What’s it like atm? I mean for getting petrol/diesel at stations. We usually fill up in Pontarlier and then have to do a splash and dash on the way to Calais before filling up again in Calais. But the last time we went to our station in Calais (Total by Junction 3 of the A16) it was shut; I know they were having supply problems in September. We’ll be travelling again at the end of the month and I’d just like some idea of how easy/difficult it’s going to be to refuel given all the strikes and protests going on in France. I know one of the stations on the motorway early last year when we travelled didn’t have any fuel, but the rest seemed to be okay.
We come across via Clermont/Bx several times a year (last trip was last month), so very different route to yours, but we never buy petrol on the motorways (and Total has had supply problems this year). Intermarches in the federal Village Etape scheme are generally much cheaper, and they are by definition close to motorways. As we log thousands of km each trip, it makes quite some savings, and the stops are sometimes delightful…see, e.g., Donzenac. You might try searching your route:
Yeah, we don’t usually get it on the motorway, but the latest Qashqai has a smaller tank than the previous models (55 instead of 65) so we do need to do a splash and dash just to be on the safe side.
Do the Intermarches accept Swiss credit cards? I’ve never been able to get my MasterCard one to work at the Profil station in Pontarlier, but Visa seems to be okay.
We have never had a problem using Swiss cards at the Intermarches in France and we have been using them for around 14 years, they even accepted the maestro cards.
We've used our Swiss cards in Poligny and Donzenac Intermarches without issue. The machine even knows what card we're using and switches to English when a US card is inserted!
Just came back from central France (the Lot) over the weekend, having travelled there just before Easter.
No problems getting fuel - in fact, less problems than usual as Diesel can sometimes be not available.
Kind regards
Ian
We're off tomorrow on our second etape, Tarragona---> Franche Compte. I'll report on availability once we've refueled in Poligny on Thurs. Not expecting any problems except a change to the warm sunshine we've enjoyed for 7 weeks!
Update to this. We didn’t have any problems getting fuel in the end. And we even managed to pick the cheapest motorway rest areas to refuel in as well: Air du Pont and Air d’Urvilles going out and Soummesous coming back. The Total at Calais was also fine so no problems filling up there either.
Update: Coming through our usual route last week, there were signs on the motorway that warned of no sans-plomb for 100km. We found it easily by driving off to a near tiny town to an Intermarche. Those signs are only for the overpriced motorway biggies.