Driving back from Corvara - doable in one day?

A snowHead

Hi there

Now that we have returned from this year's skiing, thoughts are turning to next year's holiday (which will be our first one over half term). We have already booked accommodation in Corvara but now have to look into our travel options. We can fly into Venice but that is still going to be 3+ hour transfer so we were thinking of driving instead. The holiday runs Sunday to Sunday, so travelling out would be no problem. However, I am just a bit daunted by the thought of driving back all on the one day in order to get daughter back to school on the Monday. The transfer from Innsbruck would be less, but out of our 3 trips involving Innsbruck over the last few years we have only manged to land there once.

Any guidance would be most appreciated.

A snowHead

With two fairly tireless drivers you could probably do it. I am not fazed by long distance driving and regularly drive on my own in one hop from the French Alps to home (2.5 hours from Dover). I have driven from the French Alps to the Dolomites twice, for the Snowheads Birthday Bash. Having looked hard at the options I decided I couldn't drive home in one day from there - even with two drivers it would indeed be intimidating. I'd go for the Venice transfer, personally!

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One of the issues you will face (unless you leave early) if you drive back from Corvara will be the queues in the Val Pusteria valley to get onto the main A22 autoroute North of Bressanone. Not sure if its busy on Sundays but Saturdays in ski season are very busy with long queues

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That's a loooong drive. Most of those that I know have stopped somewhere en route. I tend to ski the last day, stop over in Innsbruck (sub 2 hour drive) and then drive a leisurely 6 hours home. Calais is another 5-6 on top of that.
Innsbruck is generally more convenient for Corvara than Venice. I've never had an issue flying UK-Innsbruck. But there was one flight for a sH bash that got rerouted due to fog one year, but it was a glorious day in Innsbruck when I was eating my breakfast, watching all the SAS and Norwegian planes landing.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

We would plan to leave no later than 0730 hrs - would that be early enough? I had a look on Google Street View at, I presume, the Val Pusteria valley route. It looked very pretty but it seemed a long way on the equivalent of an A Road and not the usual shorti-ish hop that we have had in the past when driving to resorts.

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@jimmybog, yes the Val Pusteria junction (and road) is a 'mare on Saturday am. Never had an issue on a Saturday afternoon or evening. I would imagine Sunday would be fine too, but with a schedule that the OP will have, they'll either be leaving at 6am missing any queue anyway, or saying sod it and checking out the night before, and killing a few hours off the journey and stopping somewhere to get a head start.

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@CaurnieBred, that road down from Corvara to Brunico and along the valley from there to the Brenner pass is fine.
Bonus is there are no high passes and virtually no hairpin bends to worry about.
Arabba-Innsbruck is about 2 hours (including a pass of many hairpins and snow), so Corvara-Innsbruck must be 1hr30 unless you find that traffic jam.
It's an A-road, but it's mostly a good, and recently rebuilt A-road.

After all it is free

Since you would have to leave really early Sunday morning anyway, wouldn't it make sense to finish skiing Saturday afternoon, have a quick shower and change back at your accommodation and set off Saturday night having a hotel 4 to 6 hours in?

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Thanks everyone.

kat - that would be the sensible thing but it would mean missing dinner and paying for that night's accommodation which I thought I could avoid (husband already suggested it as an option).

The other part that preys on my mind is what if one of us has an injury that means we can't drive - it is an automatic but even still . . .

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@CaurnieBred, if you are both tireless drivers you could take a chance. If it doesn't work and you need to stop overnight, daughter will miss a day's school. Not a big drama.

The risk of losing a driver to injury is always there. My niece, not a confident driver, had to drive all the way back from the Alps, in heavy snow, with OH high on painkillers with a collar bone broken the previous day. Having had to sort out all the medical and insurance stuff, clean the apartment and load the car herself.

She coped, as we do, when things go wrong.

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Make sure you have good AA/RAC etc. coverage.
I have ADAC (the AA equivalent for those of us in Germany), which even without any ski or travel insurance or anything covers repatriation of my car, and travel by train (or plane for UK), if either I or my car become broken.

If its daylight, you should be able to do a 12 hours drive.

You know it makes sense.

It's 12 hours driving to Calais. Plus stops. Plus an hour in transit, then a couple more hours up to London.

If all goes well.

But yes, doable with two drivers provided they trust each other and will have a proper rest when not driving. wink

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I'd be inclined to do the journey over two days and let your daughter miss one day of school on the Monday. I would notify the school in advance.

I went to the dolomites by coach once Toofy Grin

A snowHead

fly to verona!
monarch are doing cheap flights from manchester
and its about a two hour transfer.

A snowHead

@rasputinuk, I don't think transfer from Verona would be much shorter than from Venice.

