Yet another Route Napoleon plan...

[cyberface]

After having our first desperately-needed holiday of the year (a week in a Greek villa in the middle of nowhere) destroyed by my client (political BS that nearly cost me the contract but required constant contact with London and stress), we're looking for another holiday to try to relax a bit.

So a road trip in the Exige sounded like fun - it's going to be late August, first week Sept so south of France sounded sensible and I get to drive some decent roads in a decent car (it could do with being used on some roads appropriate to it, and not just trundling round the south east of England).

The problem is that I'm MUCH more of a petrolhead than my girlfriend. So every hour on twisty roads at maximum attack isn't going to go down well. Our current plan is:

Day 1:
Chunnel to Calais -> easy motorway run to Reims, stop at old GP circuit, easy run to Dijon and stop there for night in cheap-ish motorway hotel (anything that has secure enough parking, effectively).

Day 2:
Originally was going to be Dijon to Grenoble and then base there before taking the Route Napoléon… but I thought of an alternative:
Dijon -> Chamonix - will have a few hours in Chamonix and then stay there somewhere nice for the night

Day 3:
Can't do the entire Route Napoléon from Chamonix without being on a mission and making my girlfriend ill (unless the Michelin map guess of 7-8 hours is wildly out) so decided to cut it in half:
Chamonix -> Castellane (staying in a hotel recommended on PH, hopefully, which looks nice)

Day 4:
Castellane -> rest of Route Napoléon -> Eze

Staying in Eze, if all goes to plan, and using that as a base for a few days where we can drive to Monaco, Nice, Cannes, etc. and cruise around looking desperately poor in my brand new Lotus Hopefully will find somewhere to get the thing washed

Not sure of the way back, will probably stick to a smooth autoroute one-stop way back, Route de Soleil perhaps. Miss Cyberface hasn't even driven the Exige yet and has a historical dislike of Lotuses - she hated the S1 Elise, didn't like the VX220 turbo, disliked the previous S2 Exige S… and it'll be on A048R tyres so there's no way of softening off the steering for her. I haven't got a hope in hell of getting her to share the driving on the way down, but on the way back I'm going to want *some* rest so if it's reasonably clear autoroutes, she'll put up with it. It'll only be the first 10 minutes or so of the car twitching all over the road as she realises that gripping the wheel white-knuckled on a Lotus results in the car wiggling around, once she relaxes and holds the wheel loosely it'll all be fine (by the way, by 'dislike of Lotuses' I mean dislike of *driving* Lotuses - she's perfectly happy passengering).


So - veterans of the Alpes-en-Provence road trips - any suggestions regarding my plan? I haven't driven this route before - have driven to the Dordogne area a couple of times where my grandmother lives back when she was speaking to us, but that was back when we were students 15 years ago and the roads are no doubt a bit different. I've done the first section when driving to Verbier with my cousin to beat Clarkson's time (route back was Verbier to Calais in 7h45m and I will NOT be trying that again given recent stories of overzealous speed enforcement in France, besides, that speed would be stupidly uncomfortable in an Exige) but not any of the roads in the south.

Presumably the Lotus will be ideal for the Route Napoléon and any of the alpine roads around that area - plenty of poke and grip, and narrow enough to get out of the way in emergencies.

Another question for the experts - how much of a problem are cyclists going to be? I'm going to want to drive enthusiastically, and if the road is full of cyclists then, personally, I don't like bombing past them at full noise. It'd be a bit of a downer to turn up on a brilliant driving road to find it full of lycra - are there any specific races at the end of August?

Any problems staying down near the expensive bits of the Côtes d'Azur at the end of August?

All comments welcome! Ta in advance


ETA: Given timings and locations - is this one going to have to be planned meticulously to the last detail and every hotel booked and double-confirmed? Or is there any chance of any ad-hoc alteration to the journey and chance of getting accommodation anywhere? Say if we decide we can't be arsed to go all the way to Chamonix and detour to another alpine town, will all the hotels / B&Bs be booked, etc.? We may be driving a very English car but we speak decent French so there shouldn't be any 'unwelcome English' stuff if we're lucky...

