Driving to costa blanca from calais

Morning We have just done this trip and thinking of doing it again, we went through paris NIGHTMARE) we also went through clermont ferrand and over the malliu bridge is this the correct way or quickest it seemed to take forever. many thanks tricia

Go north via Madrid and stay on the west side of France... through Bordeaux and then up to Calais but keep well west of Paris. That route is quick and costs no more than the Paris route on tolls in France and virtually nothing on tolls in Spain.

Sounds to me as if you kept to far east on your journey north through France... we did that once thanks to Tom Tom, never again, as you say Paris was a nightmare. Just check the map up the west coast and put int the towns further west as you progress.

Barry

Hi again Beebop

Thankyou for the route, did you have a stop over if so can you recommend where

Thankyou Tricia

We do the west coast of France route to the CDS and stick to non tolls. On route we use EtapHotel. com as we are normally just looking for somewhere to sleep and wash around Bordeaux . Good value and easy website.

We use Viamichelin to plan routes. I have done one from Ashford to Alicante - see below. You can exclude tolls etc. if you wish. The route you took was probably most direct. Hotels use ACCOR or Lastbooking.com. It is a long drive. We used to stop at Bourges, then Barcelona (around 500 miles per day). Hope this helps.

Guy

http://www.viamichelin.com/web/Itineraires?strStartLocid=31NDE3aWYxMGNOVEV1TVRRNE16WT1jTUM0NE56VTFPUT09&strDestLocid=31M3FuZjEwY016Z3VNelExTWpFPWNMVEF1TkRnd09Uaz0=&intItineraryType=1&caravaneHidden=false&vh=CAR&strVehicle=0&itineraryCarType=0&itineraryFuelType=0&isFavoriseAutoroute=false&isAvoidPeage=false&isAvoidVignette=false&isAvoidLNR=false&isAvoidFrontiers=false&dtmDeparture=11%2F04%2F2012&distance=km&devise=1.0|EUR&indemnite=&carbCost=1.5&autoConso=6.8&villeConso=6&routeConso=5.6

Thankyou very much this really helps

Cheers Tricia

Have a read of "The Brit in Spain" Blog where the Calais - Costa Blanca trip is described

November 6th to November 9th 2011