Driving from Manchester to French resorts

A snowHead

@alan_1951, I'm going the end of March. Though we cannot predict exactly what the snow will be like It's been OK the last 20 years.

Personally I'd be looking at a self catering apartment in any of the villages. Almost all have a small shop in them, but if you are planning a leisurely drive down then you can stock up at a supermarket on the way. I’ve only stayed in Plagne 1800 and Plagne Soleil in the past and I won’t put 1800 high on my list. The others with the word “Plagne” in them all look OK. Personally I’d be looking at Plagne Aime 2000, provided you are happy with the altitude Eh oh!

What defines "the best chairlifts"?

The rental agencies can be found at https://en.la-plagne.com/accommodation/real-estate-agencies/rental-agencies If you want anything other than Saturday to Saturday I suggest you phone them up a=or email.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Yes, definitely go next month. You need a practice run for next year. I'd favour using the resort's own booking service because if you get let down, they'll be there to assist!

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To the OP @alan_1951 I wrote a blog piece about driving down to our apartment in Switzerland for prospective clients. Some of the guidance is Swiss-specific, but most of it is applicable wherever in the Alps you're driving to.

It focuses on planning and is called 'Self-drive to the Swiss Alps: Preparation'

Re the autoroute tags, Mango-mobilité is now Fulli but they now only accept payment from a €uro-denominated account i.e. not a payment from a UK £sterling bank account, even if you can convert to €. Personally, I'd go to one of the other providers unless you have a € bank account or credit/debit card.

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@johnE, Sorry, when I asked about the best chair lifts, I didn't mean the way they are constructed. rolling eyes

I was talking about location. Silly me.

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Also Manchester based (Marple), have done a few trips now - Grand Massif and the Tarentaise valley. Would echo the sugestions that getting to Eurotunnel is the hard part. My recommendation is to drive down past london on night 1 and stay as close to the Eurotunnel termin as feels reasonable - we've used a Premier Inn in Allington a couple of times, the next trip was due to take us to Folkestone (cancelled for other reasons).

Get a nice early train the next morning then cruise down the east of France on the Autoroutes, past Bourg-en-Bresse and find an overnight stop at a suitable location to allow you to get into resort the next day.

When going to the Tarentaise, we usually take the road through Amberieu-en-Bugey to Chambery. On the last trip we did that was comfortably faster than going round past Lyon, our friends set out way ahead of us but arrived far later. Having said that, depeding on where you plan to stop, there maybe more accomodation options on the Lyon route.

We have a Fulli tag, Starling bank allows you to hold a euro account which is used for the Fulli direct debit.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

@alan_1951, most stuff has been covered.

As mentioned going after school holidays is advised. Sticky thread for European School Holidays is always at top of The Piste board to check dates.

Use tourist information site to search for apartment accommodation or the rental agencies direct.

Summer tyres with hired chains will be fine - just keep an eye on the weather for any storms and plan entry/exit accordingly.

@Layne, We are just looking at the rental agencies but it's awkward because the ones we have seen so far don't have prices and they ask you to call them.

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@Origen, I have a Caxton Card which I rarely use. So I suppose I can load it with euros and use that.

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I wouldn't bother with agencies which ask you to call them! Is the resort website no help?

@alan_1951, I know it's off topic, but I can't help but feel you'd have a super time in Norway. Week or long weekend. Super connections from MAN, they are having a good snow season, Norge Krone is actually pretty good vv £ at moment. And I was so impressed by the lack of people and slopes at Myrkdalen (v good snow record) and Voss (views of the fjords below).
https://www.fall-line.co.uk/norway-northern-powerhouse/

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Note what it says in my blog about snow chains. Just because you can buy a size that matches your tyre size doesn't necessarily mean they're be OK on the wheel setup you have, if there's not enough space behind the wheel/tyre and inner gubbins like suspension, brake pies and if FWD, steering. Look in your Owners Manual and that should tell you whether chains can be fitted for your specific wheel and tyre combination. For example, on our car, we can't fit chains on the standard, ex-factory rear wheels, because they're too wide. Yes, I could buy/rent chains to fit the tyres, but that is only part of it. Not usually a problem on mainstream models, but can be an issue on SUVs and more performance/luxury variants.

A snowHead

@LaForet, I have a friend with a garage, I'll check it out with him, thanks.

