Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Driving Dordogne to Provence. Help with route please!

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Driving Dordogne to Provence. Help with route please!

We will be staying in Sarlat for a few days and then plan to go either to Brittany or Provence...we just can't make up our minds. If we were to head toward Arles, what route would you suggest? We are not in a hurry and don't mind if it takes all day. But we do NOT want to be on narrow mountian roads with hairpin turns. ViaMichelin.com says 5 1/2 hours and routes us through Gourdon Figeac Rodez La Roquette La Cavalerie Saint-Félix-de-Lodez Montpellier and Nimes

You basically have two choices, with some small variations: 1. You can take the N roads from Sarlat to Cahors, then get on the autoroute all the way to Arles (a somewhat brutal 6- to 7-hour drive with little scenery except for when you fly by Carcassonne at 160 kph). 2. You can take the N roads all the way, over the mountains (not quite the route you suggested, but rather Sarlat to Groudon to Cahors to Ville-neuve-sur-Rouergue to Rodez to Millau and then south - a VERY pretty drive, but it will take you about 10-11 hours). Or you can mix and match - take the N and D roads all the way to Carcassonne (from Gourdon head to Caussade and then south through Gaillac, St-Ferréol, and on south) and get on the autoroute there. My personal preference would be to take the #2 option above and take two days. All the towns along the way are fascinating and well worth a stop.

Hello, Jeanne. I drove almost the same route in August of this year, starting near Gourdon and ending up in the Luberon east of Avignon. I got good advice here from St. Cirq and others. Because I had to drive on Saturday, Aug 3, which was supposed to be the heaviest travel day of the year, I avoided the autoroutes, for fear of being caught in huge traffic jams. So I went from Gourdon to Figeac (D1, D2, D113, D13) to Rodez (N140) and over to the A75, near Severac-le-Château. Instead of heading south toward Millau, I went north to the exit for Mende (N88), then took the N106 to Florac and Alès. (Since the A75 is not complete around Millau, you still have to go through Millau and I was afraid I’d get caught there, plus I’d heard that there could be big tie-ups on the A9 between Montpellier and Avignon.) The N106 was pretty harrowing with narrow twisting mountain roads. Not fun and not recommended for anyone who doesn’t like mountain roads. I got caught in a traffic jam in Alès and lost about an hour there. The rest of the way to Uzès was OK. At Remoulins I went south around Avignon, past Beaucaire, Tarascon and St. Rémy to Cavaillon and on to my destination in the South Luberon. With 4-5 stops along the way, this took almost 12 hours! If I had it to do over, especially if it was not a weekend in July or August, I think I would go south on the A75, through Millau and pick up the A9 at Montpellier. To get from there to Arles, the quickest route would be to stay on the A9 until just south of Nimes, then take the A54 (E80) to Arles. I think this is pretty much the route you have from Michelin, but I think 5 ½ hours is very optimistic, unless you break the speed limits and don’t stop at all. The slightly more southern route from Cahors to Millau suggested by St. Cirq might be prettier, as she says. (Btw, I think she meant to say Villefranche-de-Rouergue, rather than Villeneuve-sur- Rouergue.) My route was OK, but not especially pretty. I have also done the all-autoroute drive from Cahors to Toulouse to Narbonne to Montpellier, etc. That is also long and pretty boring. So, I think the Michelin suggested route, perhaps with minor adjustments, is probably the best, a good compromise between smaller D&N roads and Autoroutes. It would be nice, of course, if you could take two days to do it. But it can be done in one if necessary. I recommend you get an early start and plan to stop for at least 10-15 minutes every couple of hours. For lunch, how about a picnic? Bonne route! Et bon séjour en France!

You are so right, Betty - I meant Villefranche, not Villeneuve (got all those bastides mixed up). A word of caution about going the Alès route. It wouldn't be my preferred route anyway, but Alès was horribly affected by the recent floods in France, and I'd stay clear of it for the foreseeable future. When we drove to the Pont du Gard about 10 days ago, it was astonishing the amount of damage from flooding. The water/mud line from the floods was as high as the roof of my van, and there were whole fields full of debris that looked as though they had once been household possessions. Terrible, terrible damage. Near Alès there were roads and bridges washed out - now, I'd assume those will be fairly quickly repaired, but if your trip is forthcoming soon, I'd steer well clear of that area.

By the way, those ViaMichelin times are silly. Sure, if you drive 180kph the whole way - but you can't, even on the autoroute. There's loads of traffic and always, always work being done on the roads. If you can make it from Sarlat to Arles in 6 hours, you have performed as well as the average Italian racing driver.

For God's sake, look at a map!!!!

To "You": If you'd read the entire post you would realize the map is terribly helpful in determining mountain roads, etc. You can go drive off a cliff, but I'd rather avoid that fate myself. To the rest of you: Thanks for the tips. If we do this, we will stick with the Michelin route and head out very, very early....picnic in tow! I'll let you all know what we did when we get back in November. Au Revoir!

Whichever way you go this will be a long days driving I think. I may be in a minority here here but I think you should consider using the autoroutes for a day trip of this magnitude. Certainly it is expensive - although fuel savings will offset tolls to some extent - and you don't get to see the countryside as you would on minor roads but you do generally cover a lot of distance quickly. Doing that sort of distance in a day on lesser roads won't give you much sightseeing time either. I agree with St Cirque that taking extra time would be a good idea: we recently drove from Perpignan to Sarlat and took 3 days, spending a night at Albi and Figeac.

Most posters here must drive very slowly. Many of the times they post distances , they are not as far as they say. Unless you take long lunch stops ypu can go a far distance in one day. Perignan in one hour + to Arles.

To: I Disagree Your bravado, or should I say braggadocio, is impressive, but Arles is 230 kms from Perpignan, and there are a number of toll stations along the way. It's just not possible to make it in a bit more than an hour, which is what I assume "an hour +" means. The speed limit is 130 kph. We drove from Sarlat to Arles 10 days ago going 160 kph most of the way (which is 100 mph!), and it was still a 7-hour day, with a picnic stop. If you actually keep to the speed limit, the drive is a very full day's drive.

The tolls aren't that expensive - if you get on the highway at "Cahors Sud" the total price to Arles is 26.30 euro. (I just got my 'easypass' bill for this drive which I made a week or so ago) A small price to pay for excellent roads.... PB