 Poster: A snowHead
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pam w, we buy the local Haute-Alpes wine from a local wine shop in Briancon. I buy ground coffee, never instant, and don't like Douwe-Egberts, it's usually Fairtrade Guatemalan in my trolley. I agree that decent French white is expensive, but I don't like white wine, so buy red almost exclusively, although I've developed a summer rosé habit.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I buy ground coffee, never instant
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me too, but I do like Douwe Egberts. I have no brand loyalty though and like a change, so I tend to just try whatever is on offer. Bought some super-cheap Carrefour "discount" mild arabica yesterday - if that's OK it'll be a regular buy.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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But a good cup of instant can be so welcome at times. Once I had a cup from a machine on a French service area, at that moment it was the best cup of coffee for miles 
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Boredsurfing, Friday night last week after 4 hours driving through snow, vending machine in services befroe Lyon airport, liquid gold 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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sah, I did the Belgium route at easter and it was a complete nightmare. Just seemed to be volume of traffic as people criss crossed Europe. Anyhoo, Belgium turned into a giant car park that didn't clear until Strasbourg when it was already midnight and 2 hours still to drive. I've vowed never to drive in Belgium again.
I went back up through Nancy and Metz, probably not the most direct route but anything is better than Belgium.
Like I said, I've only done it once so I may just have been very unlucky, just a bit of friendly advice.
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Yikes, looks like you can't win! Thaniks for the advice, I think I'll just go with whatever seems most direct and get an early start.
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| Boredsurfing wrote: |
| But a good cup of instant can be so welcome at times. Once I had a cup from a machine on a French service area, at that moment it was the best cup of coffee for miles |
When julesb was in hospital in Grenoble, I was stuck there with only a couple of euros to my name, and no cash card. julesb's was in his ski jacket in our car at Briancon hospital. The coffee from the machine in the hospital foyer was the best cup i've ever tasted.
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we are going in half term and it's out first time driving, we are tied to being at work for half day on the friday, so this is what we are doing:
leave home at about 2pm on friday
arrive at dover so to catch the 7.30pm ferry
arrive in france at 10.30pm their time
drive 50 miles and then stay overnight at http://www.kyriad-bethune-bruay.fr/index_uk.php
leave hotel at 7 or 8am and do the drive to hopefully arrive after 6pm at the resort
on the way back we are leaving on sat before 10am, not sure what time but the earlier the better but not too early 
drive all the way back toward calais
stay over night about 50 miles before the port - this means we are not tied to catching a ferry that night
catch late morning ferry back to uk
hopefully get home mid afternoon on sunday
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poe, Where are you going to? 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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poe, have you read through the rest of this thread? Just that your planned timings seem to go against much of the advice on here  If you have to go with that plan just be prepared and be aware that you will travelling in the very heaviest traffic on both saturdays. Worth mentioning this link again courtesy of Boredsurfing http://www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.fr/en/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=106
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we are staying in Passy which is about 20 mins from Chamonix (I hope), it is junction 21 off the A40
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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sarah, we have no choice as we are so far away from dover and we are not willing to drive over night
the last thing I need to do after my drive to dover is to then travel over night, we were initially going to get as far as poss once in France but decided against it so to get a good night sleep and then start on the sat to do the whole journey, if we have to leave later on to avoid the traffic so to arrive later then we will but we really don't have much option, we can't take the whole friday off work so the earliest we can leave our home is 2pm (and that is with racing back from work to get back in an hour and leaving straight away)
I know that it is going to be vile on the roads, hopefully given that we are not in the resorts that will be a bit of an easier journey.
on the way back we have no option but to return on the sat as we can't leave on the sunday as we will never get back home in time for monday
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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poe, all the best with it then
Helen Beaumont, if you are still watching this, is there anything I should be aware of for the saturday morning? Leaving the Ibis Briancon via a whizz round the hopefully next door Casino Geant, and then heading up to Montgenevre to arrive there before 1100ish say.
Re. a stop over for the way back, we plan to leave Montgenevre around 5pm drive for 5 hours or so and then stop. Should I book a hotel or would we easily get into a Formule 1/Etap wherever we happen to be at that time? If we should book a place any particular recommendations? We stayed in Troyes last summer which was fine but I am not sure we'll get quite so far, maybe Dijon or just before Dijon?
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I know it's going to be a nightmare but I can't see I have any other option, other than either driving through the night or travelling on the sunday
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You know it makes sense.
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The coffee from the machine in the hospital foyer was the best cup i've ever tasted.
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I recall scrabbling around pockets to find enough small change to buy coffee from a machine in the foyer of a Formule 1 at 11 pm. We had enough for one cup, between the two of us.  Hardships!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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sarah, The traffic is not too bad and shouldn't be at that time unless there's a thousand Italians heading home, and they usually come for the weekend. Could be a few coaches heading to Turin airport though.
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Poster: A snowHead
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poe, your timings sound a bit like the first two times we drove at half term and while I can't say the roads were empty it wasn't horrendous either. We had heavy traffic at times on the way there but no real queues or very slow moving traffic except for the tolls near Chambéry and that was minimal. We went to the Maurienne Valley which isn't quite as busy as the Tarentaise or the A40. I guess hitting the Alps after about 3pm means the worst of the queues had gone as a lot of people like to arrive around lunch time (like we attempted to do last year!) so they can get ski hire etc sorted on Saturday. Having listened to the French traffic reports a lot things do seem to calm down later in the day. They are always talking about "bouchons" at the tolls near where you are going (Cluses and Sallanches) but this seems to improve greatly after about 3 or 4pm (or did the 3 times I have been listening). 10am - 3pm seems to be the worst time. However I imagine bad weather would change everything for the worse. So good luck - we'll be on the A40 too, hoping for the best but not expecting it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Helen Beaumont, thanks
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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ah thanks AW - that's put my mind at ease, I know it's going to be busy so as long as the kids don't start up we will be ok
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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We went in half term last year (Bournemouth to Les Menuires) and did the following:
- left home at about 7.30am on Friday
- got the midday tunnel
- steady drive through France (regular stops for fuel / toilets etc - we had a 11 year old and a 6 month old with us).
