Not sure where abouts in Berkshire you are but it only takes us just over an hour to get to dover from near heathrow! In terms of your insurance if you are fully comp in the uk then you will only be third party in france. To upgrade to fully comp you will need to phone your insurance and let then know your dates of travel and purchase a green card, just a green bit of paper, but it upgrades you insurance to fully comp. Think it was £12 when we went in May 06.
In terms of you AA cover this will also need upgrading although this is quite expensive, we risked it and went without
... I think i was quoted about £80 for european cover, i didnt really look around and this may have been for a year so might be worth looking into it???
You will also need to buy a warning triangle, these are law in france and also you will need to carry spare bulbs for all your lights, again this is a european law. You will also need to buy special stickers to put over your lights as you will be driving on the other side of the road and apparantly without these you will blind drivers going to other way... got something to do with them being on the other side of the road... still havent really figured this one out mysefl but DB said i had too so there you go... i just do as i'm told!!!
Also its a really nice drive, expect about three hours when you get off at the other end, there are toll roads (20 euro each way). its really well sign posted, once you have driven on french roads you will get a shock when you come home and get off the ferry!!!