@CaurnieBred, it is a long long drive to do in a day.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Doable but tough, as set out above. And your daughter will be tired...

What about flying to Venice and renting a car for the transfer so you shorten it? I've just done that for four days in Arabba, I think it won't break the bank.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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With 4 drivers we drove as far north as Reims from Corvara and we were pretty tired. That was in summer with perfect weather and no significant traffic to speak of.I wouldn't consider driving to the UK in one go with 2 drivers. It's at least 13 hours of actual driving time, plus stops. Even if you are brutally efficient, hit zero delays and no bad weather you are still looking at a journey of 15 hours or more, and that's just to Calais. Sounds like an utterly miserable way to end a holiday to me.

There are lots of flight options - Innsbruck, Venice, Verona, Bergamo, and even Munich (it's a longer drive to Munich but there are lots of cheap flights on scheduled airlines - Lufthansa still carry skis for free too).

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I am slightly baffled that an extra hours transfer is thought of as off putting but an eighteen hour or so drive the day before school and possibly work is a solution. Puzzled

After all it is free

After climbing in the Dolomites one year we went to venice for a day sight seeing then drove back direct from there overnight. No real problem just keep rotating the 2 drivers. However, it took two days to get back from Contina on my motor bike avoiding all motorways a few years earlier. Day 1 was 400 miles, day 2 600. 600 miles on a bike in a day is hard work.

T-Bar - that is just the transfer itself - we would still have to factor in the getting to airport, flying (including a transit) then hanging around the airport waiting for our transfer. Our flight to Innsbruck the other week was diverted to Salzberg which then entailed a 4 hour wait at the airport whilst we waited for the coaches and passengers to come up from Innsbruck, followed by a 3 hour transfer to resort. It looks like we would have similar next year if we waited for the transfer included in the holiday price. It just seemed like such a long time doing nothing if we could drive instead (and see a bit of the country on the way).

You have all confirmed my thoughts though - thank you.

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Last Saturday. left Selva Val Gardena at 05.45am as advised by many Germans staying in my hotel of the Saturday traffic chaos, so Sunday should be better, Brenner Pass at 7.15am, over into Garmish up to Augsburg. Got through Germany and into Luxembourg at 2pm, quick lunch and fill up. Would of made the Tunnel by 7pm, but had a pre booked over nighter in Charleroi, which we made by 5.30pm.
So I would say it is definitely doable.
I am the only driver and enjoy driving, especially on the continent. Doing a steady 80mph.

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Done this trip before from selva. We left on the Saturday after skiing and drove over the fern pass as far as Ulm. Stayed there in IQ hotel by the motorway and left at 730 am after breakfast. Made Calais by early afternoon and home in west London by tea time Sunday. It's a long drive in one day so the head start on the Saturday night really helped. Didn't have any less skiing. The hotel was about 70 euros so not much at all.

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Definitely doable. Drove back from San Cassiano last summer with 2 drivers, left about 7.30 and for 10pm tunnel with no problems and time for quick wine shopping near Calais. Not much in it timewise between travelling mostly through France or Germany, but the French tolls mount up.

Hey just did it from slightly further away 2 days ago. It took 13hrs and 13 minutes to Calais. It's a long day for sure and you need to have a clear run... Strasbourg is the way to go as the french motorways are much quicker and it's worth the tolls...

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

A snowHead

Recently I've had very little time to do nothing in an airport, although I don't do that much flying. Nowaday, unless you are delayed, by the time you clear security checks you hardly seem to have time to queue for a snack and at best you have a few minutes to kill before boarding. choose to drive, as we take our dogs, and we go for more than a week at a time. Serre Chevalier is not the shortest of journeys, but If it was for a week in Corvara, definitely a flight. We drove back from Arabba last Feb, as we'd been to SC for 3 weeks first and it was a very long day in the car. We stopped around 8pm close to Metz after leaving around 8.00am. We had a loo stop near the Brenner pass, a short lunch stop in Austria, and another loo stop mid-afternoon. Traffic around Stuttgart slowed us down, and a long diversion due to an accident. We couldn't even eat in the hotel resto when we got there as it was full. By the time we'd found somewhere to eat it made for a late night we didn't really need or want.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

[quote="kat.ryb"]

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Hi, I've just drove back from the Birthday Bash, we drove into Germany & stayed the night there. In the morning we left at 9.30am! Arrived in Manchester at 4.30am, so it's a long drive.
If I was doing a Sunday-Sunday holiday I would just fly, we drove to get extra skiing & we did 16 straight days on the slopes.
But it can be cost effective with a economical car, with 3-4 passengers.

Help!!

Driving back from Corvara - doable in one day?

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