Amsterdam to Bordeaux,
a two-day drive by design.
More than ten hours at the wheel and over a thousand kilometres of it. We quote this one as two days with a night on the way, because the alternative is arriving in the Gironde too tired to enjoy a single glass of anything.
Ten hours twenty, before anybody stops for lunch.
There is no honest way to dress this up as a day trip. 1030 kilometres is 10h20 of driving on an empty road, and roads through the Paris basin are rarely empty. Counting rest breaks and the crawl around the capital, a straight-through attempt is a fourteen-hour day that ends with everyone silent. So we plan it properly, in two stages, and price it as one thing.
What makes the drive worth booking is the other end. Bordeaux without a car is a city you can walk; Bordeaux with a car is the Médoc, Saint-Émilion, Pessac-Léognan and the Bassin d’Arcachon, none of which are served by anything convenient. Arriving in your own car with your own chauffeur means the wine country starts the morning after, not after a rental desk and an insurance argument.
South through Antwerp and Brussels into France, the A1 to the Paris ring, then the A10 by Orléans, Tours, Poitiers and Angoulême.
Driving only, before breaks. Split across two days it becomes roughly six hours and then four and a half — both easy.
The one-way figure for the whole car, all in. The two-day arrangement is quoted from the same base with the overnight added.
Because the distance passes a thousand kilometres, every booking here is confirmed by a person rather than by a form. Send the dates and the arrival address on WhatsApp and dispatch replies with the full itinerary and one price.
How the two days usually fall.
You choose where the night lands. These are the versions that work best in practice.
A morning departure, Antwerp and Brussels before the worst of it, and into France by midday. Lunch is wherever you want it rather than wherever the service station is.
We aim for a night short of or just past Paris — Reims, Chartres and Orléans all work well. Anything further south means a heavier first day for no real gain.
Four and a half hours through the Loire and the Poitou, past Tours, Poitiers and Angoulême, with the vineyards starting well before the city does.
Your address in Bordeaux — a hotel by the Grand Théâtre, an apartment in the Chartrons, or an estate outside the ring road. Bags carried in, car put away, chauffeur briefed for the days that follow.
The figures below are the one-way price for the entire car. At this distance, rear space is not a luxury question but a practical one.
Tasting days once you are there are billed as hourly hire, not per kilometre: €65 an hour for Business Class, €80 for Van Class and €100 for First Class, minimum two hours, 40 kilometres included in each. An hourly day has to begin and end in the same city, which a round trip from your Bordeaux hotel does.
Margaux, Saint-Julien, Pauillac and Saint-Estèphe sit in a line up the D2 through the Médoc. Appointments run long, gravel drives are unkind to small cars, and nobody at a tasting should be the one driving back.
East of the city the country changes and the villages get steeper. The limestone streets of Saint-Émilion are closed to most traffic, so being set down at the edge and collected afterwards is simply how it works.
Bordeaux rebuilt its riverfront around the Place de la Bourse, the miroir d’eau and the Cité du Vin at Bacalan. A short hourly booking covers an afternoon of it without anyone hunting for a parking space.
The other long south-western run, down the A20 through the Limousin.
The first third of this journey, priced and bookable on its own.
What a multi-day, multi-country booking looks like from the dispatch side.
The rates and rules for the tasting days once the driving is behind you.
Because 10h20 of driving plus legally required rest does not fit into a civilised day. Split over two, each half is shorter than an ordinary working commute in traffic, and you step out in the Gironde able to do something with the evening. We will quote a single day if you insist, but we will say this first.
Somewhere between Reims and Orléans, depending on your departure time and where you would like to eat. You book your own room; the chauffeur arranges their own, and that cost is already inside the quote rather than added afterwards.
That is the main reason people bring a car this far. Estate visits run on appointments and long lunches, and the roads through the Médoc are narrow and slow. Hourly hire covers those days at €65, €80 or €100 an hour by class, with a two-hour minimum.
Yes, within what the boot and the law allow for personal quantities. A Van Class will take cases that no airline would let near a hold without a bill. Tell us in advance if the return leg will be substantially heavier than the outbound one.
Usually, because the car is already there and the positioning is planned once instead of twice. Waiting days in Bordeaux are charged at a lower daily rate than driving days. Dispatch works the whole shape out and gives you one figure for the round trip.