French Toll Roads
I'm sure this must be a common topic, but I can't find it anywhere? I need to drive (motorhome) from near Barcelona to Cherbourg at the end of Jan 2019. I'd like to avoid toll roads as much as practical and also keep away from anywhere that might have snow or ice at this time of the year. Any recommendations as to route, or info on how to work out what tolls might cost, would be greatly appreciated.
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Barcelona to Cherbourg will cost 169.9e if you use autoroutes, go to autoroutes.fr enter your departure and destination, click on car and change to car with caravan i.e. Class 2 which is what 99% of motorhomes are charged on. You can then see the route on a map and each toll as you progress in the turn by turn list. If you expand the map itself you will be able to pick out alternatives to paying toll on perhaps the more expensive sections. By adding a mid point going via Nantes makes little difference to toll cost. The best way of reducing the cost is often to use the N Road adjacent to the autoroute but at a maximum speed of 80 Km/Hr (50 MPH) on these roads now its quite a heavy time penalty.
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You can use toll free roads parallel to motorway up the coast to Narbonne and then west to Toulouse, the motorway around that city is free, then revert to toll free road parallel to motorway north to Brive, therafter motorway north of Brive is free, Your paper road atlas will show toll roads and toll free roads in different colours.
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If you want to stay snow free then the further west you travel the more probability you will have of missing the snow. West is flatter. The centre has mountains and high hills and the eastern routes pass close to where the pre Alps start.
Of course with it being winter anything could happen.
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That would be the way I would choose. In France you're very unlikely to be seriously held up by snow on the autoroutes or main roads unless you're travelling in the high mountains. The most likely stretch is between Barcelona and Perpignan where the main road skirts the eastern end of the Pyrenees, but this is a very busy stretch of road and will be cleared quickly.
The road to Toulouse runs at valley bottom level so should be fine. As you go higher up through the Massif Central towards Brive you may meet another snow risk but it's really unlikely to cause serious hold-ups.
We're hoping to squeeze in a couple of weeks in our house in the Aude in January and the possibility of snow isn't going to put us off. Last time we went at that time of year we had clear blue skies the whlole time - but some fantastic frosts making the trees look absolutely beautiful.
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