How to get to La Renaudrie

It is a five-hour drive from St Malo; it takes us ten hours from the Channel Ports mainly via the north/south A10 motorway. Michelin’s website says that the journey takes seven and a half hours. (Wow).

 

From UK to St.Malo

The shortest way to get to La Renaudrie by car from UK is to use the St.Malo ferry route. Brittany Ferries operate crossings from Portsmouth to St.Malo. All year round, they depart Portsmouth around 20.30, arriving at St.Malo 08.15. You can be at La Renaudrie in five hours.

 

Note for SatNav users – When navigating by keying in La Renaudrie’s post code you might end up in Semoussac – about a mile away.

 

Airports – fly and hire

Bordeaux Airport is just under an hour to the south. is easy to hire a car on the Internet when booking your flight but make sure you rent the car from the airport, not from the town centre location.

 

La Rochelle is the other airport nearby and is about 1 hour 20 minutes to the north. Several low cost airlines all use this airport. RyanAir have a tie-up with Hertz, who are perfectly good but there can be queues of other RyanAir travelers at the Hertz desk.

 

The local traffic police are hot on enforcing the local 90kph speed limit on the dual carriageway particularly through and past La Rochelle. Otherwise the speed limits on autoroutes are 130kph in good weather or 110kph if it is raining.

 

Dual carriageways have a limit 110kph (or 100kph if wet) in the country and 90kph (or 80kph if wet) in towns. Other roads are 90kph (or 80kph if wet). We mention these as French speed cops love to ‘bag a Brit’.

 

Train – and hire

There are TGV high speed rail services Angouleme and La Rochelle (www.raileurope.co.uk). Angouleme is slightly closer.