The N-roads IME are variable. Some are great, some are absolutely terrible. Some are as quick as the toll roads too! In truth, it's good to do a mixture and to check out the routes for yourself.
Years ago, I did a roadtrip which you can read about here. In the M3 I've done the following kind of trips:
1) 500 miles down to the 'ring
2) Shy of 500 to Spa
3) 2,000 miles round-trip to Spain and back.
The latter was interesting. Going down, we did the Autoroutes and a few N-Roads. That was not a bad way to get to Pamplona in a day from Calais. When we came back, we did Benidorm to Bordeau on just side roads. Maybe I'm different here, but both I and my passenger were ready to kill someone after that (I am joking there, but you get the idea). The roads got crappy, narrow, and the towns busy. After 11 hours behind the wheels, we were exhausted! We still would have to go to Bordeaux to Calais the next day as well. Not a short trip, especially when you are back at work the next day after you come back; getting time off for myself and my mate is tricky. That wasn't a problem for the teacher in the Z4. Ah, the joy of long weeks.
That was in a car which could eat up miles, have great A/C, music, and be a thrill on the right country roads.
In a DS it wasn't too bad, but we didn't purely do N-Roads and go through towns, and neither did we go out of our way to avoid toll roads at all costs.
Here's an overview of that trip:
forum.retro-rides.org/thread/198160/wine-tour-france
Years ago, I did a roadtrip which you can read about here. In the M3 I've done the following kind of trips:
1) 500 miles down to the 'ring
2) Shy of 500 to Spa
3) 2,000 miles round-trip to Spain and back.
The latter was interesting. Going down, we did the Autoroutes and a few N-Roads. That was not a bad way to get to Pamplona in a day from Calais. When we came back, we did Benidorm to Bordeau on just side roads. Maybe I'm different here, but both I and my passenger were ready to kill someone after that (I am joking there, but you get the idea). The roads got crappy, narrow, and the towns busy. After 11 hours behind the wheels, we were exhausted! We still would have to go to Bordeaux to Calais the next day as well. Not a short trip, especially when you are back at work the next day after you come back; getting time off for myself and my mate is tricky. That wasn't a problem for the teacher in the Z4. Ah, the joy of long weeks.
That was in a car which could eat up miles, have great A/C, music, and be a thrill on the right country roads.
In a DS it wasn't too bad, but we didn't purely do N-Roads and go through towns, and neither did we go out of our way to avoid toll roads at all costs.
Here's an overview of that trip:
forum.retro-rides.org/thread/198160/wine-tour-france