Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 8:46pm
Hi JackieG
We have been doing this journey now twice a year with our Westie for the past 9 years and find it now quite easy as we now have our regular stop offs on the way.
We use the Eurotunnel not the Eurostar and you stay in your car with your dog whilst on it, it only takes around 30 minutes from Folkestone. We always get an early train to get a good head start in France for the journey down, we stop off every 2-3 hours for doggie/coffee breaks. We have quite a long day of driving on the first day (myself and husband share the driving) and we stop off in Narbonne Sud for our overnight stop, this is around 45 minutes from the Spanish border, the second day takes us around 8 hours with stops to get down to the Murcia region.
Just to bear in mind anyone thinking of driving down and going via Paris the French government have launched a new scheme from March 2017 for all cars driving in Paris which includes British registered cars to display an emissions sticker showing the age and cleanliness of your vehicle. If your vehicle does not display the sticker you could face hefty on the spot fines.
You can only order the sticker online from the official Crit Air website. www.certificat-air.gouv.fr.
Hope this helps 👍