European Road Trip - suggestions please

[james S]

Guys

Help and suggestions appreciated. I am planning a short road trip at the beginning of September (Wednesday afternoon – Sunday evening).

Given how much this is discussed here, I am looking for suggestions for places to stay and recommendation for routes.

We are leaving on the Eurostar around 3pm Wednesday, and planning to get a good few hours into France on the Thursday evening, stopping probably somewhere near Langres. On the Friday we’d like to push on the Chamonix / Mont Blanc so am looking or decent place to stay here.

We’d like to go on to North West Italy from here, putting in a bit day to get there. Not quite sure where to head to, so again any recommendations good here.
From here its time to head home. First thoughts are to press on though Switzerland and then hop back into France. Again any suggestions welcome for great roads and accommodation.

We are going to have about 300-400 miles on the Sunday and then back over the channel mid-afternoon, back in time to get to the pubs in time to tell the tale.

Any thoughts welcomed as we are very much at the early stages.

Thanks
James

[FarQue]

That's a lot of driving in a fairly short space of time. That's fine, but you may not get much chance to relax / put your feet up / find the fun roads / eat cake and drink strong coffee (or beer).

IME European motorways are better than the UK, but they're still motorways...

[Diesel130]

You'd be better off posting this under General Gassing / Roads...

NW Italy sounds a long way for that duration (although having done Turino and Milano over the last few years, can thoroughly recommend them).

We did Harwich->Hook of Holland overnight, then to Alsace in the day, via cheap(er) fuel in Luxembourg, arriving in Rickwahr around 5pm. Next Day was to Interlaken (for an afternoon of golf).. Next day we did the Furka, Grimsel and StGottard passes to get to Milan - just to give you an idea of timing. The more northerly parts are obviously the flattest and less interesting, so best to zip through those, but allocate more time to Alpine parts.

ETA.. See you have a GT2, so I guess you can cover a lot of ground in the time

Edited by Diesel130 on Friday 27th July 16:12

[Rockster]

If you drive in Switzerland be sure you have a road tax disc/sticker.

Sincerely,

Rockster.

[mhh]

If you do get as far as Italy, you'll love the roads that get you there there. I drove St Moritz>Bormio in my Avis 997.2 Carrera S Cab (with the roof off of course) and can't wait to go back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsxpcWlWtBI&fea...

[hornbaek]

Drive down to Monaco taking in the Route Napoleon on the way (effectively cutting out the corner around Marseilles). Go from Monaco to Genoa and cut up towards Lake Garda. Go along the Lake Garda towards Innsbruck and pass the mountains (not through the Brenner) but via Lana (stay at the Vigilius Mountain Resort) and then go over the Timmelsjoch into Austria. If you still want to drive by that time go right towards Kitzbuehl, Munich, Stuttgart and then via Luxembourg, Belgium and Calais home.

[Wild Card 911]

hornbaek said:

Drive down to Monaco taking in the Route Napoleon on the way (effectively cutting out the corner around Marseilles). Go from Monaco to Genoa and cut up towards Lake Garda. Go along the Lake Garda towards Innsbruck and pass the mountains (not through the Brenner) but via Lana (stay at the Vigilius Mountain Resort) and then go over the Timmelsjoch into Austria. If you still want to drive by that time go right towards Kitzbuehl, Munich, Stuttgart and then via Luxembourg, Belgium and Calais home.

Now thats what i call a good route! Excellent suggestion.

[FisiP1]

If you want to drive, stay in the French and Swiss Alps and forget Italy, too many routes to name.

If you need accommodation in Chamonix look at Quartz Apartments, perfect location and brand new with private parking, massive rooms, all have two balconies facing Mt. Blanc and the Glacier.

[james S]

Great guys thanks . Plenty of food for thought

[jackal]

Look at my alpine trip on my website if you want to know some amazing routes.

[CrazyTurboBeast]

Have a look on the gumbaw 2012 thread, we did some brilliant routes and it took 4 days (to get to Nice). Anything around the alps is brilliant, autobahns good but busy so don't expect to smash your top speed record.
Stay out of France if you can, they have tight speed limits and funny loooking speed camera's, so its hard to spot them at first. Plus variable speed limits wet and dry and if you are 50kph over the speed limit they can ban you and take away your car/license.

Keep your eyes open, especially in Germany and Italy. Germans pull out on the bahn with little or no warning even if you are putting in 100+. Italians will sit up your hoop even if you are waiting for a car in front to move.

Mind you standard of driving on continent generally is better than UK. People move over in europe.