Driving from Calais with a dog - Page 2

Will keep u all updated each step of the way 

Look forward to it.

Julie.

Campasol

Thanks for that, will definitely look into it.

We are driving down to costa calida, Murcia region.

We do journey frequently and always stop overnight at Bayonne. Plenty of hotels but not sure about dogs, use one if the internet booking services.

We do it with our dogs, use Michelin Maps it tells how much it costs for fuel and tolls.  Stop over in Saintes in France in the Campanile Hotel, just off the motorway lots of eateries and shops around and they take dogs 5€ per dog.  Booked via Hotel.com.

https://www.campanile.com/fr/hotels/campanile-saintes

Doing it again in September😀

Thanks for that, will look into it.

Good luck on your journey.

Julie.

Ok we have finally arrived with our dog from .uk.  as promised this is route hotel petrol and toll costs.

We started on 28th july.  Euro shuttle a breeze.  Booked on 8:25, got their early so was able to go on 8:05 at no extra cost.

Once you get off shuttle in Calais u r straight on road.  No passport checks just open road so if u using sat nav set it up before getting off train because the route starts as soon as u get off.

My car fills up on £52 which we did in Essex.  We filled up a further 2 x costing €41 and  €46 before reaching Los alcazares.  1,356 miles door to door.

You get yr first toll ticket within 10 mins of leaving Calais and the exit toll was not until we got off roadcat Dijon for our hotel.  Cost €24.10.  You can pay by credit card cash or pre paid toll (a dart tag system).  On the bigger tollsthis would have been best option as people with cash got in credit card booths andvuts held up the lines.  I would suggest u look up toll booths before hand (we didnt) and although the signs for cash cards or auto pay are easy to distinguish on toll with lots of booths we did come thru some that only had 2 lanes and we did get in the auto pay one in error.

Clear roads all way.  6 hours drive time.  Plenty of service stations on route.  We did not stop at anything that wasn't a large service station area.

First day we stopped in Dijon.  Holiday inn.  It was great.  Quite.  Rooms good.  Eve meal there was fantastic.  Breakfast is basic but dud the job.  Just across from hotel is a park and although u have to keep dogs on a lead it was great to walk round.  Open from 7:30 am till 9:00 pm.  There is an outside seating area to restaurant at back and our dog was allowed to be with us.  U could also have yr dog in restaurant for eve meal and breakfast but We opted for outside as is a large dog.  Staff fantastic nothing too much trouble for them.

Next stop girona.

Tolls €15  €44.10  €6.25

From Dijon to girona we stop start for no apparent reason.  Instead of 7 hours it took nearly 11 for this stretch.  Here the tolls are a free for all with people moving from queue to queue.

The boarder from France to Spain was a nightmare.  A 6 kilometre stretch to boarder took 1 hour 45 mins.  Purely because of how many cars (plenty of toll booths but just not enough for volume.  It's 2 lanes this part of road and then it opens to about 15 booths.  As you can imagine it's like Next opening the doors for their Xmas sale.

We stayed at hotel costabella.  Nice hotel. Staff great and again ate outside on terracecwith dog.  Both eve meal and breakfast lovely. There is an area to walk your dog which is a grass area and long lane which I get to be walking out exit/entrance to hotel and immediately double back on yourself.  You in fact look down on the cars in car park is the best way to describe it.

30th

Tolls €8.00  €36.15   €19.95

Traffic was clear Thursday and 7 hours of driving.

It got hotter as u travelled down and we truly never git our heads around how long it would actually feel.  Not a drive I would do again unless necessity took over but we have a dog and this was preferable to sending her with a dog transport company or flying her.

We only stopped briefly as it was so hot and also only stopped when she showed us she needed it rather than us stopping every 90 mins.  My dog is used to being left for 4 hours so this was stance I took which for us was right.  It may not be for u guys.

Hope this helps.  Any questions please do ask.

Safe journey to u all.

Karen 

Thank you Karen this really helps for our trip in Sep 👍Have a lovely time 

Your welcome Mike.  Hope all goes smoothly in Sept and weather should have cooled by then