Driving Avignon to Dordogne Valley in June

I believe it will be easier for people to give you useful suggestions if you specify exactly where you are headed in the Dordogne.

Carcassonne seems to be just before the midway point between Avignon and Sarlat-la-Caneda [s[spelling corrected] if you take a southerly route. Toulouse is beyond midway. Toulouse is a very pretty city, but largish and probably not terribly convenient as a short stop-over when you have a car.

We will stay in Beynac

ViaMichelin gives a time of 5 hr. 26 min. for Avignon-Beynac, and that's with no stops, so I'd guess it will actually take over 6 hours. For some reason (perhaps tolls?) VM instead recommends the southerly route through Carcassonne/Toulouse, which is estimated at 5 hr. 56 min.

The faster route goes near Millau, which I think is where the famous viaduct is located. I vaguely recognize the names of the towns Rodez and Figeac, also along that route, but don't know anything about them.

A third option would be to head toward, but not quite as far as, Millau then branch west past Albi before going north on what I am referring to as "the southerly route". This adds over an hour to the trip (7 hr. 2 min.), but Albi is an interesting place with a very good Toulouse-Lautrec Museum and other worthwhile sights. It's a more manageable size for a quick stop than Toulouse.

Please note that Albi and Toulouse can be miserably hot in June. That's what I experienced in June 2017. So you might like to have a plan for a hot day and a separate plan for a more normal day.

We drove from L'Ombriere, a lovely B&B outside of Beynac, into Belcastel, close to Rodez. This delightful 1300 year old village was charming and NOT a tourist stop at all ! We loved it and it was one of our favorite villages during our 2 week drive through France.

We then drove down through Uzes, another charming village, and into Le Thor to Les Carmes, another fabulous B&B, for our time in the Vaucluse region to visit Menerbes, Roussillon, Bonnieux, Vaison, and the Cotes du Rhone.

We totally enjoyed this route and did not miss the "highway" at all !

We stayed at Hotel du Grand Ecoles in the Latin Quarter. It was steps from a grocery store, tons of restaurants, lively streets, and just blocks from the metro. It was a perfect location and the garden in the center was a QUIET reprieve from a noisy city - we drank wine there every night.

Here's another vote for Hotel des Grandes Ecoles in the Latin Quarter of Paris. We luckily saw it listed in the RS guide to France in 2014. The next edition gave lodgings only in a few neighborhoods of Paris, the Latin Quarter not being one of them. Hotel des Grandes Ecoles books up fast; they have a system of making rooms available only a certain time period in advance, so check the website now if you are interested. The only caveat, since you'll be there in June, is that some people on this site said the lack of a/c is problematic if the weather in Paris is hot.

We drove from Provence (Saint Didier) to Sarlat two weeks ago. Friday, we stopped at Parc Ornithological for flamingos and a picnic (cash only admission fee), made a quick stop at Saint Maries-du-Mar just so we could say we saw the Mediterranean, stopped for about an hour at Aigues-Mortes, and arrived in Carcassonne late afternoon with plenty of time to enjoy the medieval Cite. We stayed at Hotel Donjon in the Cite for two nights because we wanted to see the Cathar castles, otherwise one night would have been plenty.

Sunday, we used mainly auto-routes for efficiency. We spent a couple of hours at Saint-Cirq-la Popie which is a lovely small medieval town, then drove on to Sarlat, arriving late afternoon.

Thanks
We will be driving from Avignon Train station and in Beynac-et-Cazenac for 5 nights then drive back to Uzes for 10 days
Great suggestions here
Always hard to plan way ahead but already the suggested Paris hotel is full
Need a safe place in Paris, reasonable for my daughter and her 9 year old triplets.rather than book air bb

If Carcassonne is not your thing, Albi has a great deal of charm and some interesting sights, including historic links to the Albigensian Crusade and the Toulouse-Latrec museum.

Hi from Wisconsin,
The Dordogne...has a tributary called the Lot...which has a tributary called the Cele. Each gets smaller and more undeveloped with fewer tourists. Doesn't mean less beautiful. I think the Dordogne has its reputation for the Hundred Years War and its castles and the wide road for tour busses. That means tourists and more tourists, and larger hotels and restaurants for tourists...

The Lott ( I don't think it is in Rick's tour book of France) is really quite nice. And the Cele is definitely not in Rick's book. But it is fantastique. Very cozy. Instead of the wide expanses of the Dordogne with traffic back ups, you have narrow river valleys with small villages that could use a tourist or two. Prehistoric cave paintings in a small town. The real thing not a museum quality repo.

This is not half way. Carcassonne is half way and the castle is a Disney like experience, If you want a T-shirt or a pastic sword. This is a good place. The town is worth a visit. On the other hand, Albi is a more serious place. Its cathedral was built to intimidate. Read about the Cathars and the slaughters of Albi and Carcassonne by good Christians.

We loved the area of the these three rivers. You will enjoy too, I am sure. But go exploring into these smaller river valleys. And into the hills on either side of them. Shockingly beautiful.

wayneiNWI