Hotel - Clais to Le Mans

[WISHY]

Hi Just wondering if anyone could help/suggest a good place to stay
we are travelling from calais on the thurs and would like to get about 1.5hr underway so thinking somewhere round Amiens or Abbeville, preferably with secure parking?
Any suggestion or anyone staying their if so I will buy you a pint if we see you...
Thanks In advance Wishy

[dobboMK1]

We stayed at this place last time around: http://www.chateauxhotels.com/public/hotel-224/Man...

Its perhaps a bit too far being just South of Rouen but it was spot on. Not too pricey, excellent surroundings and excellent food. A very chilled out place. Try searching on the rest of the website for a better location as I have stayed at a number of the hotels and they have always been very good.

[Karussell]

Take a look at the F1 hotel in Abbeville

Cheap, just off the autoroute, and the Buffalo Grill just across the road

Normally a good selection of exotica parked up

[lowdrag]

Living in France I travel quite a lot and always use the Logis de France. A group of family owned hotels, not dear, and usually with excellent restaurants. Go here and have a look.

http://www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/index.htm

If you do book with one of these, they will give you a free book with all the hotels in France listed for any time you find yourself elsewhere in France. Very useful.

[Longers]

Googled this one myself for ages before we booked in the Hotel Saint Jean in Wimereux. May be too far north for you but it's close to motorway, has parking and there's plenty of places to eat / drink nearby within staggering distance!

[anonymous-user]

We are booked into the Kyriad at Rouen Centre for Thursday night. Maybe a bit further than you want to go but a very nice city.
According to the website has secure parking. Seem to remember it was very secure when we were last there two or three years ago.

[Cobra Andy]

If you can make it as far as Rouen there are lots of hotels in the area.
just search for the rouen tourist office and they have a link to all the hotels etc in the area.
Did this on the way back from the classic in 06 and found a lovely place just outside of rouen in the forest.

[Codshead]

Can Calais to Le Mans be done in one without an overnight stopover, or is it too knackering?

[lowdrag]

Calais to Le Mans, cruising at a steady 140kph (85mp)h, takes me around 4 hours. The only problem can be the Rouen ring road but if you arrive there after 8pm there is no traffic worth talking about. Either that or before 4.30pm. Since it is all motorway it is dead easy. Come off the autoroute A28 at junction 23 and follow the signs for Angers Laval - brings you straight to the circuit on dual carriageway.

[WISHY]

Codshead said:

Can Calais to Le Mans be done in one without an overnight stopover, or is it too knackering?

Oh no it can be done, we did it our first year Sheffield to Le mans via the tunnel no stops but it does catch up on you and as I am now getting older (27) I would prefer a bed for the night. Sh8t it really is catching up on me from 18-24 we used to do Sheffield to St.Tropez no stop every year! I wonder if by 30 i will be able to leave the country with out falling alseep - perhaps i better see someone!!!

I get side tracked - Back to the origional post, Thanks to all that have replied I have looked into all hotels but not decided yet. I think Rouen is the ideal place as it about 2 hrs from calais and 2hrs from le mans having said that it normally takes us 5hrs so i dont know how i have figured that out!

the only thing i would say is the people on trip advisor dont recommend the kyriad in rouen center as they were worried about their cars and next to a fly over - sorry simon!

There dont seem to be many hotels comming up on the searches in Rouen but i will keep trying and post if find a good one.

I have found some wonderful chateaux but most have double bed and are romantic so great for a tour round france with the good lady but not 12 hairy blokes!

The other option I am looking into is staying in Dieppe or on the coast slightly off the beaten track but would be nice to get there early eve and have a few beers in bar next to the sea.

I will let you know the progress but just trying to find somewhere better than the IBIS we always stay in!

Thanks again
Wishy

[Codshead]

lowdrag said:

Calais to Le Mans, cruising at a steady 140kph (85mp)h, takes me around 4 hours. The only problem can be the Rouen ring road but if you arrive there after 8pm there is no traffic worth talking about. Either that or before 4.30pm. Since it is all motorway it is dead easy. Come off the autoroute A28 at junction 23 and follow the signs for Angers Laval - brings you straight to the circuit on dual carriageway.

Thanks for the info.Can't wait for the drive down; could be better than the racing!

[lowdrag]

Wishy, I'm ashamed of you! My youngest daughter is older than you and three years back I did Le Mans to Rijeka (Croatia) in one day at the wheel of my 46 yr old E type! That was nearly 1,100 miles too. And we still went out to dinner and had a good time! C'mon, life is to be lived!

