hla

I've read many posts that discourage driving from Loire Valley to CDG on the day of your flight. Our flight departs terminal 3 at CDG at 5 pm. Mappy.com says drive time from Chambord to CDG is 2 hours 15 minutes. We would need time to turn our car in.

What time would you suggest leaving Chambord to make our flight, or would you forget the last night in the Loire and stay closer to CDG (I really would prefer not to lose the last night in the Loire).

Any help would be so greatly appreciated. Thank you!

shandy

As we had a morning flight we had no choice but to come back to CDG the night before. As it turned out we were very glad this was the case. The drive from Chambord to CDG took nearly twice as long we anticipated - we didn't get lost but there were a number of "deviations" (detours), we got caught up in peak hour traffic and return of the car took us much longer than we expected. None of these will hopefully happen to you but the point is you need to allow extra time for the unforseen. At least none of our delays overly bothered us as we knew we didn't have a flight to catch. It would have been an awful experience if we had spent most of the drive wondering would we make our flight.

Enjoy your last night in the Loire if you wish but should you decide to play it very safe and stay at CDG, don't necessarily think of it as a wasted night. We caught the train from CDG into Paris and had a wonderful last evening in Paris, dined at a great restaurant and had a final walk around Paris with all the lights. With a 5pm departure you could easily spend a 1/2 day in Paris the next morning too.

ira

Hi hla,

I suggest that you plan to arrive between 1:30 and 2:00 and that you add 1:30 hr to the driving time.

hla

Thank you so much for both replies--exactly the information I needed. I will now decide whether to leave Chambord by 10 am, or as Shandy suggests, spending the last day in Paris. Thanks again!

ckenb

Just to second or third the other responses. I live near Chambord. A couple of years ago, I was driving to Paris via autoroute (the fastest way). There was a truck accident on the autoroute just north of Orleans. I was stuck for over an hour, and there was no way to exit the autoroute and continue on smaller roads. You never know what can happen to delay you.

RonZ

Why not spend the last night in or near Melun? Then you can visit Fontinbleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte.

tedgale

For reasons I cannot fathom, that route seems to be the most nightmarish in all my travels in Europe. I have done it fairly recently.

Your options are:

1. Tough it out but do a lot of planning
2. Travel to CDG area the night before -- same problems but one day earlier
3. Try the eastern route around Paris -- never as difficult, in my experience
4. Start early and cut a wide swathe around Paris, taking smaller roads as required
5. Travel via central Paris and take the RER to CDG

My own choice would be the wide swathe -- starting around 9 am and allowing time for a nice lunch en route.

Best of luck.

sforza

How do you all feel about the opposite direction -- flying into CDG and immediately driving to the Loire Valley? It will be an overnight flight from the US and I am usually a little jetlagged from it.

tedgale

Much simpler. Much, much simpler.

There can be bad traffic on the route around Paris but the important thing is you do not have a deadline.

hla

I want to thank everyone again for their responses. I really appreciate people taking the time to share their experience. Unfortunately, we are coming from the Dordogne, and going the other way won't work for us, as we are flying out of Paris.

I checked train fares from the Loire to CDG, and it was so expensive compared to just driving for 4 people. I'm now thinking about just risking it and getting an early start from the Loire to CDG. I had originally thought 10:00 a.m. for a 5:00 p.m. flight would be sufficient, but is 9:00 a.m. safer?

Thanks again.