- stopped around 7.00pm at a hotel just outside Dijon.
- Leisurely breakfast next day and left around 8.30am.
- steady drive to the Alps, in resort for about 3.00pm
Had slight traffic at Lyon, but have worked out an alternative to avoid the bottleneck (a very odd junction set up)
Return trip - left Les M. at 8.30am - tunnel at 7.00pm and got home for about 11.30pm!
The traffic was no problem at all!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Had a nudge to update this thread from last year as I hadn't posted the outcome, when I looked I had posted an outcome but on another thread  
Anyway here it is :
Just wanted to thank everyone who gave me advice recently for our first drive out over half term
It went very smoothly overall. We had about an hour/hour and half delay on the tunnel on the Friday morning due to the snow around the terminal. En route we heard that we could get into our chalet the Friday night after all and so were able to cancel the Ibis without charge and press on to Montgenevre. We had no traffic issues until we got to the Frejus tunnel with only about 40 mins to go to our destination and it was shut for works and we had to sit and wait for an hour for it to reopen, when we passed through it looked as if 'the works' was actually one guy up a ladder fiddling with a camera, and they shut it on the busiest weekend of the year for that
It was quite a long day for us on Friday, we had one very long stop so that son could have a really good run around a McD's play area before the night stint, but we were glad we had done it in one hit as friends who overnighted in Beaune on the Friday should have made it to resort for around midday but finally arrived sometime early evening after a harrowing traffic experience.
For the return, again as advised, we stayed in resort til 4pm then drove to Troyes for an overnight stop, again no traffic issues at all. Left Troyes early Sunday, no traffic, got to tunnel and got on an earlier one. No problems at all.
Biggest hold up was at the Dartford Crossing on Sunday afternoon.
And the best bit of the journey.....the sweet sound of that first 'bip sonore' thanks guys 
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sarah, 'bad traffic'? Are we talking 2 hour delay or what?
Anyway, back to the first time, so, you decided to go via Frejus rather than La Grave? Would you still do it that way on hindsight?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| sah wrote: |
| Quote: |
sah, I did the Belgium route at easter and it was a complete nightmare. Just seemed to be volume of traffic as people criss crossed Europe. Anyhoo, Belgium turned into a giant car park that didn't clear until Strasbourg when it was already midnight and 2 hours still to drive. I've vowed never to drive in Belgium again.
I went back up through Nancy and Metz, probably not the most direct route but anything is better than Belgium.
Like I said, I've only done it once so I may just have been very unlucky, just a bit of friendly advice.
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Yikes, looks like you can't win! Thaniks for the advice, I think I'll just go with whatever seems most direct and get an early start. |
Just seen someone else post an update here, which reminded me to do the same. We drove out last half term to Engelberg via Calais and through Belgium and Luxembourg down to Basel.The journey from Calais, leaving there at about 8am, was absolutely fine. It was busy but no delays or major jams. The only minor issue was that service stations were very busy, but even then it was fine outside the lunchtime rush. We took it fairly easy, it was certainly too busy to really cane it, so it took us about 11 hours in the end including stops and a minor navigational error getting off the motorway. In clear traffic and no cock ups it's likely to be doable in well under 10 hours.
The earlier part of the journey to Calais from home was a nightmare though, with huge delays at the tunnel. We'd booked into one of the cheapo hotels in Dunkirk and expected to be there by about 10, in the end we got there at 3:30am. The ferry would have been a much better bet in the end...
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| crosbie wrote: |
sarah, 'bad traffic'? Are we talking 2 hour delay or what?
Anyway, back to the first time, so, you decided to go via Frejus rather than La Grave? Would you still do it that way on hindsight? |
Bad traffic at Easter, on the Sat morning. We were going to La Tania and ended up staying somewhere quite far away (1-2 hours) as it was the nearest place we could get a room for the Good friday night. We went over a bridge on the way to the autoroute and saw the traffic below it was awful. We used the map and went some alternative routes. I can't remember the details now. All in probably less than 2 hours delay on the expected time.
First time, we were always going to go via Frejus, it is shorter isn't it? Yes I would still do that, we had no traffic issues at all on the route, this was late on the friday. Only problem was the tunnel being shut and operating alternate one way periods meaning when we got there we had to wait for an hour for it to reopen in our direction. I guess if I knew in advance that Frejus was going to be shut then I would go the other way.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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sarah, it's 30 mins vs the cost of the Frejus tunnel + customs. So, Frejus is probably best (unless it's closed).
Anyway, it seems it was good enough to do it a 2nd time. Will you be doing it this season?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| crosbie wrote: |
sarah, it's 30 mins vs the cost of the Frejus tunnel + customs. So, Frejus is probably best (unless it's closed).
Anyway, it seems it was good enough to do it a 2nd time. Will you be doing it this season? |
No definite plans yet but I expect we will drive out once or twice. One trip might be a package so then we might fly. But our preference is to drive now
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FAQ
But actually by then I was a bit complacent and failed to heed some of the advice and so we did suffer some bad traffic 