planning an alpine summer trip, car advice please?

[markcoopers]

Been wanting to drive the alps in summer for years, so 2013 is the year where i will get my finger out and get it organised. However i have a family and it is important to me that they too come along (we do boys weekends away separately), so need some advice on what i am planning.

I am lucky enough to own a Ferrari Mondial T coupe, and the kids are not that big so we do fit in it comfortably, but she is knocking on a few years and while driving the Alps will be fun i can not see 2 days down and 2 days back with 4 of us in the car as fun....far from it in fact. During the alps, what with stopping for pics and food i suspect we will only do 1 hour stints in the car at a time, so no big issue, but 6-8h slogs on the way down and back do seem a bit unfair on the kids.

So the other option is to fly down to Milan on easy jet, then hire something convertible or fun. Hertz seem to offer a few interesting cars, but does anyone know of a truly epic hire car or have any better suggestions as this will probably be a once in a life time trip, so worth spending a bit on to do it right.

Also any advice on motor rail options?

Cheers,

mark j

[plenty]

This is a good overview of rail options

[markcoopers]

now that is good info, cheers.