French Motorway Aires
Many years ago we had a booklet published by Michelin that had a diagrammatic map showing all the motorway Aires and their facilities. It would appear that this is no longer published. Would be grateful to hear if there is another means of finding out distances between Aires (other than the next one that you are approaching as signposted on the motorway) and it's facilities and especially great would be suitability for caravans. Recently we have encountered Aires where the caravan spaces are unsuitable and more often full with cars and have had to drive straight out again. Would be handy to be able to plan our stops with more information available.
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A good road atlas marks the Aires and Service stations, their names, and the distance between them can be seen. If you then google the name it tells you more about the facilities at each one - but not how full they will be. That depends on day, date and time - for example at weekends when the lorry embargo is in force they may be full of HGVs waiting till they are allowed to move on. I'm afraid I often drive in, around, and out again as you do.
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I used to like my 914 Guide. However in those days I don't think (?) the Michelin Road Atlas actually had the Aires marked along the motorway. They do now with green for rest areas and blue for service stations.
David
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We have the AA IGN 1:190,000 (3 miles to 1 inch) road map of France which shows motorway Aires by means of ( ) - light print for Aires de repos, heavy print + name for major Aires with facilities, petrol etc. Easy to roughly work out distances. However as said above there's no way of telling how busy they are!
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The Michelin 914 Motorway Atlas was a brilliant little book. Such a pity it isn't published anymore. I have had mine since 2000 and look after it carefully knowing that it can't be replaced. Yes, some of it will be out of date but in general almost all of it is still relevant. For those that don't know the publication I have always thought of it as being a bit like the schematic London underground map but with a lot more information rather than a conventional road atlas.
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The French don't worry if you park up with the HGVs, in fact that's the only place to park for caravans in many service areas. Same in Spain, nobody is interested where you park and will not come round giving you a ticket for parking in the wrong place, unlike most UK service areas.
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Thanks for the advice Deleted User User have just secured a copy for £1.50 on ebay. Ridiculously excited! Will copy across my notes from our motorway map and will be busy checking for any new or closed aires on our journey south in two weeks. Good job I don't suffer from travel sickness!
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Green or Blue, we enjoy our stops at aires on the peage. Contrast the foul, tacky, noisy, fight your way past the burning-grease food counters, around the slot machines to get to the toilets British motorway stops - our hearts sink when we have to stop on our way home!
Parking can sometimes be a problem at lunchtime!0