[WISHY]

Cobra Andy said:

If you can make it as far as Rouen there are lots of hotels in the area.
just search for the rouen tourist office and they have a link to all the hotels etc in the area.
Did this on the way back from the classic in 06 and found a lovely place just outside of rouen in the forest.

Thanks Andy and everyone who replied - I had a look on the toutist board and that is def the place to pic a hotel from rather than google. We have managed to get one just outside rouen so should be fun cheers

Lowdrag - you are right I will pull my finger out - although even when we did Sheffield to st tropez 1000 miles in one go we had 2 drivers. Do you have a large supply of matches to keep your eye lids open as I would be crumpled in the central reservation after 1100 miles by myself in an e type. Perhaps you should go in for the le mans 24hr race by your self as I have heard that no one has ever completed it alone ( the last guy who tried died not far from the end i think?) I will stand corrected on that tho?

Have fun and see you all there...

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the tip off about the Kyriad, Wishy, we'll check it out a bit more. We originally used it when we went with Continental Car Tours some years ago.
Could always book a different hotel, can't recall a flyover though.
Maybe you could keep us posted on what hotel you go for, especially if you go for one in Rouen?

Simon

[Puggit]

On the way from Calais to our house (just south of Le Mans) we often stay in the Campanile hotel just South of Rouen, next to jc22 of the A13. They have gated parking which they close at night.

[lowdrag]

WISHY said:

Lowdrag - you are right I will pull my finger out - although even when we did Sheffield to st tropez 1000 miles in one go we had 2 drivers. Do you have a large supply of matches to keep your eye lids open as I would be crumpled in the central reservation after 1100 miles by myself in an e type. Perhaps you should go in for the le mans 24hr race by your self as I have heard that no one has ever completed it alone ( the last guy who tried died not far from the end i think?) I will stand corrected on that tho?

I dunno why but put me behind a wheel and I can go for ever. I just get a buzz every time even at nearly 62 years of age. Last week I did 2,000 miles driving from Le Mans to Calais then all over the UK and back again and only felt tired the day after I got back when the adrenalin ceased. However, going back to your post, this man really deserved respect...........

Pierre Eugène Alfred Bouillin (b. 22 December 1905, Paris – d. 11 June 1955, Le Mans) was a French sportsman and racecar driver. He took the racing name Pierre Levegh in memory of his uncle, a pioneering driver who died in 1904. Levegh is mainly remembered for a disaster that killed him and 82 spectators during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans automobile race.

Levegh was also a world-class ice hockey and tennis player. In motorsport he competed in Formula 1 for the Lago-Talbot team in 1950 and 1951, starting six races, retiring in three, and scoring no points.

At Le Mans he raced for Talbot in four races, finishing fourth in 1951. In 1952, driving single-handedly, his car suffered an engine failure in the last hour of the race with a four lap lead. This failure was probably caused by a missed gear change due to driver fatigue. In 1953 he came in eighth, and in 1954 he was involved in an accident in the seventh hour of racing.

In 1955 he was tempted away from Talbot and joined the American John Fitch in racing a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. In the third hour of racing, while on the Tribunes Straight, he clipped the Austin-Healey of Lance Macklin that was forced to make an evasive move after Mike Hawthorn dove into the pits. After hitting an earth bank, the car flew through the air, disintegrating, scattering components into the crowd. Levegh was killed in front of his wife's eyes, as were 82 spectators, while over 100 were injured. The race was continued in order to prevent the spectators from leaving, which would have blocked all access roads and the ambulances.

Levegh is buried in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Now that man deserved respect and I visited his grave once when in Paris. A four lap lead and his engine died after 23 hours. Here's to a safe race this year plus, of course, plenty of sunshine!

[Piglet]

On the "where to stay" point. It's worth thinking about what time you'll be hitting Rouen on the way there and what time you'll leave the next day.

If you're likely to get to Rouen during the evening/night you'd be much better off keeping going whilst it's quiet and staying somewhere that is clear off the "railway yard" section of Rouen. This gives you a clear run the next morning - unless you're not likely to leave Rouen until 10am ish when the usual traffic is likely to have dropped (except the Thursday - Saturday when I guess Rouen is pretty bad all day?)

The nightmare would be staying North of that section and trying to leave at 8am the next morning when you could have cruised it at 8pm the night before.