Posted: Sat Aug 3, 2024 6:45pm
The advice to stop at Calais and start fresh is good. A refinement: stop in Calais, in other words get the tunnel behind you, and have a nice breakfast in France before continuing. The worst and most tiring part of the journey is the leg in the UK. French and Spanish roads are generally smoother, less traffic-y, with less crowded rest areas, often located in scenic spots, and frequently pretty darn good food. Important piece of advice: avoid Paris. I will say that again a little later. There are many modern, clean, comfy, safe, reasonably priced hotels purpose-built with nearby restaurants at most motorway junctions, and they will say whether they are happy with dogs -- most are, but they will say. Use Michelin's app, or Booking.com or similar to find, and reserve your hotels. How far you travel in a day is of course up to you, and your dog. From Calais it could be done in a looong day, easier in two moderately long days, or a doddle in three days. If you are trying to cover many miles/kilometers in a day, the toll roads offer an advantage as they are less tiring to drive.
Having done the major routes, using toll roads, and non-toll roads, I don't find much difference between them. Toll roads cost more (tolls) but are excellent roads. The major non-toll roads cost less but can be more tiring. I choose the toll roads, but thats a comfort and convenience choice. The most scenic route might be the one sort of down the middle, Clermont-Ferrand down through the Auvergne to Montpellier. How you get to Clermont-Ferrand is up to you (just remembering to avoid Paris), all the routes around Paris from Calais are of a muchness (remembering to avoid Paris). The eastern route by way of Lyon down to Avignon is also scenic, Alps in the distance for part of the way. Both of these routes join with the E15, the Mediterranean motorway, which offers the easiest crossing of the Pyrenees, and in Spain becomes the E15/A7 and the A7 basically takes you past Arboleas. The route around Barcelona can be tricky, useful to use satnav for this section, only because the E15/A7 seems to change names for short distances somewhat randomly, but the Satnav seems to know what to do. The Western route, Rouen down toward Bordeaux I think is less scenic by a bit (but beauty and beholder applies) and gets a little frantic crossing the Pyrenees but only for a short while. If you take this route your main concern is to avoid Madrid (not Paris this time, but just as bad). Whether you go around Madrid to the east, or to the west doesn't much matter, both diversions around Madrid end up at the A7...
I've always enjoyed the trip, whichever route has something to offer -- as long as you avoid Paris (and Madrid), and don't fret the details of hotels and restaurants en route.