I never used to bother much if I took toll roads or not.
Recently I have been doing several trips to NE France and that's about 850kms on the "direct", but non-toll roads and is pleasant, if long, drive.

The last trip, I returned via the autoroute. Its ALL downside's. You travel at a higher speed, so use more fuel, its a longer distance, so even more fuel and it cost me €60 in tolls!.
All that to save about one and a half hours. I'll take the N, D and free autoroutes in future.

John

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Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

Hi Friends:

Well, with great embarrassment, I have to withdraw everything I said about using (foreign) credit cards at the unattended French toll booths. In the past few weeks, I rode from Geneva to Montpelier, then later from Biarritz to Caen, and none of my (Canadian) credit cards worked in any of the automated toll booths. I did visit a few toll booths that still had attendants, and much to my surprise, the cards worked fine when I gave them to the attendants.

The cards - all of which were the latest 'chip and PIN' types - were simply spit back at me by the automated (unattended) toll-booth, with a message "card not accepted". They worked everywhere else in France - at attended gas stations, hotels, restaurants, etc.

So, after some experimentation, I found that it was easiest to keep a stash of 5 and 10 Euro bills in my pocket, and to just shove one of those notes into the machine. Using paper notes was faster and more convenient than using coins (I found I was less likely to drop a paper note on the ground than to drop a coin, and it is easier to fish notes out of a pocket than to rummage for coins).

One suggestion for all of you: A moto is considered a "Class 5" vehicle, and only pays half the toll fee that a car (a Class 1 vehicle) pays. But, about once every 7 or 8 trips through the automated booth, the message would say that I was a Class 1 vehicle and demand more money. There is a simple solution to this: Just press the red CALL button on the tool-booth, and when the person answers, say 'motorcycle'. The person who answers the CALL button has a video display of you in front of them, and they will immediately correct the charge so that it shows you as a Class 5 vehicle.

Michael

If this is a problem, take the national roads, which are free and often much prettier than the boring autoroutes. They are indicated on the maps with a red N and a number. N7 runs all the way from Paris to the Riviera. If you use France justas a transport part of your trip, then paying makes sense. If you want to see something, stay off them.

Have a look at this, cheers Mark

Avoiding Paris - Routes from Calais to the south and west - About-France.com -