Getting to Morzine &
Travel Information
Special
Rates On Travel Insurance
By Road from the UK
Calais to Morzine is 575 miles and can be traveled all by
motorway except the last 25 miles. The auto route tolls cost
approximately £35 each way per vehicle and with petrol
around £3.25 per gallon and diesel around £2.25
per gallon in France, fuel costs will be from £35 each
way per vehicle (diesel) or from £50 each way (petrol).
Thus for a group of ten people traveling in 2 cars, the return
trip cost can be as low as £28 per person. In conjunction
with World Ski, we can offer Discounted Channel Crossings
by Eurostar, Ferry and Hovercraft. Summer and/or winter personal
insurance, Car Hire, Breakdown Insurance with the RAC and
2 Centre breaks incorporating areas such as Picardie. Just
ask Sheila for further details.
A recommended route is Calais-A26-Reims-(A4)-A26-Troyes-A5-A31-Dijon-A39-(via
Dole)-Bourg en Bresse-A40-(towards Chamonix) but get off
motorway at Cluses, head for Taninges and then Les Gets,
Morzine.
As we run from
Sunday to Sunday, a well used plan is to depart the UK on
Saturday and drive at a leisurely pace through France to
somewhere close to Dijon, stay in a Campanile, which for
a family room of 4 costs approximately £35. You can
then have breakfast on the Sunday and be in resort for the
early afternoon; very civilised.
If you live in the western half of England and Wales, you
might consider a relaxing overnight ferry crossing from
Portsmouth to Le Havre. Sleeping cabins cost about £30
to £40 extra for 2 to 4 berths. From Le Havre the
distance is less, about 500 miles to Morzine and costs about
£30 each way for the motorway tolls. A recommended
route would be Le Havre-N15-A131(use Pont de Tancarville)-A13-*
the Peripherique *-A6 (past Nemours, Auxerre, Beaune) then
-Macon-A40-and the D902 to Les Gets and Morzine.
* To avoid the Paris Peripherique: from the A13 turn right
onto the A12 and follow signs for Lyon which will lead you
to the A6.
Route planning
www.mappy.com
is an invaluable website, allowing you to key in start and
finish in an itinerary, select any points you want to pass
through, and choose the type of journey you prefer (the
fastest route without motorway tolls, for example). It will
provide a detailed itinerary with distances, road numbers,
cost of tolls and an estimate of fuel costs. Also try www.Autoroutes.fr
which offers information of the best route using Autoroutes
with associated toll charges, mileage and petrol prices.
Timing
For a strategic guide to good and bad times to travel, see
www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.fr/accueilenglish.htm,
the excellent French government website. It has everything
from a detailed summary for the coming weekend to a colour-coded
road- traffic calendar pinpointing dates to avoid. You can
also check for road works, tunnel closures, regional details
and so on. Some information, including the road traffic
calendar, is also available from the French
Tourist Office.
Tolls and petrol
Using the barriers that take credit cards is usually quicker
and easier than paying in cash. Details of service stations
selling cheap fuel are also available from the French Tourist
Office.
Breakdown insurance
If you opt for breakdown insurance to cover the costs of
rescuing and repairing your car on the Continent, hiring
a car in an emergency, shipping spare parts and so on, you'll
find it pays to compare prices (tour operators and ferry
companies sometimes offer special rates).
By Air
Geneva Airport is a little over 1 hour by road from Morzine.
Try Easyjet
from Gatwick, Luton or Liverpool, British
Airways from London and Manchester, rossAir
from all over the world or www.Ryanair.com
from Stanstead to Lyon. In advance or once you're there, you
can hire a car (see below), take the bus (approx £20
per person one way, a bus daily and 3 bus's in the winter
on Saturdays) or private transfer for the journey (see below)
Other airlines that fly to Geneva
are:
BMI
Baby, KLM, Lufthansa, Air France, Alitalia
Car
hire from Geneva airport
Collection should be organised from the Swiss International
side of the airport. There are plenty to chose from
but some of the more popular are:
Hertz:
Tel 0990 996
699
Avis:
Tel
0990 900 500
Europcar:
Tel 0345 22 25 25
Easycar:
www.easycar.com
Private
Transfers direct from Geneva airport to our Chalet
Private
transfers can be arranged for approximately £40 per
head return.
Train
There is an over-night Eurostar train the runs weekly to
Cluses and Thonon, alternatively you can use SNCF whose
web site is: sncf.com
Ferry/tunnel
If you haven't booked your crossing, it is still possible
to find some reasonable deals even during peak times, (see
travel.telegraph.co.uk).
Although the tunnel is quicker, it isn't necessarily best
for children, who have to stay in the car for most of the
time. Ferries might be slower, but they offer space to run
around. The new Norfolkline (0870 8701020, www.norfolkline.com)
crossing between Dover and Dunkirk has the cheapest fares,
and Dunkirk is as convenient as Calais for the motorway
network.
Please do speak to Sheila as she has contacts with many
discounted operators.
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Information & Links
Bis routes
Coming home, most people seem to prefer to put their heads
down and stay on the motorway. This is fine if you don't mind
the tolls.
You can save on the tolls and find a much more scenic route
by following the "Bison Futé" (Bis) routes
for at least part of the way. These are quieter (normally
"D"; class roads) than the Routes Nationales and
motorways, and often follow the old straight Roman roads.
You won't achieve motorway speeds, but they can be quick and
are pleasant to drive. Surprisingly, there is no map on the
website, but you can get maps from the French Tourist Board.
Cheap hotels
You might regret the demise of the town centre hôtel
de poste, but the rapid and continuing growth in the number
of modern, basic hotels does make life easier and cheaper
(rooms in some chains start from about £12 a night)
for anyone looking for an overnight stop en route through
France. For information or if you want to book a night,
the following websites are useful: Formula one (www.hotelformule1.com);
Etaphotel (www.etaphotel.com);
Bonsai (www.bonsai-hotel.tm.fr);
Envergure (www.envergure.fr)
The last has links to several chains including Balladins,
Climat, Campanile, Premiere Classe and Nuit d'Hotel.
Alternatively, you might like the more personal touch of
a B&B based in Burgundy, which is approximately 2/3
of the way between Calais and the Alps. Please follow the
link for further information www.bandb-burgundy
In-car entertainment
The various games and distractions we've tested over the
years to keep our children occupied have often proved more
problematic than helpful. Pieces get lost, fights ensue,
batteries run out...Story tapes have been the notable exception,
and have seen our children through three hour stints without
too much trouble. If you want to encourage learning as well
as listening, try Let's sing in French, by Janet Irwin and
others, for children of four to seven, and Let's speak French,
by the same authors, for ages four to six (from AVM Concepts,
at £6.99 each), both available through Amazon (see
below).
Out-of-car entertainment
Some of the companies that run the French autoroutes organise
free summer sports and entertainment programmes at motorway
service stations on peak dates as a way of encouraging people,
and especially families, to take a break en route. The sort
of things laid on include archery, table tennis and entertainment
from clowns. Through www.autoroutes.fr (English version,
click Summer Fun and Games), you can check the sites of
any of the eight regional companies separately (most have
pages in English) to see what is happening on your route.
Buying wine
This is a great way to break the journey and stock up on
enough bargains to keep you going for a few months. Buying
direct from the grower is much more interesting and better
value than from a supermarket and if you are driving the
length of France it is easy to plan a route through wine
growing areas. Key motorways heading south pass through,
for example, the heart of Champagne country and Burgundy.
The French Tourist Office can give information on wine regions,
suppliers and routes.
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