Road trip… UK France Croatia

[JD82]

Sooooo I’m toying with the idea of doing a 3 week road trip starting in SW London and ending up on Rab in Croatia. Then back… Basically it’s visiting family so firstly driving to the Languedoc and then across to Croatia. Likely I will take all the luggage etc and partner plus 2 young kids will fly. I MIGHT take the 4 year old with me and leave baby with the planes but possibly that’s a terrible idea…

Anyone done similar? Thoughts, advice etc welcomed.

[bobtail4x4]

we did it 3 times about 10 - 15 years back,
down through germny and austria, avoiding french tolls,
4 drivers its a one day trip, a long day,

better to do a 3 day run,

the best run was hull rotterdam then down as we finished work got to hull just in time to board the ferry slept overnight etc,

we did dover etc but the traffic round london was dreadfull.

[sherman]

I would consider getting the ferry to Santander from Portsmouth and drive from there.
Your 4 year old will thank you for the break from sitting for 3 days in the car to get to the Laungdoc

[blue_haddock]

We did this last year, drove from Dunkirk to grado in Italy via Germany and Austria and then drove round to rovinj in Croatia for a week.

Was a nice drive split over 3 days each way.

[JD82]

Thanks all - was hoping to do London to Languedoc with just one overnight… this is in June btw. And for this leg I’d be the only driver. Then stay 7-9 days in France.

Languedoc to Rab looks almost as far again but a great route potentially and with driver number 2 so splitting the load. Back from Rab to UK I’d be the only driver again…

[JD82]

blue_haddock said:

We did this last year, drove from Dunkirk to grado in Italy via Germany and Austria and then drove round to rovinj in Croatia for a week.

Was a nice drive split over 3 days each way.

That sounds reasonable - where did you stop for the two nights?

[blue_haddock]

JD82 said:

That sounds reasonable - where did you stop for the two nights?

On the way down we stopped in Dover the first night then got an early ferry and headed to ulm in Germany for the second overnight and arrived in northern Italy on the third day.

We did a few days in Italy and then headed round to Croatia, the one place I absolutely loved was Trieste, such an amazing little city.

Coming back from croatia we stopped in Pforzheim the first night and the second night we stayed on the Belgian coast before an early ferry the next morning .

[theboss]

blue_haddock said:

JD82 said:

That sounds reasonable - where did you stop for the two nights?

On the way down we stopped in Dover the first night then got an early ferry and headed to ulm in Germany for the second overnight and arrived in northern Italy on the third day.

We did a few days in Italy and then headed round to Croatia, the one place I absolutely loved was Trieste, such an amazing little city.

Coming back from croatia we stopped in Pforzheim the first night and the second night we stayed on the Belgian coast before an early ferry the next morning .

Very similar for me in August. Left Porec for Ljubljana, Salzberg, stopped overnight South of Munich where I got to visit my Great Uncle in a war cemetery then the following night in Bruges where we took on as much beer as I could fit in remaining space in the car.

Generally when heading to/from Croatia I take A3 across Germany through Nuremburg down through Passau, Wels, Graz, Maribor and on to Zagreb but for the coast there's literally a thousand ways you could cut back across the Alps.

You’ll need motorway vignettes for Austria and Slovenia.

Edited by theboss on Sunday 17th March 08:57

[poosemon]

Were doing this this year, got the following sketched out and accommodation sorted;

Uk -> Aalst (just overnight in Aalst)
Aalst > Erding
Day in Munich
Erding > Lake Bled via Zell am See and Grossglockner Pass
Day around Lake Bled
Lake Bled to Split via the Plitvice Lakes
Week in Split
Split > Zagreb
Zagreb > Regensburg
Regensburg > Aachen via Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber and possibly the Michael Schumacher Collection near Cologne
Aachen back to UK

Longest leg is the aalst the Erding. Will see if we can get out find in time to make use of the therms at Erding.

Last year's trip was to Austria where we did Dunkirk>Stuttgart>Bregenz>Lake Attersee then on way back Attersee>Bonn>Bruges>UK

[elise2000]

Yes- we do the trip several times a year (Somerset to Hvar).

It’s a great trip. Particularly the south Germany/austria/slovenia part

We’ve done the trip with a one year old and it was fine. She’s now two and we’re doing it again in a couple of weeks time (along with the cat..)

It’s just about possible with one overnight stop around Frankfurt. Two nights is comfortable (one near Aachen and one near villach)

Edited by elise2000 on Sunday 17th March 09:28

[Traffic]

sherman said:

I would consider getting the ferry to Santander from Portsmouth and drive from there.
Your 4 year old will thank you for the break from sitting for 3 days in the car to get to the Laungdoc

Spain?

