National route 7

I do not know the exact figure, however th figure quoted by Jean (30-35- €) sound right to me. Orly is much closert to Paris than CDG. Naturally if you are going to stay somewhere on the Northern Part of Paris, it may be more, and it would be less if you stay at the southern Part.

BP Chuck

From the bottom up...the taxi fare from Orly is probably around 30/35 Euros these days; I'm sure someone else will have more exact information.

A nice place for the family to break the trip from Nice to Paris would be in lower Burgundy, at the Château d'Igé in the village of Igé. It's just a short distance off the Autoroute du Soleil and would provide the experience of living in an old château, but one with modern comforts. There are nice grounds for stretching the legs, complete with a duck pond--and a restaurant, although one can also walk over to the village and buy things for a picnic supper. The hotel is one of the less pricey members of the Relais et Châteaux chain, which includes some of France's most beautiful hotels.

For a stop a little further south, the town of Montélimar has the Relais de l'Empereur, where Napolean once stayed. The town is perhaps 10 minutes off the Autoroute and is a delightful place to spend a little time.

About 20 minutes to the east of Montélimar is our very favorite hotel, Les Hospitaliers, in the medieval perched village of Le Poët-Laval, once a stronghold of the Knights of Malta. The hotel was built using stone from the village's ruins (parts are still standing, such as the Commanderie), and the beautiful pool was made form Roman mosaic tiles. The restaurant has wonderful food; the chef is the hotel-owners' son--and the view from the outside dining terrace is magical.

For something every-day but nice, the Novotel in Valence is quite pleasant.

My brother-in-law is driving from Nice to Paris in early July. He is traveling with his family of four and would like to stay a night on the road to break up the long dirive. Can you recommend a nice stop for him? This is his first trip to Europe. I suggested him to return the car in Orly airpot to avoid traffic driving to CDG. Does it really matter? How much is the taxi fare to Paris from Orly?

Thanks for your help, Betty Ng

If I remembrer correctly N-7 used to be th major road to the South. psrticularly thr Cote d'Azur. It did go throug through many towns, and basically ended up in Marseilles, where you turned left. In summer for the vacations many people (yourd tourly included) hitched a ride on tha large truck, who generally left from qyais, east from the Louvre, and the drivers made good money taking passengers on top of the load (if the loads were for example textiles, you really were in luck. They left generally around late afternnon, and arrived in Marseilles sometimes in the morning. which at that time was pretty good (and cheap).

BP Chuck

BP Jean.. and CarpetPaul

More and more, towns are arranged with "rocades", deviations avoiding the center-town. that adds kms but reduces times riding.
For sure, you miss scenic sites, alas!

The route nationale roads often go through towns, where the going can be very slow--I'll never forget our snail's pace through Nevers behind many large, smelly trucks. Traffic outside the towns can be slow if you get behind a poky driver, but at least part of the time you should be able to move at a decent pace.

Does anyone have experience of using the national '7' route, which goes most way down to the south of the country, is it pretty non stop motoring, do you get hold up's or is it likely to be relativly free of traffic once you're away from the towns ?

P.S - We're going on a motorbike, (you might guess that it's our first visit to France)

P.S 2 - Am I right to be using the national routes (yellow road numbers on my map) ?