Summer road trip

A snowHead

Hi all,

Not sure if "the piste" is really the right place for this, but here we go.

I know we're only mid way through the Winter season, but our thoughts are moving ahead to planning a summer road trip/holiday.

We've got the first 2 full weeks in June off work, as we get the Thursday and Friday 2nd and 3rd of June off for bank holidays. We're in the van, but are planning to spend around 50-75% of the time in Airbnb's with some nights here and there sleeping in the van.

The plan is, drive down towards folkstone on Wednesday 1st June evening after work, sleep in the van then get Le Shuttle around 9/10 am on the Thursday morning.

From here, our plan is incredibly vague.

We have talked about a rough route of driving through Belgium and Luxembourg, down towards the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area in Germany. Then down towards Aosta, via Lake Como, and back up through the Chamonix tunnel towards Calais, and back to the UK.

Where we go and where we stay is pretty much a totally blank canvas from there.

Some info about us, we're both early 30's, and we'll have the dog with us (a Weimaraner). It's the girlfriend's birthday while we're away, on Tuesday 7th June, and I would quite like to be in the mountains for that, as i'm thinking i'll pay for us both to try a tandem paraglide to celebrate. We'll therefore need to be in an Airbnb/apartment at this point so we can leave the dog for a couple of hours, as we definitely can't leave him in the van. Last summer we spent 2 weeks in Scotland in the van, which we enjoyed, and we just mainly did loads of walking with the dog.

We like mountains, we like lakes, and we need to walk the dog. That's as far as our list of requirements go.

If you were in our shoes, what sort of places would you visit?

Thanks all for the upcoming advice!

A snowHead

Head to Innsbruck, across the Brenner pass, down to Lake Garda, across to Lake Como, Chamonix, Lake Annecy, Clermont Ferrand & Puy de Dome and head home.

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

Given the route you mention to Germany I would then swing South to Innsbruck. Worth a look at in itself with a funicular in the centre and surrounded by mountains. Then over the Brennero (Brenner Pass) and down towards Trento and Lake Garda.

As an alternative to the MB tunnel you can drive up through Northern Italy into Switzerland. Lucerne (from memory), Via Gotthard pass (if open) or through the tunnel. Basle , Mulhouse into France. Buy the Swiss vignette at the border then no further tolls to pay. (again IIRC)

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Thanks all for some of the suggestions.

Salzkammergut now liking like quite a probable for a stop as part of the trip.

My Germany and Austria knowledge is very low, having not been to Germany ever and only a few trips to Austria, so besides some of the well known ski resorts I'm pretty limited to know what to do or where to go.

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Stop at Baden Baden en route to Innsbruck. Lovely place and perfect distance…

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After all it is free

I’ve done a few van based road trips oriented towards biking (road and MTB).

We usually find a base for a week or two and do a few overnights/day trips to and from. In various trips we’ve had interesting stops in Ostend, Luxembourg, Osnabruck (diversion for a football match), Stuttgart, Regensburg, a random place in the Black Forest, Vienna, a random place between Dresden and Leipzig, Lake Garda, Beaune, Orleans, Le Toucquet.

Stayed for extended stays in Bourg d’Oisans, Oz en Oisans, Orelle, Saalbach, Wagrain and Schladming. The French extended stays have been timed alongside the Tour de France or road cycling. The Austrian places have been to mountain bike. All have enough going on for a good stays for non cyclists too.

Maybe check out Rothenburg ob der Tauber on the way through Germany, also the Berchtesgaden area (Hintersee at Ramsau is stunning, maybe the boat trip on Konigsee)

I'd skip Innsbruck for Salzburg, it has a more intimate setting.

I'd second the Salzkammergut, you have the bigger lakes and the alpine jewels like Hallstatt and Gosau (do not miss!).

Drop down through one of the Tauern tunnels (or over the Grossglockner if you like hairpins) to the Dolomites, base around Toblach, check out the alpine lakes Braies, Toblach, Landro, Misurina, then if you like hairpins, drive the Great Dolomite Road via Cortina, Arabba, Canazei and Lake Carezza to Bolzano. If you don't like hairpins, use the main road and motorway, but do a side trip into Val di Funes to see the classic Dolomite view of the Geislerspitze, then down to the N end of Lake Garda. Torbole is full of windsurfers, but Malcesine is probably the prettiest place on the lake.

Maybe take in the eastern shore of Lake Iseo on the way to Lake Como, the centre lake between Varenna, Bellagio and Menaggio is the best, as well the Villa Balbianello down on the fjordlike Como arm of the lake.

I wouldn't linger too long in Valle d'Aosta, hit France. Chamonix first. Annecy Old Town and its lake are lovely in Summer, a good spot for the paragliding I believe. Duingt is a pretty spot on the lake, though I think the paragliding is on the Talloires side.

