Boulogne to Le Mans road route?

[v15ben]

I am going to try and avoid the boredom of A roads if I can (except if they are peage-free!)
Can anyone suggest a fun route down from the ferry port to Le Mans??

[Tripps]

v15ben said:

I am going to try and avoid the boredom of A roads if I can (except if they are peage-free!) Can anyone suggest a fun route down from the ferry port to Le Mans??

Look at the map, pick some key points and D roads to intersect them, include a stop at a town that sounds nice for lunch and your sorted. Get a good 1:200,000 map (Michelin are good) and be prepared to improvise if you spot any really special roads (two-ways are almost essential for this!).

Hopefully you'll pass a supermarket en-route to stock up with beer and food for the trip - it might be worth searching for a hypermarket before you leave.

Approach Le Mans from the east side and you've got a recipe for a fantastic day of

[littlegearl]

the roads around calais (boulogne isn't that much closer) are very boring... if you've ever driven from the M6 down the A14 you kinda get an idea *how* boring

but the 2 years i've been to le mans we've found some cracking roads on the way back, the second time we went looking for the road we did the year previously and the infamous *jump* but got lost and found an equally good one... then caught a convoy of classic e-type and spridget racer amongst other things which we tagged along with

these were both found trying to avoid the traffic jams which were HUGE and curiously no one else were using them!!!

can't remember where they are but just explore... as long as you're heading north and have plenty of time to spare you could spend days exploring!!!

[Tripps]

littlegearl said:

can't remember where they are but just explore... as long as you're heading north and have plenty of time to spare you could spend days exploring!!!

We spent at least three hours having fun picking roads that looked fun and that headed between north and east, only to find we'd knock off just 60 miles towards of destination - but had great fun doing it

[FLAT 6]

Whatever you do - stay well away from Paris.

Roads north east of Rouen are pretty boring which ever route you take so, after several years of taking the coast road via Le Touquet and Abbeville, we now just blast down the peage to Rouen and then take our pick from there.

The RN 138 from Rouen to Le Mans remains a superb run and in all the years (7) of driving to Le Mans I have only had one 'discussion' with a bike Gendarme and that was for overtaking on a solid line - even then he didn't even stop - just gesticulated on his way past 9 (at about 80 mph on an A road).

The problem is - if you take a different route you miss out on seeing the variety of exotica on its way to Le Mans.

Enjoy

[Tripps]

FLAT 6 said:

The problem is - if you take a different route you miss out on seeing the variety of exotica on its way to Le Mans.

This very true, from Calais until Le mans the most exotic thing we saw was a 406 Coupé! Might have been affected because we went on Wednesday rather than Thursday, but even so I was amazed not to see any Brits on the road.

What we did however is travel around the periphery of Paris, having taken a route South to Beauvais following the course of the A16 (but on D-roads), we then followed through (as think) to Dreux followed by Chatres and Nogent-le-Rotrou on the D928. A fantastic route with some stunning scenary mixed with fast and twisties

[Buffalo]

FLAT 6 said:

The problem is - if you take a different route you miss out on seeing the variety of exotica on its way to Le Mans. Enjoy

That is why you take the normal route down - to soak up atmosphere and see exotica...

...and take the interesting route home!

As LittleG said, the first year we found it by accident. It was the first year taking my BGT and we were stuck in a monstar jam. The lead car (an Audi A4) had the road map, so we got ourselves out of there and just blasted at around 80-85mph through some lovely forested roads, till we got to the "jump"! Eventually we found ourselves on the right road and well past the jam - excellent.

The second year (2003) was a little different in that we purposefully went looking. We found some great roads but got stuck behind dawdling locals... Eventually had a longer run up the d/c afterwards but was luck of draw really.

I highly recommend exploring off the main drags where possible, there are some great roads, and good for stop-offs etc if thats your thing.

[v15ben]

FLAT 6 said:

The problem is - if you take a different route you miss out on seeing the variety of exotica on its way to Le Mans. Enjoy

Yep, that's a very good point, I definitely want to see the exotica, so the 138 seems like a good route to me!

[GCerbera]

Tripps said:

FLAT 6 said: The problem is - if you take a different route you miss out on seeing the variety of exotica on its way to Le Mans. This very true, from Calais until Le mans the most exotic thing we saw was a 406 Coupé! Might have been affected because we went on Wednesday rather than Thursday, but even so I was amazed not to see any Brits on the road.

Same here.

Left Calais at 7am and enroute got diverted on to a back road and saw...nowt...
well one Porsche who came to play just as we were pulling in for a late
breakfast - doh.

However, we also saw not even one mobile speed restrictor, so we had a great time
with just our two car convoy.

[littlegearl]

trouble is last time we went was on wednesday and it was so early we didn't see much nice exotica, friday seems to be best

hoping that on thursday this year we'll see some nice stuff!!!

Buffalo said:

Eventually had a longer run up the d/c afterwards but was luck of draw really.

3 cars, none of them newer than 25 years old making a steady cruise up the D/C at 95... that was fun... until my cylinder head cracked!!!