A snowHead

The biggest potential problem when driving is timing your journey around the M25. Our latest cunning plan involves leaving home (200 miles from Dover) just after midnight, early Friday morning, for a 04:40 ferry, have a sleep for about 90 minutes then drive swapping drivers regularly only stopping for toilet and coffee breaks which are quite frequent at our age. We then stop for the night close to the A40, do a basic shop in Carrefour or similar, dinner then bed. Our hotel choice varies but it's always within an hour's drive from Les Gets. Saturday morning we breakfast and leave hotel about 8:00 in ski gear arriving in Les Gets about 9:00 ready to put on boot and go skiing. We leave the slopes about 4:00 and check in to accommodation. Our return journey is usually load car, leave apartment about 9:00 go skiing until early afternoon and then drive 2-3 hours towards home staying overnight somewhere near Macon and then an early start for the journey home on the Sunday.

This works really well for us giving us 8 days skiing for a week's trip and 15 days for a 2 week trip. Obviously you would need to adjust as I believe that you will have about an extra 100 miles in the UK and about 60 miles in France.

La Plagne like most French resorts have a very active booking service on their website which is usually a good place to start looking. Edit: @Layne got there before me

If you are thinking of the end of March it's possible to leave this until very late when tourist offices start offering discounts on accommodation and lift pass packages.

Good luck from a 70+ year old.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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@alan_1951,
You'll be fine with summer tyres & chains - just make sure you know how to put them on! A couple of 3 feet x 1 foot carpet off-cuts would be advisable - something to kneel/lie on when fitting them in dirty, slushy snow & double up as extra traction if needed - put the lengths in front of the drive wheels & drive over them.
For route planing viamichelin.com. For other things you need driving over there look at the RAC website. Try Peak Retreats or (in Tignes) Chalet Chardons.
I'd say look at Hull-Rotterdam overnight ferry on the Thursday, then drive to approx 2 hours out of resort & stop (Annecy?) on Friday. Up early on Saturday to avoid the traffic, stopping end route (eg Bourg St Maurice) to show if self catering. Drop everything off at accommodation, if possible, or left luggage if not. Park up & ski Saturday. End of week ski Saturday & leave mid/late aftenoon to avoid traffic, drive a few hours & stop. Sunday to Rotterdam for overnight back to Hull.

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Hi Alan, the handbook for our Tiguan 4Motion automatic states that snowchains are not suitable for that model, due to lack of clearance within the wheel arch. I fitted all weather tyres and bought a set of snow socks, which are easy to get on and off. Ive not needed the snow socks as the all weathers have coped with everything Ive driven on. Im not sure whether the authorities would deem snow socks to be an acceptable alternative to snowchains though.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I think snowsocks are approved. If you arrive other than middle of the night you are unlikely to need chains in march. Ordinary tyres will be fine.

After all it is free

You can get some types of snow chains that avoid the problem of clearance by only being fitted to the front face of the wheel. They don't have any chains on the inner side of the wheel/tyre. I have these for our BMW M235i that can't nominally take conventional chains. Mine are Spike Spider Easy, but there are various others available from the likes of Thule and Koenig. However, note that some cars can't even take these, thanks to things like wheelarch protectors (bizzarely, our small Peugeot e208 GT is one such).

Edit: Yes, these are expensive but I found an upside is that the Spike Spider Easy chains fit a much wider range of wheel sizes than the conventional chains I’ve bought previously. So they’re more likely to transfer to a new vehicle of similar spec’ (but not guaranteed). If I’d bought the Spiders in the first place three cars ago, I probably wouldn’t have two sets of conventional chains from previous cars in the garage.

This also underlines that chains which fit a wider range of wheel sizes often need some adjustment to fit your particular wheel/tyre combination. Mine came set up for the smallest size they covered and it took about half an hour each to make the adjustment necessary. Obviously, this is something you want to do at leisure at home before your leave, not up a mountain, in the snow, at night, when you fit them in earnest.

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I once skied in VT in late April after having switched winters out for summers. Even in a 4wd it was squirrely after an unexpected dump of snow on 28 April above 2000m. I was a mobile chicane for the locals for the first 15km of the route down, would not recommend.

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As I said further up the thread we did get chains from our Tiguan but they were a different type, thule k summit from polar snow chains in Kent, and cost at least £350 a few years back, as the standard cheaper chains don’t fit the wheel arch. You have to attach the chains we have to a wheel nut and drive onto them on snow so not the easiest thing to fit in an underground resort carpark for eg. We have managed to avoid using them so far by also investing in winter tyres. Snow socks are also worth considering for times when there is a bit of snow on the road but not enough for chains but we have not bought them ourselves as have already invested in the winter tyres and expensive chains.

