1232 Miles of French Heaven
While we live in a lovely part of France with some great driving roads we thought it was about time for a road trip of our own in April. We joined up with some petrol-head friends who were driving from the UK to Monaco and back in five days! This called from some serious route planning, which was one of our original inspirations for Bonnes Routes.
We planned to meet up with Team UK at Grenoble to drive Route Napoleon. So not only did we plan our own route, we also provided the route planning for the four cars we were joining. Many hours of street-viewing roads on Google to see if the roads were suitable, and poring over Michelin maps to find the green scenic routes, resulted in numerous Google Map routes with routing points (to pick the best roads), and catch-up stops (for if the cars got separated).
Our 1232 mile route
While Team UK drove down to Grenoble in one day, we took two days to get there, driving directly East through the beautiful Parc Naturel Régional de Millevaches, to the amazing Parc naturel régional des Volcans d'Auvergne with its four volcanic massifs and plateaus. Stopping at the beautiful town of Mont Dore for the first night, we took the Panoramique des Dômes train up to the summit of the Puy-de-Dôme before heading off to Grenoble.
The easy thing would be to take the autoroutes but in a classic car you want to enjoy the driving and the scenery so we followed a cross country route. But sometimes no amount of planning can account for a 'Route Barrée' sign resulting in a 30 minute detour! A few hours later the snow-topped peaks of the Belledone and Chartreuse mountain ranges signalled our arrival in Grenoble. Team UK were only 15 minutes behind us. How's that for planning!
Having driven Route Napoleon before, we decided to plan a more scenic route from Gap and head East around Savines le Lac then following the D900 to Digne. The route was even more spectacular than expected. We lost count of the hairpins, the long corners, the sweeping bends, the turquoise blue mountain lakes, the snow-topped peaks. It was driving heaven – although in a car with no air-conditioning a couple of degrees lower might have been more comfortable!
How to turn Google Maps traffic layer red: go on a road trip with five cars, stop in a lay-by for a photo op, all get your phones out, loiter for 10 minutes!
Only once did the five cars get split up – and two ended up looping back on themselves. This is one of the joys of missing a shaping point in a route and not knowing how to cancel it!
Ten hours from setting off we arrived at our hotel in Antibes, with very happy drivers and very relieved cars.
The following day the South Coast wasn't quite as good as we hoped – unfortunately it was Formula E weekend in Monaco; 1 May labour day holiday on the Sunday; and two zones of French schools were still on Easter break. It seems most of them were in Cannes and Antibes, spoiling our planned coastal drive. A quick revision of routes meant we enjoyed some great tunnels on the A8 motorway between Antibes and Monaco, and we fitted in some of our planned coastal route, stopping at Villefranche-sur-Mer, a relatively quiet, beautiful historic and artistic coastal town.
We left Team UK on the Sunday driving around Monaco’s F1 circuit while we continued a spectacular drive through the Gorges du Verdon. The roads were amazing, the scenery breath taking, the wildlife (griffon vultures, mountain goats) unexpected, and hardly any traffic. It took us three hours to drive the Routes des Crêtes so we'll tackle the south gorge route another time.
Our final day took us over the Viaduc du Millau to the visitor's centre for this iconic bridge. A leisurely four hour drive back to Bonnes Routes offered some unexpected scenic driving through the Causses du Quercy Natural Regional Park and the Lot department – fantastic red rock-lined roads and plenty of nature to enjoy. We'll definitely be going back for a visit.
1,232 miles later we arrived back at Bonnes Routes. Team UK arrived safe and sound back home the next day with all drivers and cars intact. They’re already planning the next road trip.
We hope this has inspired you to take a road trip of your own in the near future. This one will take some beating!
On the last leg of our journey we decided to let Google Maps, Waze and our Garmin GPS compete to see which offered the most sensible routes to destinations without being given via points. The verdict is coming shortly!
Check out the map links below to see our planned routes in detail. We also made good use of the fuelFR app to find cheaper 'off motorway' petrol options which is worth checking out if you have a thirsty car!