Edited by cyberface on Wednesday 28th July 20:38

[dom180]

Well the Route Napoleon is a fine road and the section between Digne and Grasse is very entertaining but frankly for my taste the N85 is more suited to bloated AMGs and wide Ferraris with enough 60-100 pace to overtake all the traffic effortlessly, and whisper it, more than a few sections are actually quite tedious. - And watch for police speed traps along the way.....

As an alternative, I'd suggest investigating the more Lotus friendly and far more spectacular Route des Grand Alps which I'm sure an Exige owner would enjoy far more - maybe trade a couple more driving days on the outward leg with a romantic stoppover at Lake Maggiore (or even Lake Como) on the return journey in order to keep Mrs C/F entertained..? And the scenary takes your breath away.

http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.com/my-journey/b...

In terms of traffic, expect oncoming bikers in the middle of the road and cyclists around every corner of every mountain in France and you won't go wrong I'm afraid - the French love two wheels....

I'd book hotels in small towns or in tourist areas if you want to stay somewhere specific (and with good parking) although I'm sure there will be vacancies in most of the ski resorts, and for general a:b travel in France, there's always a room somewhere if you have internet access to search a few alternatives. South of France will be crowded so I'd book a place/parking there.

If you feel compelled to do the N85, S2Davey's suggested route on the other thread, incoporating the D996 is a nice one and surely a lot nicer than following the Autoroute....

[cyberface]

Cheeers Dom - this is the first one so smooth-ish wide bends etc. would probably be better for Miss Cyberface than trying to make Scuffers look slow on the Stelvio Pass. Part of the plan is getting *her* driving it too.

Remember that this is just the main route - once we're down at Eze (if we can get accommodation, of course) we've got each day as a 'tour' day - one day to Cannes to wander around, a day cruising around Monaco looking poor, etc. and more importantly, I may detour along the way to some twisty roads

Actually what you say about the N85 being more suited for wide Ferraris etc. with enough 60-100 mph pull to overtake most stuff sounds relatively ideal - if both sides of the road are going to be filled with aggressive lycra then I want room. I don't feel comfortable hooning down a road if there's a chance that I'll have to pass a cyclist with only a foot's gap between the side of my car and his/her elbows… with a velocity difference of 80 mph… after an incident in the UK when I owned a supercharged 993 and a bloke in an Elise decided to show me it was faster. He scared the living hell out of the cyclist, that's for sure (nobody was hurt in this, the cyclist didn't come off, but I really doubt he appreciated a 108 dB-exhaust Elise passing with inches to spare at nearly 100 leptons). So if the road is better suited for the wide boys, then I can leg it even if there are cyclists everywhere without causing them any trouble, no?

And regarding the Ferrari-style 60-100 stomp not being suitable for Lotuses - mine's one of those fat new ones, with lots of power to make up for the middle aged spread. It's fast enough - especially in that speed range. The big boys will only blow me away over the ton, in general… though a chap in an old Sierra made me think I'd lost my supercharger on the M25 last weekend as he kept leaving me for dead (once I caught up with him and annulled his aggression with a thumbs-up, we had a chat - RS500 block, big turbo, 400 bhp and lb ft, less than a tonne. So that's around the same weight as my car but 155 bhp more. Hardly surprising, eh? Lovely example of a whale-tail RS500, moonstone IIRC). The entry level Ferraris with 400-odd bhp normally weigh around 1400 kg so there's less of an advantage, but I'm not travelling down there to race.

As long as the caravans aren't towed by Sierras like that chap on the M25 then I should be OK overtaking anything I need to, surely?

Sadly Miss CF has discovered Pistonheads so I'll have to scarper or change my username - she wants to see Lake Como so we're now prevaricating about either sticking to the plan but switching part of the route between Reims and Dijon with the D996 and see if we can live up to a road named after a Porker, or chucking the whole trip in favour of yours (which sounds superb). Given the stage of hotel bookings etc. it's likely that we'll stick with the current route but swap some of the autoroute bits (the D996 sounds good) - remember that we've got two days for the N85 so can divert off onto side-roads if there's anything interesting up there, and also have the Chamonix detour too for scenery.

Your trip is bookmarked for a future tour though, sounds absolutely fantastic!

Any ideas about the route back? It's planned as purely a mile-munching schlep along motorways at minimum effort and maximum economy, but I'd like to travel through nice scenery while I'm at it - where the hell is that mental bridge? Is there any way I can incorporate *that* bridge (I cannot remember where it is or what it's called, but it's the mega-spectactular one) into the route?

