My husband and I are spending several days in Menton as a base, then a couple of nights near St Raphael. We intend to drive back to CDG and stop overnight somewhere. Would like some suggestions as to route - we want to avoid motorways as much as possible.
Thanks.

If you don't want to take the motorways your only option will be to drive on the routes nationales. They may be very crowded as many truckers take these roads to avoid having to pay toll on the highways.

Are you leaving from St. Raphael or Menton to drive CDG? My fiance and I traveled from St. Remy, Provence to CDG using the motorways--they are the quickest as well as the most expensive...also, it takes about 45 minutes from when you first get into Paris's city limits to finally reach CDG...so plan some extra time so you don't miss your flights!

There are many stopping points... it just depends which way you come from. I enjoyed Fontainebleau, which is right outside of Paris. About 20 km outside of Fountainebleau is the Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte. This chateau was actually the inspriration for Versailles. Last year, they lit up the entire grounds with candlelight at night and allowed visitors to walk the area to the most romantic, classical music.

Thanks very much for the advice. Cate, we will be leaving from St Raphael to drive to Paris - maybe we will try a bit of both motorway and secondary roads.

One excursion from Menton is St Agnes, the highest coastal village in Europe. If you decide to drive up there, plan to have lunch at one of the restaurants.

To plan the route to CDG I suggest you use mappy, entering "no tolls." You will get a time estimate of about 13 hours. The actual time is most likely be much greater due to what Myriam correctly described. Then checking this route on a map, go back and start plugging in "vias"--stops along the way.

In planning our driving trips, we tend to favor the autoroutes to get somewhere in a hurry, then the departmental roads to leisurly enjoy the countryside. We avoid the national roads as much as possible.

I agree with RonZ that the departmental roads are much nicer than the nationales but for this long journey (900 km) it would take forever to reach CDG!

Since you are driving from St. Raphael, Lyon might be a nice stop over for you, the gastronomy capital of France, where there are 6 Paul Bocuse restaurants. I lived there for almost two months and still never ate at the same place twice!

But Lyon doesn't give off a small town feel if that is what you are looking for. It has great night life and many things to do. However, if you decided to drive up that way, passing Lyon, you could go over near Dijon and Beaune. In between these two smaller towns are rural villages and many places to go wine tasting.

I actually went biking along the wine tasting route from Dijon to Beaune...really great experience, but at least wear a helmet if you plan on stopping at EVERY vineyard.

Have a great time. I'd be interested to hear what you choose to do!

Obviously the local roads are for limited distances only. I would start route planning on mappy with "express," then seeing where I had extra time for more leisurly travel off the autoroutes.I usually plan forno more than 3.5 hours of driving distance per day.

When we have to cover a long distance (everything above 1200 km is long distance for me, by car at least) we always drive on highways from point A to point B (which is usually an overnight place) ASAP. That leaves us more time to relax in the overnight place. We also try to cover about 60-65% of the total number of kilometers during our first day so that we can drive in a more relaxed way on the second day. This works for us as we don't mind spending 7 or so hours in the car. I must say that we never travel in high season, which makes a huge difference!