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Those special chains are very expensive. Socks should be OK. Just drive slowly to avoid shredding them. It is indeed pathetic when supposedly capable vehicles can't take chains and even more pathetic if they're immobilized by a puncture.

Worth looking on ebay, facebook marketplace, etc. for winter tyres.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@Origen, I wouldn't personally risk driving to a ski holiday with summer tyres and snowsocks. We have now had five years of use from our winter tyres as we were lucky that when we changed cars the new car tyre size was identical. It was annoying to have to pay so much for the chains but we will probably get some of the money back selling them on second hand eventually.

I can see it is a harder decision for the OP to make if they are only going to have their car another year. It might be worth asking one of the snow chain companies if they have any second hand Thule K summit chains for sale.

A snowHead

Regarding the drive, agree that the northwest to Dover will be the most difficult part of the journey. Over 20 years of towing a caravan down there (1st saturday of summer hols), Ive tried every possible combination, but have now settled on: M55, M6 (inc toll) A14, M11, M25, M2.

A snowHead

For snow chains consider Michelin EasyGrip, if they are recommended for your car (I don’t know about clearance). About £150.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

As well as making sure that you’ve adjusted the chains if necessary, and tried fitting them at leisure before you go, it’s also worth checking-up on your vehicle’s traction settings for driving on snow. On my BMW, the Owners Manual is distinctly opaque and confusing on exactly what is the right traction control setting. It turns out that I just press a car-with-wriggly-lines button when I go onto snow, and press it again when I’m back on tarmac, and this can be done while the car is in motion. But it takes about 400 words and a load of acronyms to say this.

The same thing about checking traction settings goes for rental cars, especially since the manuals often aren’t in English. You often have to translate from French or German. So time to get out your Google Translate app …..

Automatics go into ‘Park’ mode when you turn the engine off. So if you have an auto’, you should also know how to set the gearbox into neutral with the engine off. Just in case you’re being pulled out of snow, mud or sand, or being winched onto a low-loader after a breakdown or accident and can’t sit in the car with the engine on and auto in ‘N’. Yes, this is a rare scenario but it happens, nonetheless. On my BMW the process to do this is not at all intuitive - you need to go through a specific sequence of actions with the engine on and off. You’d never work out what they are intuitively.

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@Markymark29, If I owned the car, I would get winter tyres but it's a leased vehicle and it goes back later in the year.

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I have done lots of driving in snow, had to use chains on winter tyres and been required by police to put chains on too. But that's over 15 winters. But many, many, people go with ordinary tyres and socks, without problems. If you hit really bad conditions you might just have to wait till road is cleared. It's no more sensible to tell people they must have winters and chains than to tell them they won't need chains if they have winter tyres.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@Origen, I don’t believe anyone is saying don’t use snow chains if you have winter tyres are they? Certainly not myself, my suggestion is have both. Anyway I’m glad I travel to Austria where winters are mandatory if people are still travelling to French Alps without.

After all it is free

@alan_1951, ref accommodation I am currently staying in La Plagne Villages at the Odalys Residence Front de Neige and it is good self-catering, big free barrier-entry car park at the front of the building. Direct access to ecartee piste and Bergerie and Boulevard lifts from the ski locker rooms and the Telebus to Plagne Centre is a short walk. I booked through Sunweb this time as they offered it cheapest but you can book direct through Odalys (I do when staying at their other locations). Having stayed in a variety of self-catering accommodation in La Plagne this is definitely my favourite so far. It is a new(ish) build so quite hotel-room vibe. Shops, rental and ticket office all close by. Enjoy whatever you decide!

@Markymark29, there are often people advising, wrongly, that with winter tyres you won't need chains. That's what I was getting at.

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Morning.

We're based in Manchester and have mulled over driving to Les Arcs (BSM) many times in our motorhome.

Our preferred route (according to viamichelin) would be from Dieppe.

Get the overnight Ferry from Newhaven that spits you out after a few hours sleep about 5AM onto empty roads.

It is only DFDS who sale this route but I believe if one of the people in the car is over 60 you get a 20%...... but DYOR

Help!!

Driving from Manchester to French resorts

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