Quickest route, Calais - Venice?

[dienamic]

It looks like I may have to drive to Greece for my hols in September, but don't want to cut into it too much with the journey. I've worked out I can leave Yorkshire after work Friday night and get the Chunnel about 1am Saturday. There's a ferry from Venice to Greece leaves 5pm Saturday (check in 3ish), which leaves me about 13 hours to drive across Europe. So what's the best/easiest/quickest route, averaging about 75mph to save on fuel. Sat-nav and RAC routeplanner give different ways, don't mind tolls - the quieter/quicker the better. Any help greatly appreciated!

Oh, and there'll be a couple of drivers so going 24 hours contant isn't a problem.

[Robert060379]

Train.

[bridgdav]

Leave the Calais ferry Port, go straight over the first roundabout.

That'll start you off.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Next

[Ayrton4ever]

I have done this trip 4 times, both summer and winter but it has been a number of years. At the time I was quite keen to avoid French tolls which are a major cost of the journey and I found at the time you could go 70-80 without major risk in non-toll French roads-not sure if this is true now.... Swiss tolls you cannot avoid (you buy a special sticker upon crossing the border) and in Italy it is worth paying to use the autostrada

DAY 1 ealry morning start 10-12 hours driving+ferry
London -Calais
Calais - St Quentin - Reims
Option 1(cheap) : Reims - St. Dizier-Nancy-Epinal-Mulhouse
Opton 2: Reims - Metz- Strasbourg - Mulhouse
Mulhouse- Basel - Luzern -San Gottardo tunnel- Lugano (sleep at Lugano, not Italy , less risk to have your car stolen!)

DAY 2 - around 4-5hrs
Lugano- Milano-Bologna-Ancona
i strongly suggest you take the boat from Ancona unless you want to sightsee in Venice (the time it will take you to Ancona is minimal compared ot the extra time on the boat)
Actually even better in my opinion to drive another 4 hrs on Day 2 and board a boat from Bari

DAY 3
Boat to Patra
Patra-Athens

hope this helps

[A2Z]

I did this in reverse last summer. (well almost, it was Lake Garda to Calais).

Looking back over my old route notes it was approx 800 miles and we stopped over for 2 nights but I think if we pushed we could have stayed over just 1 night. This was the end of out holiday so took the quickest route back over toll roads etc. We weren’t against the clock as much as you but we had a ferry to catch.

An outline of the route is
Italy
A4/E64 (Milan - Venice)
A2/E35 north towards Switzerland up the side of Lake Como.
Switzerland
A2/E35 through Switzerland (you will need a vignette here) but got held up for quite a while at the St Gottard Tunnel
France
Come out of Switzerland at Basel / Mulhouse (E60) (we stayed over in Colmar– nice place)
We were then heading for Lille but a more direct route will be
E25/A35 Strasbourg Metz
A4/E50 Reims
E17
E15 to Calais (all empty toll road)

Despite a hold up in Switzerland it was an easy drive. Don’t think I dropped below 80.

13 hours may be tight but doable. It is a long drive.

Edited by A2Z on Friday 6th February 18:49

[VTECMatt]

Just about doable in a day, I reckon if you do boring roads and only stop for petrol and a quick snack.

[dcb]

VTECMatt said:

Just about doable in a day, I reckon if you do boring roads and only stop for petrol and a quick snack.

http://www.viamichelin.com/

on its quickest setting reckons it's about 13 hours
and 1330 km.

Calais, Reims, Strasbourg, Basle, Luzern,
Lugano, Milan, Venice

[dienamic]

dcb said:

VTECMatt said:

Just about doable in a day, I reckon if you do boring roads and only stop for petrol and a quick snack.

http://www.viamichelin.com/

on its quickest setting reckons it's about 13 hours
and 1330 km.

Calais, Reims, Strasbourg, Basle, Luzern,
Lugano, Milan, Venice

Thanks for the advice everyone, the plan is to only stop for diesel, and boring road are fine for me for this trip!
We've looked at the Ancona ferry too, but due to it's departure time it will mean a stopover in Italy/Switzerland, which will just be wasting time. We might as well have our overnight on the ferry Venice to Igoumenitsa, then at least we're still travelling. 13 hours is leaving 2 for ferry check-in, so if we run to 14ish we should still be OK (hopefully!!). Luckily, the drive at the other end is a short run, we're not heading for Athens so we'll be off in Igoumenitsa, then a 2 hour drive down to Lefkas.