calais to st tropez without motorways

[fphil]

hi am planning to go down the south end of july have 2 days to do it in so looking for a stop over somewhere too and was wondering if there is a nice fast route down ,dont mind a bit of toll road but would love to stick to the free ones with more intresting things to see ,so any route road suggestions would be welcome

[Naga]

Brings back come memories - I first did that 30 years ago (to Port Grimaud) in my Escort Mk1 1300L!!. Toll to Paris - N7 to just north of Marseille and then toll for the final leg.

[itsnotarace]

Yes have done it in both directions. My advice is to get the peage to Reims and then pick up the national roads from there as northern France is pretty boring

FYI we did

Day 1: Calais > Saint Omer > Bethune > Cambrai > Saint Quentin > Reims > Chaumont > Dijon
Day 2: Dijon > Beaune > Chalon sur Saone > Macon > Bourg-en-Bresse > Grenoble for lunch then picked up the N85, got to Sisteron mid afternoon.

If I were you I would stick on the N85 past Castellane and then take the coast road from Cannes via Saint Raphael and Frejus, just because I like the drive, however saying that there are some lovely roads round Draguinan on the plateau where the army camp is, if you break off the N85 down the southern side of the Verdon Gorge / Lac de Saint Croix.

Edited by itsnotarace on Monday 27th June 16:06

[Naga]

Verdon Gorge is worth a day's driving itself - Awesome place.

I like that route from Reims - Never done the full North to South but have done Geneva-Reims/Calais and Geneva - Nice, some excellent driving to be had

[itsnotarace]

Naga said:

Verdon Gorge is worth a day's driving itself - Awesome place

Agreed

As it was, we did over 3000 miles that week and only once had to use a peage when we took a wrong turn in Nice and ended up having to get onto a motorway to turn around at the next junction, cost us all of about 30 cents.

lol

[mgroadster]

Regularly travel that route with our caravan. We give it 3 days and go through Dijon. Lille and the Estorils.