If you are planning to drive down to the south of France you should be aware of the so called "black travel days" or "jour noire" in French. These are the days you should avoid at all costs if you do not want to sit in traffic all day long. Luckily you can! There is a website that has a nice calender which shows exactly when these black days are going to happen.
This website is a service of the French government and it is called the Bison Futé. Its website is here: http://www.bison-fute.gouv.fr/
Each year they produce a calender for the coming year. And they have done this for such a long time that you can count on it being correct. Thus if you see a black travel day on this calender, you can count on the roads being bumper to bumper, gridlocked, at a standstill. Unfortunally their website is only in French. Thus if you go to their homepage, search for a "calendrier" (calender). Red and orange days are not too bad, and can be done in a reasonable time period, but accidents are more likely. Green days are normal days, and they should be your ultimate goal as travel days by car in France.
Click to enlarge
Sens départ : de Paris vers
les métropoles régionales et
des métropoles vers la côte
(ou stations de ski en hiver)
Translation:
Departing directions: From Paris to the other big cities and from the big cities to the coast (or ski resorts in winter)
Sens retour : de la côte
(ou stations de ski en hiver)
vers les métropoles régionales
et des métropoles vers
Paris
Translation:
Returning directions: From the coast (or ski resorts in winter) towards the big cities, and from the big cities to Paris.
Dans le sens des départs, la circulation sera
très difficile au niveau national et extrêmement
difficile en Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Dans le sens des retours, la circulation sera
difficile au niveau national et très difficile
dans l'arc méditerranéen.
Translation of the example in the picture above:
On Saturday August the 5th, in the departing directions traffic will be very difficult all over the country, and extremely difficult in zone 4 (Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes). In the returning directions, the traffic will be difficult nationwide and very difficult in zone 6 (Mediterranean arch).
