Act III - France / Spain

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For the final act of my sabbatical, I decided to do a road-trip from Paris, France to San Sebastian, Spain.  I flew into Charles de Gaulle airport -- picked up a rental car and journeyed to Versailles, then down through the Loire Valley, out to a beautiful island in the Atlantic Ocean, through Bordeaux and Gascony, and then spent my final week in Basque Country (France & Spain) in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

September is a fantastic time to explore France -- the weather is still nice and a lot of the tourists are gone.  The weather was even better than I expected -- I did have a couple of overcast days -- but for the most part it was warm & sunny (actually -- it was much warmer than I expected!).

My itinerary (11 September - 28 September)
Note: at this point in my sabbatical, I was a bit tired of taking pics (plus the strap on my camera broke) -- so a lot less photos here and most were taken on my iPhone.

Logistics
  • Miles driven:  1,639 (2,637 kms)
  • If you are claustrophobic -- don't take the A86 tunnel on the drive from CDG to Versailles!
  • France has a lot of toll roads!  Quite easy once you have them figured out:
    • The French word for toll is 'péage'.
    • Use your credit card (it has to have a chip in it).  No PIN required.  By far the fastest/easiest way to pay the toll.  I used my US credit cards with no problems.
    • Sometimes you pay a flat fee at a toll, sometimes you'll take a ticket and pay a fee based on distance at a later point.  The fees varied from 3 Euros to 16 Euros (so if you pay with cash -- you'll need a lot of coins / small bills).
    • France does have an electronic transponder system for tolls -- so make sure you don't go through a toll lane that is marked just with an orange "t" (typically the lanes on the far right / far left) -- look for the lane to have signs that it accepts cards / cash.  There are some lanes that only accept cards.
    • Supposedly there are toll lanes with attendants -- I didn't see any in France (it was the opposite in Spain).
  • There are two kinds of service/rest stops on French highways ('aires').  Some are just what Americans would call rest areas (picnic tables / toilets), others are full service stops -- the full service stops are signed appropriately -- pretty easy to figure out.

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