Driving from Hamburg to Paris
 

Do you think we will get lost driving to Paris from Hamburg? Me and my sister will be in Hamburg june 29 to visit our uncle for a few days then, we have 8 days to make the round trip. I'm 19 my sister is 17 and have only been to Hamburg. My mother told me to ask fodors travelers to see what they think.

You should be alright if you stay on the main roads. When you get to Paris
you may have a little trouble? what I did when we drove to Paris was go to Mappy.com and printed maps with driving direction to your hotel. Good luck

SoCalDude,

what exactly makes you think you might get lost?
I believe getting lost is not a matter of age - and if it was, I presume being younger would usually make one less prone to get lost...;-)

Driving distance on the quickest route will be something around 565 miles. You might want to allow 2 days for the one-way trip. This would leave you with 4 days available in Paris. Sounds reasonable.

For directions: Follow Autobahn A1 South (depending on where you are based in Hamburg, you might want to make it South on the until you hit the exit to A261 which will take you to the A1 near Buchholz). Follow A1 all the way to Cologne.
Get on the A4 to Aachen.
Make it South around Aachen on A44.
Cross the border into Belgium and proceed to Lüttich (Liege) on the A3.
Continue West on the A15 Freeway frolm Liege in the direction of Namur and Charleroi.
Cross the border between Mons (Belgium) and Valenciennes (France). Continue on the A2 Freeway that will merge with the French A1 Freeway.
Take the A1 South to Paris.

Should you be in a rush, this would even be doable in one long day of driving, but I would not recommend that.
Traffic will likely be pretty heavy in the area between Dortmund and Cologne in Germany. And here should be the only time to pay some special attention to really get on the right Autobahns as there is a confusing number of them. But as you basically will stay on the same Autobahn here, this shouldn't be much of an issue.

BTW, should you use a rental car do make sure that you will be allowed to rent one as you're still pretty young.

June should be the perfect month for Hamburg - so do enjoy your time here in my hometown and have fun on that roadtrip to Paris.

Greetings from Hamburg
hsv

One correction: At the beginning of the directions it should have read as follows:

&gt;&gt; (depending on where you are based in Hamburg, you might want to make it South on the <b> A7 </b> until you hit the exit to A261 which will take you to the A1 near Buchholz) .&lt;&lt;

We are staying in Rellingen just outside of Hamburg. We will be driving our uncle's audi A6. I printed a map from mappy.com to our hotel Bel Ami saint Germain Des Pres.

Hi SoCal.

I have found, that unless you will be on the major Interstates, that it helps to zoom in on the mappy.com maps to see if the road actually goes straight through the town or if it takes a few turns.

You can download and print these maps, if necessary.

((I))

So if you're staying in Rellingen, that would require you to go on the A23 first in the direction of Hamburg and then switch to the A7 and proceed as outlined already.
An Audi A6 should be the perfect ride for that tour!
Have fun

thank you hsv and ira. I will get a few more replys and show my mom.

Hamburg was very nice when we were there
Oct '04. Does youe uncle live and work in Hamburg if yes is your mother german?

You'll almost certainly get lost for three reasons.

First, as hsv says, driving through the Ruhr gets pretty messy (I've never done it without taking at least one wrong turning). You MUST have a decent road atlas, and not just rely on printouts from web sites.

Second, from just before Aachen to the French border, you run into the trap Europe's invented to confuse everyone. The standing convention is that all cities are signposted in the dominant language of the point where the signpost is. This sometimes involves using names few people are familiar with: heading to Paris, for example, Liege isn't just sometimes called Luttich, but also sometimes Luik. Mons sometimes becomes Bergen, and on the way back Aachen can be Aken or even Aix la Chapelle.

Great as a way of teaching you about the many cultural influences that make up this wonderful continent of ours: really lousy if you just want to get to Paris.

It'd be nice to say just make sure you've got an atlas and the navigator stays awake and sober.

But then we hit the third problem. 97.2% of all European divorces are the result of in-car navigation disputes, and whichever hokey psychiatrist invented the term &quot;sibling rivalry&quot; did so after two hours squabbling with his sister about whose fault it was they'd missed the A7 turnoff. God did not intend men and women to be partners in trans-Europe driving. Or if He did, it was to teach them their utter inadequacy.

After several decades' wearing experience, Mrs F and I have decided that since she, being a girl, can't read maps and that asking for directions when you're driving the statutory 120 mph through Germany isn't practical, she drives the tricky bits and I do the navigation.

I would be very suspicious of anyone who refers to their wife as &quot;a girl&quot; and any &quot;directions&quot; they might give you.

When we lived in the Ruhr valley (which does have some tricky roads in it), I was the map reader (and still am). Despite my XX chromosomes, we were able to get to our destinations without getting lost. But then my husband had the sense not to drive at 120 mph when we were trying to find someplace.