3 comments.
Do you regularly drive through the night or at least for 4 or 5 hours at night? If you are practiced it's a superb way to travel and miss traffic hold-ups and get places quickly, but if you are not it can be pretty dangerous as you wont' know what your awareness levels are when tired and the pointers to look out for so you pull over in time. Extreme tiredness has been likened to being drunk when driving. The good thing about France is there are so many stopping places if you do suddenly feel tired, especially on the autoroutes.
Rouen is a pain and worth a small detour in my view. Maybe try the A29 to Yvetot, south on the D131/D490, across the Seine then meet up with the A13 at Bourg-Achard, then either take the lunarman route south of Rouen or the other route south via the A28 to Alencon, Le Mans and Tours etc. The route south of Le Mans is some of the very best non spectacular ordinary France you will find if you leave the autoroute either south of Le Mans and join the D338/D938 to Tours, or to get further south more quickly leave the autoroute south of Tours taking the D943 via Loches through to Chateauroux where you join the lunarman route. The D943 is one of the best kept secrets in France with some aires along it's route.
Maybe on the return journey use the Pont de Normandie route near to the coast as NicNic suggested, the bridge is a real experience.
Last. I drive long distances through France and the UK for work and when heading from Folkestone to Calais with Eurotunnel we use trains from about 8pm through to 2am. We are usually headed to the center of France so often travel via Paris and although some do have bad experiences (we have too) it's no better or worse than most other European or UK cities at the wrong time of day. If you match your timing to the appropriate ring road (all are on the east of Paris) you will find it fairly painless. We tend to arrive in Paris between 12 midnight and 4:30am, after 5am it's rush hour and can be fast and crowded at that point, and by 7:30 it's usually just a slow slog as there is just so much traffic. The ring road I would recommend for most people is the A104/N104 route from the A1 to the A6. Sometimes for a change we take the eastern Peripherique (BP) if it's between 2 - 4 am. Just trying to make the point that driving around Paris is not to be feared if you time it right, but it's a pain at certain times.
If you want any further detailed info please ask, like all others on this forum you can't help enjoying driving through France if you are relaxed about it whether that's D roads or autoroutes.
One last point re autoroute tolls. If your motorhome is no more than 2.99m high all in you are a classe 2 vehicle and this will be shown on the screen where you pay. Choose an auto toll rather than the now rare manned toll booths and use a debit card even for the smallest amount. Card in the slot, toll is taken, card ejected and if you want a receipt press the recu button after your card is ejected and you will be on your way in 20 seconds, do not use cash as it's easy to fumble with coins and notes.
Enjoy your holiday and I'm sure this forum would enjoy hearing of your first experiences of driving through to SW France.
