Club 80-90 Forums

If you are going to France or elsewhere in the Eurozone in the near future pray the Euro returns to somwhere near its old value against the pound, I have just been over there and paid 74cents PL on the motorway and 69cents at a service station on a main road, for cents read pence at the moment! Unleaded about 125cents diesel between 98 and 110. We didnt use supermarket filling stations (these are somwhat cheaper) as unles you know they sell LPG its not worth stopping to find out. Le Clerk supermarkets seemed to be the ones I noticed selling LPF or GPL as its called there but as Murphy's law dictated we didnt need fuel when we passed their signs. Dont forget you will need an adapter for your fillup nozzel. Everything in the shops is well dear except for booze its still cheaper than here even with the exchange rate, thankfully!

£-euro... tell me about it.... last year, petrol was as high as 149 cents L.......

As an aside to that.. (and perhaps I really ought to do a wiki on this too)

most of the autoroute (motorway) stations will have "GPL" (LPG) and its often away from the main pumps with a small "bus shelter" over it....

Most autoroute stations will have an adapter you can borrow and a lot will have them for sale at very sensible prices...

A lot of the supermarkets have GPL, but prob only 1 or 2 in any town..

Bare in mind this very important thing, this means petrol and gas... a lot of stations and most supermarkets shut the pumps at lunchtime and most wont be open in the evenings and sundays....
Any that say "24/7", means it has a card payment system at the pumps out of hours, but you cant use your UK cards in them... only a french bank account works... so make sure you have plenty of fuel if travelling off the autoroutes at night or sundays... It is changing, so you might find a few local town stations open later and sundays... so accept you may have to run on petrol at times..

We did 2,000 miles in France over last Summer and did almost 10 miles on petrol and not one mile on the Peage

Yes you can get gas, yes it's now dearer because of the £ v €, but with a full tank of both you can drive around 500 miles and you'll always find a gas station over that distance using a satnav.

I can't believe you'd go there without doing your research and buying the adaptors though

Ian.

Peage is great for munching out the miles and when you need to get there, but can be costly for a camper as over the 2M height limit for "cars" (my syncro doka usually scrapes through as a "car"... ) When driving 600 miles wanting to get home.. no way was I going to use the ordinary roads... 8.5 hours non stop from Holland is more than enough every 2 weeks.......

Adapter... well lots of foriegn vehicles pass through so its worth them selling them, handy if you lose it/left it on the kitchen table, got damaged..... also quite a few pumps do have the bayonet fitting now, only where there are more than 1 pump though......
A lot of french cars have the bayonet fitting so require the adapters... they wouldnt stock them if there was no demand would they...

Its just a reminder that if you forget to fill up on Sat afternoon and its a holiday weekend, you might not be able to go that far.. you cant drive around with full tanks all the time..
Not everyone has GPS either....

Maybe I shouldnt bother sharing some handy hints and usefull info, from my 4.5 years of living there and traveling accross the country... a lot...

toomanytoys wrote:
Maybe I shouldnt bother sharing some handy hints and usefull info, from my 4.5 years of living there and traveling accross the country... a lot...

Dont you dare stop sharing the hints they're invaluable and thanks. No GPS here though I'd love one (gaget freak) but the map reading keeps my wife happy and non bored plus she is very good at navigating.
Thanks again

Although I have satnav with GPL POI's I always find out where the nearest and on route staions are before leaving home. This site is brilliant http://stations.gpl.online.fr/appli/index.php Plus it give you an idea of prices before you leave.

Headley18 wrote: This site is brilliant http://stations.gpl.online.fr/appli/index.php Plus it give you an idea of prices before you leave.

If only I had found that site before leaving a right little gem, thanks for the link