Tour of France in March?

I wouldn't expect anything worse than rain on your route, but you may get a lot of rain.

Arles, in the Spring, gets the seasonal winds (Mithral?) that can blow hard for days.

That is a of logistics to enjoying being there. Lot of road time. Weather? Probably rainy. Not a great time of year for the Dordogne. Note that many small hotels in our experience are not yet open that early so be sure you have scouted out where you will stay and made reservations -- if you want to not tie yourself down at least book a day or two ahead from the road. It may be less problem now than years ago, but we once feared we would be sleeping in our car in late April as we went from hotel to hotel on our list and they were closed for the season still.

England.krista,
I wouldn't expect snow, but, yes, plenty of rain, at least in Normandy/Paris. I do question going to the Dordogne in your time frame. Please don't underestimate the time it may take to drive from place to place. You will probably lose a whole day going from Normandy to the Dordogne area....not completely driving, but checking out and checking in to lodgings, gas and meal and comfort stops. etc. Where in the Dordogne region do you plan to go? It is larger than most of us realize, until we go there, although easy to drive around on the smaller roads connecting the towns and sights. No autoroutes within the typical area you would likely visit.

Is your departure from the US on the 14th? If so, your first full day in London will be the 16th, after your flight and arrival activities getting situated in London on the 15th, Two full days there put you in Paris on the 18th (4 nights). The 22nd will take you to Normandy, (three nights). The 25th will take you to the Dordogne and the 28th Arles (3 nights). The 31st is your flight home. If you arrive on the 14th, that moves everything up a day, so less crunch time.

In the Dordogne, many of the things you may want to see could be closed at that time (although Lascaux II is likely to be open and there will be markets to visit). Not to put a damper on it, but in my opinion the Dordogne isn't a good choice based on your time frame and the time of year. It is an outlier of sorts in your itinerary. I suggest researching this leg of your trip to pin down a town to stay in and see what is open to visit. Maybe someone else could chime in here regarding the distance and road options from Normandy to the Dordogne and the Dordogne to Arles.

Just a last minute thought. If I remember correctly, France changes to daylight savings time one or two weeks after the US does, so that may affect your daylight hours (or not!).

England.Krista,
The website viamichelin.com was very useful in planning our driving routes from place to place. It usually shows about three options and indicates the scenic ones, the fastest ones, etc. Time and distance (averages) and tolls are included. GIve it a look to help in your planning. Just enter your start location and destination and mode of transport.
Bonne chance!

englund.Krista,
Apologies for misspelling your name. Autocorrect needs to be disciplined!

I was in Provence for the month of March 2024. One spectacular rainy, horizontal windy afternoon in Arles. The other 29 days were phenomenally sunny. That said November 2021 Paris, glorious weather, sun, sun, sun! November 2023 Paris, rain/mist/drizzle every day but 4 days! I don't know that previous weather stats matter much anymore.

Thank you all so much for your replies. We've been using Google Maps to calculate driving times, but those times might be a little off because there is no traffic at the time of day that we are researching because France is all asleep! We do plan to book all our accommodations ahead of time. Really wanted to see the caves in Dordogne and Roman ruins in Provence, but maybe we will look to stay in the north to reduce travel distance/times.

We are from the west coast of British Columbia (rainforest) so we live by the motto: there is no bad weather just bad clothing.