Southern France via Paris - avoid?

[braddo]

For folks here who drive to/from the UK (via Calais mostly) - do you ever go via Paris as suggested by Waze/google etc?

Firstly I am wondering about whether it would be playing traffic jam roulette and secondly, presumably a Crit'Air sticker is required just to drive through on the Peripherique?

I have always steered clear, going either Rouen and Le Mans/Chartres, or Reims/Troyes depending on where I'm heading.

Would a mid-August weekend be fairly quiet? I assume that early and late August would not be (Parisiens heading on holiday, then returning from holiday).

[braddo]

zbc said:

No weekend in August will be quiet. This is a good resource and mostly translated https://www.bison-fute.gouv.fr/index,langen.html. I'm not sure about the Crit'air for the perif but I would think that you could take some of the other outer motorways that would avoid it mostly. I would think generally better to avoid Paris unless you want to actually pause there and visit something

Good to know, thanks. We would be hitting Paris mid-morning on a Saturday so it feels like a lottery whether the traffic will be reasonable.

I think I'll avoid and go Rouen etc. If some other friends decide to go through Paris I'll leave the stress and/or time saving to them.

We drove to the Alps for half-term week in February and the traffic became horrendous from around the point that we would have been meeting up with the traffic from Paris (and Lyon). Google maps had still suggested that via Paris was faster than Reims/Troyes!

[braddo]

What sort of times have you travelled through there?

[braddo]

AndrewCrown said:

If you go here

https://www.autoroutes.fr/en/traffic-forecast.htm

You will find a forecast based on historical data...

smifffymoto said:

If you are that worried choose your route on the day after you have checked www.bison-fute.gouv.fr

Thanks for these, I'll take a look. Especially the latter on the day of travel.

I have a toll tag and heartily recommend them. It's hard not to feel smug when you probably 'overtake' 50 cars at the toll booth and then floor it away from the gate.

On the Eurotunnel - the high-vehicle carriages are definitely wider, so there are often nice sports cars in amongst the campervans and SUVs with roofboxes. On the normal low-vehicle carriages the main issue with the kerbs is that they veer around the toilets slightly, where is it easy to catch a corner.

Flexiplus ticket - I think the biggest benefit is when it's really busy; skipping the check-in queues and being able to get onto the next train (as opposed to the 'next available train' which can be 1-2 hours later...).

I have booked a flexiplus ticket for the first time for our return journey. I don't want to get stuck again for a couple of hours after having been driving all day back up through France.