[sherman]

Traffic said:

sherman said:

I would consider getting the ferry to Santander from Portsmouth and drive from there.
Your 4 year old will thank you for the break from sitting for 3 days in the car to get to the Laungdoc

Spain?

3 hour to ferry
Overnight ferry
7 hours to Languedoc

[omniflow]

sherman said:

3 hour to ferry
Overnight ferry
7 hours to Languedoc

The Portsmouth -> Santander ferry is a little bit longer than "overnight". I think that outbound it's 2 nights on board.

Portsmouth -> St. Malo is an overnight ferry, but then it's an 8.5 hour drive according to Google maps. You would have the advantage of being on the road in France at 8am having had a decent nights sleep. You'd also be going nowhere near Paris or any other major cities, so very easy to do in one day.

From London you would be able to leave for the ferry at around 5pm, so that would be after work for most people.

[JD82]

Anyone have experience doing these trips alone? As in not sharing the driving…? Is that too ambitious?

And tunnel or ferry the preferred crossing to Calais? I did a ferry from Portsmouth once to Cherbourg.. years back.

[elise2000]

JD82 said:

Anyone have experience doing these trips alone? As in not sharing the driving…? Is that too ambitious?

And tunnel or ferry the preferred crossing to Calais? I did a ferry from Portsmouth once to Cherbourg.. years back.

Yes - I always do all the driving

Always Calais - then you’re on decent German roads in no time. No faffing on French roads with tolls and police

[rcspeirs]

I drove London to Rijeka last year (and back).
I took two days to drive to Milan (on my own) then my partner flew to Milan and we shared the driving from there. Two days driving big distances on my own was OK but I would not want to do more than that without being able to share the driving. Have you driven long distances on your own before?

Details.
- Our car has adaptive cruise control, I’d hate to go this far without it.
- We have the “bip and go” tag which covers toll booths (and some car parks) in France and Italy. Trying to operate toll booths on your own from a right hand drive car is a nightmare.
- The weather in the mountains can catch you out. I was crossing the Alps in the last week of April. A truck crash closed the tunnel I had been planning to use so I had to cross the Simplon pass (2,000m) just after a huge dump of snow. Sods law said that I had just had the winter tyres swapped back onto summers. Doing a pass at 0C in snow/sleet on summer tyres was “interesting”.
- We like to moan about our motorway service stations but plenty of the ones in Italy are dog rough.
- Italian driving is legendary. But it is even worse in some places - the tangentiale around Milan makes whacky races look tame.

[JD82]

Most I’ve done in one stint was 8 hours so I’ve not often done huge trips. Will be in a Lexus RX450h or possibly Disco4 or estate car.

Planning London to Languedoc solo - stay a week or so - then Languedoc to Rab, Croatia splitting driving, then back to Uk solo after a week or so there.

[theboss]

There are so many different places en route you really can just play it by ear. Some times we’ve taken 4 days to get home from that region because we want to take a detour around a few different Alpine passes and other times we have just changed the journey on the move because of traffic or weather eg last August there were horrendous storms in the region so we left Istria and it didn’t stop raining until Belgium with just a cheapo travelodge type thing booked last min near Munich. It helps me personally to have no firm plans and just adapt / work spontaneously.

All my driving has been with wife and 2-3 year old in the car.

500-600 miles per day is good going. Travelling on my own without kids I have done 800 but I wouldn’t put kids through that. Sometimes my missus flies over beforehand (she’s Serbian) and I drive over in the car and pick them up a few weeks later.

[thr32]

Afternoon all,

For a slightly different perspective on this, we did Rovinj a couple of years ago, and try not to go too far over 200 miles most days. We went:

Night 1: Harwich-Hook of Holland Ferry
Night 2: Ürzig for the Mosel valley
Night 3: Heidelberg
Night 4: Kitzbühel
Night 5: Naßfeld (via Großglockner)
Night 6+: Rovinj (via Naßfeldpass)

Night 1: Asolo
Night 2: Lana (as a change from Merano - both have a Forst pub so you can't lose)
Night 3: Lech (via Reschenpass & Timmelsjoch)
Night 4: Stuttgart
Night 5: Cologne
Night 6: home via Eurotunnel

TH

[Bill]

JD82 said:

Sooooo I’m toying with the idea of doing a 3 week road trip starting in SW London and ending up on Rab in Croatia. Then back… Basically it’s visiting family so firstly driving to the Languedoc and then across to Croatia. Likely I will take all the luggage etc and partner plus 2 young kids will fly. I MIGHT take the 4 year old with me and leave baby with the planes but possibly that’s a terrible idea…

Anyone done similar? Thoughts, advice etc welcomed.

Honestly? Bonkers...

Not the road trip, that's a piece of piss. The issue is doing the road trip with a bored 4-y-o or leaving your OH to fly with a 4-y-o and a baby.