toll roads driving from Paris to Brittany

There were rest stops on the highways we drove to Normandy on, which is one of the two routes google is showing me is the same route you would take. They had place to eat or stuff to grab on the go. I believe they call them "aires" over there.

They accept credit cards with chips except when the machine is defective or otherwise can't read the card. There are lanes where you can pay with card or cash and we tried to pick those.

The A routes have rest stops, both places with picnic tables and not much else as well as places with a restaurant, convenience store and gas station.

Do the toll booths accept credit cards with chips? The answer is yes and no. I just got back from Burgundy/Alsace and had no trouble at all with toll booths. In Normandie I didn't have as good of luck. Generally each toll booth took a couple minutes of putting in multiple cards multiple times and finally something worked. I only had to resort to cash one time. I think the problem is they time out before they get an answer from a US bank and decline the transaction. If you try more than once, it seems to help. I've had a number of transactions where it says declined but seems to accept the transaction anyway - the gate goes up and that's all I care about.

As the previous posters said, there are rest stops along the Motorways. They are spaced no more than 20 km apart to encourage drivers to get out and stretch. Some are just rest areas, with toilets and picnic tables. Some are more comprehensive, with gas and food in addition to picnic tables and toilets. Gas will be more expensive on the Motorways than off of them, but there is something to be said for convenience. Rest stops outside large cities are more likely to be crowded and dingy.
All of this information and more is easily accessible on the internet. I searched "french autoroute aires" and found lots of sites with lots of different takes on the subject (rating them, mapping them, etc.).
It wouldn't be hard to get off, go into a town and get back on, if that's what you want to do.
As for tolls, we had no trouble paying with our chip card last summer but we always carry cash just in case.
Also, it's my understanding that Brittany enjoys an old concession from France, that there be no tolls on any road in Brittany, although that would apply to only a small portion of the drive from Paris to Dinard.
Bon voyage.

Plot your route on the viamichelin.com site. It tells you exactly where the tollbooths are and how much they are at each stop. We had read of others having problems with using the American chip cards, so we just got coins and it was very easy. I didn't want to risk getting stuck in a lane with a credit card that didn't work.

We just returned from a week in Normandy and Brittany. Correct, there are no tolls on any roads in Brittany.

Our credit and debit cards were only rejected once in a toll plaza. The tolls do add up, some were as high as 8-10 euro (I live in a part of the US where tolls are not the norm, so paying to drive on a road is a new concept).

And one gas station in a toll plaza rejected our cards and we had to pay cash. I think it was Shell brand gas.

I agree with last posters. Find out ahead of time how much you're likely to need for tolls and carry a bag of coins/small bills in your glove box. I did the same thing because I didn't want to hassle with a credit card that might not work in the machines. I figured why take the chance, it's easy to get enough coins, either at the airport or when you get change for using larger bills for purchases (not real large bills, that won't always work, but 5-10 € bills).

Brittany is an exception in France when it comes to roads. Decades ago it was negotiated to keep Brittany's roads free. So they're call "quatre-voies" and don't charge tolls nor do they have rest stops. You just drive off to the town to fill up or eat. Your situation is very different from the other posters' situations, except for the one person who actually drove in Brittany.

Bets, while there may not be tolls while IN Brittany, the poster was asking specifically on driving from CDG TO Brittany. And unless they take back roads, I don't believe there is a way to avoid tolls to actually get there.

You are right. I just looked it up. Though we've taken the N12 from Paris, which is free and becomes a four-lane, I don't remember how complicated it was. OTOH, Viamichelin does indeed put the car on autoroutes, the best for avoiding Paris goes all the way north into Normandy, past Caen and then drops back down to the Normandy/Brittany border! Yikes. That's quite a haul, too.

Thanks for all the good advice!

I hope you don’t drive jetlagged directly after a long distance flight from CDG?