Also - speed cameras. I'm going to get the Europe maps for Co-Pilot on my iPhone and I *think* they have speed camera maps on there - anyone tried similar technology and how accurate / reliable is it? In terms of spotting the gendarmerie with their radar guns - I also ride a motorbike and stationary cars with people in them looking suspicious comes under 'hazard awareness' so I'm pretty good at seeing them. But hidden / disguised / camouflaged stationary speed cameras are a different story - they don't have to paint them bright orange in France, do they…

Worth taking two sets of number plates? Mine are velcroed on, as is sensible in an Exige.

Last thing - any problems getting newer Exiges onto the Chunnel? I can take the front number plate off, as mentioned, but don't want to rip the splitter off coming up the ramp.

[randlemarcus]

cyberface said:

Also - speed cameras. I'm going to get the Europe maps for Co-Pilot on my iPhone and I *think* they have speed camera maps on there - anyone tried similar technology and how accurate / reliable is it? In terms of spotting the gendarmerie with their radar guns - I also ride a motorbike and stationary cars with people in them looking suspicious comes under 'hazard awareness' so I'm pretty good at seeing them. But hidden / disguised / camouflaged stationary speed cameras are a different story - they don't have to paint them bright orange in France, do they…

Worth taking two sets of number plates? Mine are velcroed on, as is sensible in an Exige.

Worth being aware that their measures also include camouflaged policemen with radars, who hide on the blind side of the bridges. You will not spot them (except when the nice bike coppers make him stand up as they escort you to the station).

Also be aware that under French law, you ought to have rivetted on plates. Make of that what you will (but maybe glue some rivet heads to the front of the plates)

[Longers]

cyberface said:

Also - speed cameras. I'm going to get the Europe maps for Co-Pilot on my iPhone and I *think* they have speed camera maps on there - anyone tried similar technology and how accurate / reliable is it?

I thought it was illegal in France to use satnav functions that show you the speed camera locations....?

[dom180]

cyberface said:

Sadly Miss CF has discovered Pistonheads so I'll have to scarper or change my username - she wants to see Lake Como so we're now prevaricating about either sticking to the plan but switching part of the route between Reims and Dijon with the D996 and see if we can live up to a road named after a Porker, or chucking the whole trip in favour of yours (which sounds superb). Given the stage of hotel bookings etc. it's likely that we'll stick with the current route but swap some of the autoroute bits (the D996 sounds good) - remember that we've got two days for the N85 so can divert off onto side-roads if there's anything interesting up there, and also have the Chamonix detour too for scenery.

The Canyon du Verdon, off the N85 @ Castellane is well woth seeing and the roads surrounding it are very entertaining - stay at Moustiers Ste Marie - there's a great restaurant I'll try and dig out the name....

Col de Turini is recommended as is the col de Braus and col de Vence - if you do this one stay on the D2 and run up to the ski resort at Greolieres les Neiges. And the D2 between there and col de Vence is quite spectacular - they filmed the Goldeneye car sequence there.

If you're traveling between Nice and MC don't take the motorway as there are tolls every half mile - the D2564 is much better.

cyberface said:

Any ideas about the route back? It's planned as purely a mile-munching schlep along motorways at minimum effort and maximum economy, but I'd like to travel through nice scenery while I'm at it - where the hell is that mental bridge? Is there any way I can incorporate *that* bridge (I cannot remember where it is or what it's called, but it's the mega-spectactular one) into the route?

The Bridge is at at Millau, on the A75. A very entertaining motorway the A75 with lots of sharpe bends. The surrounding Massif Central countryside is great although for maximum enjoyment the twisty roads through the Massif are almost unmatched in terms of fun - on a Michelin map the best roads are shaded green - if it's green and twisty or has a col in the title then it's odds on to be a good one.

Personally I'd head back via Lake Maggiore and then up the Simplon pass and schlep back through Switzerland and take in a few of the best Swiss passes surrounding Andrematt.

cyberface said:

Last thing - any problems getting newer Exiges onto the Chunnel? I can take the front number plate off, as mentioned, but don't want to rip the splitter off coming up the ramp.

Standard Exige no problem at all - even on Ohlins/lowered a bit they're fine, just take it slowly.

Enjoy your trip.