Hi all,

This weekend, I'm driving to Spain, Barcelona (from Belgium). Does anybody know how much tol I will have to pay in France? Are there other important things I need to know for the trip? What about speed limits and fines for speeding? How's the tollerance in France? Or can I just print out the route, and give full trottle? Plz, share your experiences peepz :wink:

Thanx,

Gloomy

Re: Driving to Spain

Beware of the French.

You could try [url]www.theaa.com[/url] it is a UK site but i believe there is a european section, which will give you a route and info on tolls etc.

Re: Driving to Spain

[quote=Gloomy]Hi all,

This weekend, I'm driving to Spain, Barcelona (from Belgium). Does anybody know how much tol I will have to pay in France? Are there other important things I need to know for the trip? What about speed limits and fines for speeding? How's the tollerance in France? Or can I just print out the route, and give full trottle? Plz, share your experiences peepz :wink:

Thanx,

Gloomy[/quote]

Dude, I don?t really remember an exact value, but the tolls in France are the most expensive in the whole of Europe. Don?t be surprised if you pay something like 150 Euro to cross the country. Or more...

Also, on the highways with tolls the speed limit is 130km/h. On freeways it?s between 90 and 110.

They usually tolerate if you ago around 10km/h above the limit, but if you go beyond that, you?ll see that the tolls aren?t the only expensive thing there...

Anyway, until last January I was working for a transport company in Spain, maybe I can help you out, since I made a lot of trips from Madrid to Koln in Germany, Charleville in France, which are all near Belgian borders.

If you give me an idea of how much time you have for the trip, I might even tell you how to cross France paying minimum to no tolls at all.

Re: Driving to Spain

About 100 - 150 Euro is a fair estimation of the toll that you pay.

Personally, I've always driven like a madman through France (av. of 160 - 180 km when possible). And never one ticket. The only thing I've heard about is they check your toll ticket at the end and can then calculatye your average speed over the whole distance.

So plan your stops somewhere halfway every tollway. The restrooms are usually clean and it will bring your average speed down. It has always worked for me and I've driven at least 50 times from Holland to either France or Spain over the last years....

Which is not a guarantee by the way :)

Re: Driving to Spain

thx for the info so far

I tried out mappy.be to calculate the tolls, and it gave me 58 ? for france and 9 ? for spain ... but seems like prices are much higher in reality :?

But I've heard that 'routes nationales' are a good alternative to avoid the tolls.

Anywaym I'll follow further replies here.

Re: Driving to Spain

[quote=maxman]About 100 - 150 Euro is a fair estimation of the toll that you pay.

Personally, I've always driven like a madman through France (av. of 160 - 180 km when possible). And never one ticket. The only thing I've heard about is they check your toll ticket at the end and can then calculatye your average speed over the whole distance.

So plan your stops somewhere halfway every tollway. The restrooms are usually clean and it will bring your average speed down. It has always worked for me and I've driven at least 50 times from Holland to either France or Spain over the last years....

Which is not a guarantee by the way :)[/quote]

This is all good advice and I can confirm it. It was a bit more troublesome to me because I was always driving a transport van (Mercedes Sprinter) with a Spanish license plate, so I wlways felt like they kept a closer eye on the likes of me than anyone else

[url]www.viamichelin.com[/url] is the site I always use for this kind of planning.

Using the routes nationales is a good idea, like I said before, the only disadvantage being that there?s usually huge ammounts of trucking traffic, which means that you could have to spend half an hour chugging along behind a huge truck if you?re unlucky.

One other thing : if at all possible, avoid getting near Paris (yes, it?s hard), they have a something similar to the "rings" you have around most cities in Belgium, but it?s nothing more that a bunch of national roads glued together with really bad driving directions, which is called "La Francilienne", be careful there, because if you by any mistake get closer to Paris than that...

I never went the way of Barcelona, but I can recommend you trying to follow route nationale 20 (N20) for as long as you can, after Paris. A good part of the Highway 20 (A20) is also toll-free, if I remember correctly.

Re: Driving to Spain

bump

Re: Driving to Spain

[quote="KineticThis is all good advice and I can confirm it. It was a bit more troublesome to me because I was always driving a transport van (Mercedes Sprinter) with a Spanish license plate, so I wlways felt like they kept a closer eye on the likes of me than anyone else[/quote]

You really think having a Dutch license plate is really better to have in France??? 8) Got stopped over last weekend by the police, at the start of the route p?age, and guess whqt - only Dutch people got pulled over... Could it be our (in)famous policy on soft drugs? :roll:

Re: Driving to Spain

Hey Gloomy , try using Mappy its the best site you can find to plan your car travlling , it can even give you the roads where you dont pay any toll , give it a try and play with the option a little bit you will see its very useful.

[url]www.mappy.com[/url]

cheers

Re: Driving to Spain

have a great time! :)