Driving Through
 

Hello Folks:

I'm hoping some of you can help with any advice you are willing to give.

I'm driving my family of 4 from Paris to Lourdes and then to Fatima.
Then down to Gibraltor and up the coast to Monaco where we will turn in to Gengenbach Germany and back to where we started in Scotland. The main points are Lourdes and Fatima, but would like to know of any places that are a must to see along the way. I realize that everything is a must see, but one only has so much time and money.

The main consideration here is that one of my children is in a wheelchair. Therefore there can't be and stops for climbing or caves, etc. Unfortunately even beaches aren't really high on the priority list. I realize that it won't be a piece of cake with a wheelchair, but still want to see what we can.

Anybody care to give this one a crack.

Thanks

Mike

How much time do you have?

I assume you have reservations in Lourdes and do you know how close to the grotto you are? The place can get very jammed up with visitors although it will be a lot easier to maneuver the child in the wheelchair once you are INSIDE the grotto area.

One place I would definitely stop is a small beach town in Spain called Roses (sometimes Rosas in Spanish). It is right near the French border as you are going up the coast from Barcelona. It is a lovely little place, very kid friendly (clam enclosed bay,good sand and really no waves), and it also has a nice boardwalk so it is mostly wheelchair friendly.

Out of curiosity what time of year are you planning. That might make a difference in terms of places I would suggest?

Good luck with your trip. We took our elderly uncle who was wheelchair bound on a driving trip through France and while it was kind of challenging, we had a blast! As you probably already know, many handicapped rooms in Europe aren't truly accessible, so sometimes it just takes some imagination and brute strength to make it happen.

Thanks for the input so far,
After further discussion with my wife, we've decided to cut out Fatima and concentrate on Lourdes. So we'll have 5 weeks to do the following:
Land in Scotland, staying at a cottage for a week.
Drive to London and stay for 3 or 4 days.
Drive and (tunnel) to Calais.
Drive to Paris stay for 2 days.
Drive to Lourdes through Bordeaux.
Stay in Lourdes for 3 or 4 days.
From here on the idea is to drive around the coast perhaps up to Tuscany, then into Gengenbach Germany and Back to Scotland to fly home.
Along this route does anyone have ideas of places to see or places to avoid ?
Thanks
Mike

I hope you are changing cars at the tunnel to have a steering wheel on the correct side.

My first thought was the same as Kerouac's, you certainly want to change cars when you leave England. And I hope you realize how far the drive is from Tuscany to Gengenbach and back to Scotland. Have you considered an open jaw trip? Fly into London and back from Frankfurt, for example. And I would definitely spend more than 2 days in Paris...

"you certainly want to change cars when you leave England"

You don't. And don't let yourself be panicked by people who've clearly never done what they're cautioning you against.

Millions of ordinary British drivers happily take their cars abroad evey year. And practically every lorry from Turkey to Calais equally happily takes their "wrong sided" vehicle into Britain. We do it because the comfort of a car you're used to massively outweighs the trivial problem of exercising extreme caution (or delaying) overtaking on narrow or twisty roads: overtaking's no problem at all on multi-carriageway roads.

Incidentally: you MUST book the tunnel as far ahead as possible. Prices rise the closer you get to your journey. And if at all possible, ensure you've got an EU-compliant handicap card: but remember that even this doesn't conjure up parking spaces that don't exist. Europe's historical sites were constructed when the handicapped just made their way there on foot, and there's a limit to how accommodating they can be shoehorned into being. Having a wheelchair will add time to a surprising number of stops

So you really have to think hard about how keen you all are to spend at least 10-12 days of a 35 day trip in practically non-stop pounding of Europe's motorways. You're dangerously close to the point where even I (addicted to the minutiae of European road travel) would start thinking there's a wholly disproportionate amount of road-flogging. You may not appreciate now just how much time is taken up getting from a motorway sign saying (say) Chartres to a car park, finding a space, sorting out payment, getting to the cathedral and doing the whole thing in reverse. But by the time you get to Lourdes (less than half way between Gibraltar and Dover), you really will start thinking twice about how committed you are to this journey.

Gibraltar, though it can look spectacular as you approach it, really isn't much worth visiting, even as a curiosity. Neither is the shabby bit of Spain which houses the border formalities. But the Campo - Gibraltar's hinterland for 50-100 miles around the border - has lots to see.

As far as Lourdes is concerned: there's lots of parking round the grotto, but finding a convenient empty space can be a nightmare with a wheelchair. Obviously, though, nowhere on earth has thought through the problems of disabled access so thoroughly. Even if you don't think of yourselves as pilgrims, it's worth contacting the Office Chretien des Personnes Handicappees (www.och.asso.fr) and registering yourselves. If you're happy they'll assign you a <i>brancardier</i> to sort access problems.

You are staying in Scotland for a week and then all of a sudden you will be in London for 3 days. You account for all your other days so I assume you mean to drive from Scotland to London in one day.

IMHO it makes absolutely NO sense to drive to London unless you plan on taking several days for the journey. Plus what do you plan on doing w/ the car while in London and in Paris???

rent a car for your week in Scotland, turn in the car and take the train to London, take the Eurostar to Paris, rent a (LHD) car as you leave Paris.

And driving all the way back to Scotland -- that's really a slog. I assume you are thinking of doing it this way because of your child in a chair. But obviously you are managing the initial flight into Scotland. I'd fly back to Edinburgh or Glasgow and fly home from there.

(What I'd REALLY do if you haven't already purchased your tickets -- is fly into Scotland and fly home from Germany. This would save you a ton of extra aggravation.)

it is not the steering wheel being on the so called wrong side it is more of a problem of taking a hire car out of the UK. Most car hire companies will not let you do that.

The problem is that you can't see oncoming traffic on two-lane highways when you drive with the steering wheel on the wrong side in either territories. So you either have to have a co-pilot who tells you when it's safe to pass, or just wait till the slow-moving truck or tractor turns off.
The cars behind in line are usually less happy when you can't pass those obstacles.

Obviously, no UK resident who owns his own RHD car will rent a LHD car in Calais just to drive to his vacation destination in France. But if you as a tourist have to rent a car anyway, it makes no sense to drive the majority of kilometers with the steering wheel on the wrong side.

janisj ideas add more sense to the OP's itinerary.

Wow, lots of input, thanks. I've certainly started to re-think
a few things.
Keep it coming, this is great !