OT: Day trip to France

Mike P gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Gurgle Groupes lied.

For a lot of it, there's no need to. We went to Blois and more than 50% of the route was dual carriageway with a good proportion of that which wasn't having signs of being in the process. On the SC roads, the target speed of everyone on it is the limit. They don't potter around at 15-20MPH under the limit like they do in the UK.

You... Can't remember? Were you even in France?

(c:

On that occasion, no, we went to Cornwall. Though when we went to Lille, I was in France. Meaning to have an early night to catch the Eurostar turned into a heavy session with colleagues from work, ending up in passing out on the living room floor at 4am, waking at 6 and being still pissed when we arrived in Lille. Found a nice cafe to top ourselves off with a beer and a couple of croque monsieurs each, and we were set for the day :-)

Mike P

Go on then plot a route to Dijon from Calais that doesn't use an autoroute and that can be done on dual carriageways.

I have to say that my favourite part in Taxi 2 is the automatic sick bags for the passengers.

When I worked for plod they blamed the typical "safe" Sunday driver who leaves the caravan outside their house on the drive for 11 months out of

1. When they go on holiday they lovingly polish the interior, wash the van until it gleams, carefully stock up on supplies to last then through a nuclear winter and lay their clothes carefully in the drawers and wardrobe.

Then they set off without noticing that the brakes are binding, the tyres have cracked in the sun, the hand brake ratchet pawl has rusted open, the hitch is corroded and the over-run brake linkage has corroded solid. By the time they get to Wiltshire/Dorset the caravan is about ready to burst into flames or the tyres burst and it rolls over.

Ages back, on a family holiday, we went to a place called Loctudy in Brittany. Lovely little town/village, but that whole area is pretty nice - nice coastline straight out onto the Atlantic, lots of varied stuff to do, very little of which I can remember. But I do remember that we went from Portsmouth to St Malo on an overnight sleeper, and the drive the other end did seem like a fair while, having already gone so far - I remember thinking that, despite the extra 2.5 hours drive in Britain, going Plymouth to Roscoff would have put us *much* closer to the area we were destined for. I mention this as Plymouth from York is probably only an hour extra compared to going to Dover, and it also means you avoid South-East England.

Hmm you're not right. It's 2 hours Roscoff to Loctudy, and three hours St Malo to Loctudy so you'd have lost time overall. Although the fact that both are sleepers on the ferry means that there's really sod-all difference.

I agree with you though, I love that area and have spent quite a bit of time around L'Orient, Brest, Quimper, Auray and Vannes. We even looked at buying a home near Vannes before Italy fell into our lap.

Google Maps is out of date.

Yes.

I should've been at Dartford Crossing around 4.30-ish but thanks to a couple of strategically placed accidents, that ended up not being the case.

I drive that way several times a year Conor. I've yet to find a non-péage route that can get me down to Dijon inside a day's driving. On the autoroute a relaxed days drive can get me from Calais to Bardonecchia by 1600.

Allowing an hour to get out of the Chunnel and up to the Dartford Crossing shows that you intended to drive at stupidly illegal speeds for much of the distance. And it also shows poor planning since 16:30 would see you arriving at the toll booths as the queues get to amusing lengths.

As I said, when I went where I did, there was a lot of DCing going on.=20 None of that, which will be well completed by now, has made it onto=20 Google maps. Therefore, you can't say what is and isn't DC'd.

If you can't get to Dijon in a days driving without using the=20 autoroute, then I'd love to know WTF you're playing at. Calais to Blois=20 only took 5hrs stopping along the way for kid length stops and Blois to=20 Dijon by mostly SC road is only 140 miles.

You could go Rouen, Evraux to Chatres, down to Orleans then cut across.=20

--=20 Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't=20 looking good either. - Scott Adams

3 hours St Malo to Loctudy - is that from experience? Comparing google maps' quickest times, SM>L is 3h34m and R>L is 2h4m, so 1.5 hours saved. But yeah, fair point and fair point. I remembered it looking a lot less on the map, and I think we spent the day we left the gite in somewhere like Brest, which is obviously very close to Roscoff. But you could spend the last day somewhere anywhere that was close to somewhere.....

From memory, yes about three hours give or take. I find the drive from St Malo to Quimper takes about three hours and Loctudy isn't far from Quimper.

If I were going that way on a day out I'd make it Vannes or possibly Josselin, which is less than two hours from St Malo. Josselin is a stunning place and not that well known to the Brits.

Every Ibis I've stayed at has had a pretty decent restaurant.

I wish I could say the same, the one in Northampton was s**te. I can't recall getting a bad meal in a French Ibis though.

Just got back from France. I'd suggest Honfleur. Good restaurants and a beautiful town. And not a horrendous mission.