FOAK: Recommend a hotel about an hour south of Calais?

I'm planning yet another longish French trip for the week of the late
May bank holiday in the hope that by then, at least spring will have
sprung.

Anyway, I'm wondering if we should leave Saturday night and stay over
in France (as we're going down to the South of France) or just hop on
the 9am ferry Sunday morning and drive until I'm about to fall asleep...

In case I do the former and remembering that I've had lots of problems
to find even something semi-decent within an hours drive of Calais, any
recommendations?

Of course, we could always stay at L'auberge du Portakabin.

 

http://www.hotelacacias.com/home.php

YTK

 

Auberge Picarde, Chepy, just outside Abbeville. An hour and a half,
tonking it.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, The Older

<nods>

Bit of a bugger to find, but really great food.

 

I like Arras as an overnight stop after a late afternoon ferry. Plenty of
bars & restaurants in the town centre. I like to have a choice of eatery,
rather than being tied to the hotel restaurant. For simplicity, I'd book
into the centrally located Ibis as the Portakabin sibling is located about
3 miles from town on the Cambrai road.

 

Unfortunately that'll be typical UKRM navigation then - full steam ahead
in the slightly wrong direction.

Much as I liked the food in that place, it's a bit out of the way as
we're heading towards Avignon and I really would like to avoid Paris...

 

Thanks for the recommendation - that looks like it'll fit the bill
nicely.

 

I can't see why - it doesn't take long to zip round the A/N 86/104
ring-road thingy.

 

The last time I tried that in a cage, it took bloody ages. Plus, it's
further from Calais that way so why the bother?

 

Just avoid any of the War rememberance events. You'll struggle to find a
room and the place might be overrun with boxheads. Again.

 

And Canucks. I know, I got caught in one of those before and had to stay
at a 'Golf hotel' where the only food reachable on foot was some French
version of McDirt.

 

Agreed. Actually the A104 is better since the A86 is getting slow and is
only marginally better than the Periph during rush hours. And once you
are around Lyon and Vienne on the A7, you'll regret even the Periph.

 

There's a restaurant a couple of hundred yards away that sounds like
one to avoid - "La Marmite"... Eurgh!

 

It may not be a restaurant.

Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side...

 

Timo Geusch secured a place in history by writing:

I've stayed at some fantastic places found through Alistair Sawday's guides
- several amazing old chateaux that open their doors to make a bit of cash,
mostly on the bike because we need to crash somewhere on the way through
France. Have a look at:

http://www.sawdays.co.uk/maps/

....it's never let us down, much more interesting than hotels.

 

Bookmarked, thanks.

 

The one on the outskirts of Avize, owned by a Brit married to a Frog, is
very nice. They make Piersen Whittaker Premier Cru champagne in the cellar,
so you get a tour & tasting. The only drawback is Avize itself. The
surrounding countryside is nice but the village is very drab, being one of
the agro-industrial centres for champagne production. As Sawday says,
you'll need to go to Epernay in the evening as Mme P-W doesn't do food in
the evening.
http://www.sawdays.co.uk/search/display.php?BookID=&PlaceID=PL62650
http://www.terroirlanguedoc.co.uk/productpage.php?prodid=93
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/28/nalco28.xml