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Hi,

Was it just me or was the traffic absolutely horrendous on Saturday, we allowed our self seven hours to get from the Vendee to Le Havre, however it took us the best part of nine hours and as a consequence missed our ferry home! As there wasn't another ferry from Le Havre until this afternoon we decided to drive to Calais and book on a P&O ferry but this took us four hours to do 170 miles, but we did get home 22 hours after leaving the campsite, only stopping for fuel twice and the break of the ferry, a 750 mile journey in total and about £200 worse off after having to cough up for an additional ferry and fuel, was it their national holiday or something?

Daz

I dont think so, would that be with the ferry or my holiday insurance?

Thanks

Daz

Hello

We were travelling back from the Vendee on Saturday but had decided to take an overnight stop near Rouen and returned home Sunday. I don't know if you tried to get round the ring road at La Roche sur Yon but that was an absolute nightmare. Took us an hour to get round it. Queues at every roundabout. However, after that it was relatively clear, although we waited for 20 min to pay the A 28 toll on the approach to Rouen

Personally I avoid France from the 14th July (Bastille day) until the end of August, the French seem to cram everything into those hectic 6 weeks. I remember once being in Brittiany one September and my car was one of a handfull of cars in a car park that could take atleast a couple of hundred, a cafe owner told me that for the 6 weeks it had been packed.

I would suggest that the lesson is to add atleast half as much time, if not double, for journeys and of course to pre-book sites, especially around the ports.

We travelled back from Royan on a Thursday and had no problems.340 miles in 8 hours with a trailer. Stopped 3 times had a great journey.

Bedlam 

Just as an aside here and a 'daft question' but what are the French school holiday dates?

Do they have the same 6 weeks off as our little angels?

We came back from Royan area on a Satuday, just got to the Ferry at Cairn in time. Will never do a Saturday again in a hurry...

The traffic was very bad.

Yes, the traffic was bad last Saturday. The reason being was that this Tuesday, the 15th was a public holiday. Being French this means that Monday is also taken as a day off, they "make the bridge" to the weekend.

We met up with my dad near Avranches on Sunday last week then drove down to Royan on Monday. It took 4 1/2 hours. He did the same trip Saturday and it took 10.

We drove back from Royan yesterday (Thurs 17th) and did the 450 miles to Abbeville without any delays whatsoever.

The area round Royan though is obviously hugely popular with the French and we found huge traffic queues whenever we went in or out of town. Fortunately most of the time we were going in the opposite direction.