My friends and I will be leasing a Peugeot for 30 days in August/September this year.
Any "golden" tips for driving through France/Italy?
Our plan is to train it from Paris to Dijon and pick up the car.
We have a week in South Burgundy, week in Provence...long drive to villa near Volterra for a week then a week near Lucca...return the car in Nice.
I have driven in Italy before but not France. Any hints re signs, tolls etc that you found useful would be great.
I read a horror story today about the french and their driving so need some tips.

Hi kim,

There were a few very helpful treads on this a short while ago.

Try "driving and france" in the "search this forum" box.

kimerley, in this thread, click on <font color="blue">ira's</font> name in his post... he initiated a thread recently that has loads of information re: driving in France.

Since ira posts so frequently, the post that travelnut is talking about is already more than 50 posts deep, even though its most recent post (as of this monent) was only five days ago.

See http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34561572

Providing the URL allows someone to find it even if they are reading this thread days or weeks from now.

Best wishes,

Rex

Thanks Trav and Rex.

I'd forgotten that I started the thread.

Here's are some more

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34565268

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34556726

thank you all, your great.

your welcome

send me your address at

[email protected]

and i'll send you my husband's lengthy article on driving in france.

keep to the auto route as much as possible. expensive but very good, plenty of service stations and rest places en route.is a direct route from dijon./ provence/ down to lucca with auto route, busy early to mid august, but not the way you ar going, most traffic going back north.Italy is virtually the same as france for driving, but drivers are not so polite as in rest of europe.and drive very tailgating . but no main problems.I do that trip to provence from london about 4/5 times a year and look forward to it

Contrary to scorpio's posting, I would say that with 30 days you have the time to travel around and stay off the autoroute/autostrada. Chance discoveries are far greater on the small roads.

Personally I agree with Michael. My late husband and I always had a rental car in Italy and avoided the Autostrada as much as possible. We had beautiful drives and saw so many beautiful areas and small towns that would have been missed by just driving on the Autostrada. But of course it depends on how much time you have for your visit.

Try to stay off the roads on the weekends of July 30 and August 13, and at the end of August. Traffic on main roads will be very heavy -- and in some cases may not be moving at all.

I was a little aprehensive about driving our route from Chartres down the Loire Valley to Angers, then up to Mont.St.Michel and finally leaving France from St.Malo.......BUT, what a pleasant surprise to find we were driving on the best sign-posted roads ever! We took the &quot;country routes&quot; wherever time allowed and never got lost once, took a wrong road or felt confused at any time. We did all this even though we had to concentrate a lot to begin with as we drive on the lefthand side of the road at home.
France is to be congratulated for their suberb road network.

thank you for your responses. I too drive on the left hand side of the road normally.
But last year, whilst driving in the UK my son pointed out I was driving on the right side of the road! We were in a car park and I was lost....but still!
I have very fond memories of driving on the wrong side of the road and going the wrong way in one way streets in Castel del Piano near Perugia....the locals were very sweet, laughed and kept out of my way!