The Christmas weekend will be particularly busy on the roads. And the bad weather shouldn’t help anything.
Who says Christmas says gifts but also traffic jams. Like every year, millions of French people will take their car to get together with family or friends and share a good holiday meal. As December 25, 2023 falls on a Monday this year, the weekend of 23-24 risks being particularly busy on the roads, starting on Friday since many families will anticipate their departure, sometimes even before the start of the school holidays. scheduled for December 22 in the evening.
If you are planning to travel by car, be aware that Friday and Saturday are classified orange by Bison Futé at the national level, but red in Île-de-France as well as in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region on Friday. To make matters worse, the weather forecast does not predict anything good this weekend in a large part of the north and north-west of France, with a softening in temperatures but a lot of rain. Heavy traffic, precipitation and darkness before 5 p.m., everything combines to lengthen travel times.
To prevent the holiday journey from turning into a nightmare, a few little tips are recommended. This will especially be the case if you are preparing to leave Paris and its region (or cross it) to head towards Lyon. This is the busiest route according to the agency. Friday, like Saturday, the first kilometers of the A6, up to the toll gates, will be done slowly. Bison Futé therefore recommends leaving the Paris region before 10 a.m. on Friday. If you only have to take the road this Saturday, do not do so after 6 a.m. and until 7 p.m. in the evening.
Further down, the Rhône valley will be stormed by numerous vacationers heading for the ski resorts. Traffic on the A7, between Lyon and Orange, will be very complicated between 12 p.m. and midnight on Friday 22 and between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday 23. Also note that the portion of the A6 between Beaune, in Burgundy, and Lyon is heavily not recommended all day Saturday.
Travel on major routes nationally will normally be much less numerous on December 24 and 25. Be wary, however, if you have a trip to make around large cities – such as Paris, Lyon, Lille, Marseille or Strasbourg – on New Year’s Eve and late in the morning on Christmas Day. Two days which traditionally experience strong peaks in traffic when guests go to their hosts for the day to share long and copious holiday meals. A trip of usually 10 minutes can very quickly turn into a journey of half an hour, or even more. If you don’t want to miss the start of the meal, a little anticipation is necessary…