleasant? It depends if you're really in a hurry to get somewhere. We tend to make the journey part of our holiday - I suppose because we never book anywhere we don't have any real 'destination' - just heading for the sun usually. If you are going to do that sort of distance then get an early start, and stop regularly for breaks.
Well, the distance is about 630/640 Km. If you average at 60 to 70 Km/Hour then you are doing good, on the RN's then you have a the max speed, dry weather is 90Km/Hour (56 mph), wet with caravan lower, only on free stretches of road. In hamlets, and towns you can only drive at a max of 50Km/Hour (30 mph), and the distance is not all free. So we are looking at 10 hours, if you drive NON-STOP. I personally think you are pushing it a bit. If you take the road to Brugge and to Lille and Lens. These are normal roads.From Lille you follow sings to the motorway. Then follow the A1 down to Paris. And now the traffic jams start. Paris has no ring motorway like London, so its 'every man for him self', and with a caravan simply horror. The other way is to go past Oostende, Calias, and Le Havre to Le Mans and on to Potiers. If you ask me personally, then I would say, "Book on a boat to Calais", and if you can, book to Le Havre or better St. Malo.I'm sorry for being so negative,
but it may save you a lot of hassle.
We are going to L'Fururiste near Poiters on Monday starting from Calais via Rouen,Chatres,Tours. At Tours we use part of the toll ring road and the cost is about 3€, sometimes we pay a toll from Boulogne to Abbeyville and other times we use the N1. This route is used by a lot of HGV's from Spain / Portugal.
It's certainly do-able but I think the total distance that is comfortable depends on a) whether you'll be using autoroutes the whole way, and b) whether you have children with you.
We will be travelling from Zeebrugge to Royan in the summer and plan to have an overnight stop near Tours on the way down, and near Rouen on the way back. This will be about 8 hours drive (including stops) on the first day, and 3-4 on the second, leaving plenty of time to pitch or allow plenty of time to get to the ferry on our return).
Thanks for your thoughts. I think we are going to go west of Paris and probrably have an overnight somewhere between Orleans and Tours I don't think the kids will enjoy a nine or ten hour drive
Just a thought - not sure where your destination is, but if it's the Vendee/Atlantic coast area, I would advise not going via Paris but via Rouen instead. The motorway network around Paris is not for the faint hearted, and although the Rouen route is a bit further (20-30 miles), it's quicker and far less stressful - particularly when towing.
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i see you have a sedona and a bailly. we had a sedona and a baily ranger and can do edinburgh to dover, callias to loire valley in 1. about800 mls the sedona is a very able tow car and on the good roads in france 70/80 mph is very easy and safe to do so big mileages possable to do
We drove from just south of Poitiers (Couhe) to Calais in one day last summer. We left at about 8:30am and arrived about 4 or 4:30 I think. That's with two drivers, a couple of swap over stops and a 40 minute lunchbreak, on the motorway all the way.
We weren't towing though and I imagine that would slow you down a fair bit.
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Topic: Zeebrugge to Poitiers
