In my experience, the fastest (if not quaintest) route avoiding Paris heading north is bcn - la jonquera - carc - toulouse - limoges (sleep) - orleans - chartres - rouen - dieppe (very nice crossing approx 4 hrs) - newhaven. Total journey 17-20 hrs
I have a story about Rouen. One of my first "clubbing" stories, not that it was really clubbing of any description, but the absurd nature of it fits the same kind of bracket.
I was just entering sixth form and in the first fortnight of the first term, the lower sixth go on a "cultural trip" to Loire Valley. It's basically a thinly veiled attempt to assimilate the new intake of girls (only boys at my school years 7-11) but of course it descends into coupling-up and underage drinking. This is all speculative/largely exaggerated -
see this, as a reference - you hear the stories in the lower years and you look forward to when the time comes yourself, but you always expect it to be a bit naff.
Anyway, we cross the Channel on the ferry and it's all good. Somehow some of us manage to get served on the crossing. Of course, we're inexperienced and with low alcohol tolerance, so it doesn't take much to get us merry. On the other side, we drive for what seems like forever (probably only 4-6 hours in reality). Then the coach breaks down and in their infinite wisdom, the school hasn't sent a single French teacher or indeed French-speaker out of the six or so staff members who went (some of the students could actually speak French to a decent degree, but apparently this was considered improper to have them translate).
We got towed to a garage and were told that the replacements parts weren't readily available and the earliest the coach would be fixed was two days away = no Loire Valley for us. Insurance company put us up in a 2* in the closest town away until a replacement coach could be dispatched: Rouen.
The faculty, cleared dejected by the experience - and probably annoyed that their own drinking and bunk-up plans had been sabotaged - just gave us free-reign to do what we wanted. And that's exactly what we did. Havoc ensued.
It all started off so civilised, we even visited a lovely cathedral or at least an impressive church in the town centre. I can't remember what day of the week it was, but these trips were usually Monday-Friday, so not a weekend. Can't imagine that Rouen has much of a nightlife at the best of times, but during the week less so. Anyway, we were determined.
We found a gay bar - touchy territory for immature 16-17 y.o.'s who hadn't quite grasped nuance and their own sense of identity. They were happy to serve us, no doubt delighted that they had 20 eager drinkers in their venue on a Monday afternoon. Needless to say, we soon outstayed our welcome. Swiftly students got ejected one by one, finally resulting in a mass clear-out.
Next we decided it was probably wise to eat something if we were to carry on drinking. We found a mexican restaurant with a loco bar tender. He introduced us to Corona with a shot of tequila in the neck. Revolutionary at the time (to us, at least). So that kind of offset any hope of sobering up by eating.
By now it was dark and we had a midnight curfew. We went looking for a "club". We didn't find one, of course. What we did find was something called the Big Ben Pub - that presented itself as a British pub from the outside. Absolutely ghastly place, with 80s carpet on the f***ing walls. But again, they were happy to serve us, and they were playing french touch and commercial electro house. I have fond memories of being absolutely out of my box with all my mates to Benni Benassi - Satisfaction. Typically I would cringe at such a thought, but I knew no better at the time and I was having the time of the life.
We wanted to buy fags and - bizarrely - this is when we started getting questioned about our age.
Our new friend Gemma - one of the few of us who spoke French quite well - asked a group of guys at the bar if they would mind buying us some. She was a very attractive girl, but very petite - and clearly not 18. They start hitting on her and are all too happy to buy us fags for pimping our mate out. Soon we're doing shots with them and downing pints. I wish I could go back and watch this scene as a fly on the wall.
One or two of them are trying their luck with Gemma, and fair play to her she is entertaining them whilst maintaining her honour. They're chatting in French and of course, we can't understand a thing that's being said then all of the sudden Gemma starts laughing uncontrollably. She's in hysterics and we have no ideas what's been said or what's going on. Takes around 5 minutes for her to catch her breath and tell us what's so funny.
They're f***in' cops. All of them. They even show us their badges.
Final memory is us all dancing on the tables to Daft Punk Around the World before we had to race back to the hotel to be back just on the turn of midnight.
Such a funny night. Don't think the co-habitants at the hotels were all too impressed with the noise and mayhem when we got back.