Driving to Spain

 Hi Everyone,

We have decided to drive down to Spain leaving on 28th or 29th of August. This will be our first trip by car. We were going to use Eurotunnel and head for Bordeaux, avoiding Paris.(Tesco vouchers to buy ticket). Can any one advise how much the motorway tolls would be, is it worth avoiding the pay motorway? Is Bordeaux a sensible distance to aim for our first night stop and should I pre book a hotel?

I've seen a good price for a Premier Classe hotel just south of Bordeaux, is the Hotel easy to find?

We were hoping to make Torrevieja area by the evening of day 2.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Kevin

Just returned and tolls were £120 for the trip. You can check your route and costs on viamichelin site. We tend usually take three days with two stopovers. Either Le Mans or Paris then Narbonne. Use B&B or Premiere Inns. Narbonne to Torre is around 8/9 hours drive.

Guy

Hi,

We intend to drive down to our place near Rojales (a few miles from Torrevieja) early next month.  We live just outside Canterbury, so Dover is not too far away making a long road trip an obvious choice.  Our normal way is to fly for shorter trips, but what with the potential of dust clouds, cabin staff strikes and the cost of car rental, that's out of the question this year.  We also have a ton of stuff (not literally) to take down, so with the back seats folded down in our people carrier we should be fine.  We have also driven down via the Portsmouth - Bilbao route before and found the remaining 500 miles across Spain pretty simple and we found accommodation easy to find (I use a TomTom sat nav.).

Our intended route is:

> Dover-Calais (ferry) > Rouen > Le Mans > Poitiers (for the night)

> Bordeaux > France - Spain border > Denostia > Pamplona (for the night)

> Zaragoza > then launch cross country via Alcaniz to strike the AP7 Just north of Valencia > following the AP7 around Valencia to the A35 and the A31 to take us down to wards Alicante and linking up with the AP37, getting off at the appropriate junction.

The Michelin map site (http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/tpl/hme/MaHomePage.htm) says this is 1960km and that tolls will be 69.95 euros (I think that's a bit low, but wait to be surprised!).

We are allowing 2 overnight stops as we don't want to be rushed.  As for accommodation, I am told it's pretty easy, but from research I find a very wide range of prices (£25 to over £120 per night).  I have been told Formula 1 group are pretty good, but they dont have on-suite facilities, so I am looking for something a bit better.

I will try to let you know how we get on.

Mike