On the way back, Riquewihr in the Vosges mountains or a Champagne vineyard tour near Epernay would be a diversion.

Did you say you had a couple of months?? Laughing

Plan it around the three alpine jewel lakes: Hintersee near Ramsau in Germany, Gosausee in Austria and Lago di Braies in Italy. All best in good weather. then hit the prettiest spots on three larger lakes, Malcesine on Lake Garda, Varenna on Lake Como and Duingt on Lake Annecy. Google the names, you'll see what I mean!

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Include the Timmelsjoch pass at Hochgurgl/Obergurgl…amazing road that drops you down towards Bolzano and if they manage to rebuild it in time the museum at the mountain toll gates (Topcross museum) has an amazing collection of classic motorbikes and cars (admittedly the fire they had 18 months wiped out a lot of the original collection but they’ve found new replacements)

I’ll probably pass you at some point in my classic Mercedes Eh oh!

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We drove a similar route a few years ago and spent 3 nights here.
https://www.natterersee.com/Living/5-Camping.aspx?gclid=Cj0KCQiAuvOPBhDXARIsAKzLQ8Fx5l18FvPu2NS168nejaTT6V_tiV1Ygh3H9echmRx4Ruk-SnOV6E4aAnrvEALw_wcB

Was one of the nicest campsites I have stayed in, and great for exploring the local area.

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@swskier, I’ve done similar trips several times, albeit on a motorbike. Vianden in Luxembourg is my favourite village for the first stop, great place to unwind and get into the holiday pace after all the rushing to get packed and get to the ferry. After that Cochem on the Mosel is a short hop and a bit touristy but a great place for sitting in bars drinking the local wine. Pushing on from there I’d head to Konstanz and then into Austria from there. Except for a 2 week holiday I probably wouldn’t get that far. You plan as it stands involved lots of long driving days and there’s lots of lovely lakes and good walking in the Mosel, the Black Forest and Alsace. Just writing this post has given me a strong desire to get back to Alsace. Lots of lovely shady walks through forests to imposing ruined castles. Could happily spend a week in Ribeauville walking my dog.

Thanks all for the replies, really appreciated.

A few people have suggested stopping off in Luxembourg, and that's a 100% definite on our trip. I have an Aunt and Uncle and Cousins that live there, so we'll definitely be swinging by on the way there and probably back also.

Taking into consideration that we'd planned a route that involved tonnes of driving, we've decided to hone in our route a bit.

From the suggestions, we definitely would like to see the Salzkammergut area, and also the black forest. So now i'm thinking of a route that looks something like:

Over to Calais, first stop in Luxembourg via Belgium.
East Across Germany towards Czech Republic, and then down to Salzburg/ Salzkammergut.
West through either Austria towards the Black forest, or the same direction but through Germany.
North through the Black Forest, perhaps a detour across the border to see Colmar and/or Strasbourg.
Back to the UK via Luxembourg and Belgium again.

2 weeks should then give us enough time to spend a few nights in each location, and then travelling 4 or so hours to the next location, before spending a few nights there. Rinse and repeat until we're back to the UK.

We kind of have a rough idea of a plan now for where to go/stay, except for the East across Germany and down to Salzkammergut part.

Any ideas? Should we go further east in to the Czech Republic and down?

All ideas welcome Smile

You know it makes sense.

@swskier, if Salzkammergut is going to be your main destination, I’d probably give yourself more time there, or to get there/back. Adding in the Czech Republic increases the amount of driving quite a bit. Save the Czech Republic for another trip.

We did one trip where Vienna was our main stay, but we added in a day in Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic - it wasn’t so bad because we were already quite a bit further east.

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

A few random thoughts.

If you want a moment of madness. Mad King Ludwig's Disney castle at Neuschswantein is an interesting interlude but locks you rather further west than Salzburg

I would thoroughly recommend Alsace - Riquewihr, Ribeauville, Colmar - all brilliant and superb wine and food (especially for, you either hate it or love it, sauerkraut).

I would probably give a few more marks to Salzburg. I was faintly disappointed by Innsbruck without being able to put a finger on it. Ambras Castle was good though.

Do not ignore Zell am See, Krimml Falls and over the Gerlos pass to the Zillertal. The trip up to the Kaprun Glacier is great on a clear day.

Lake Constanz is great but there are plenty of other lakes. The other half loved Stein am Rhein just over the border into Switzerland.

Envious and makes me think.

A snowHead

It was many, many years ago but I recall that the waterfall at Schaffhausen (east of Basel) was impressive - might be worth a detour. I don't recall which side of the river is more impressive but the nearest town is Neuhausen am Rheinfall (just in CH).

A snowHead

@hammerite, have taken your input, and when we looked at the amount of time we were spending, we've now cut the Czech Republic out. It was a huge detour for about 1 night over that way.

We spent a couple of hours last night looking at this and have pretty much got a solid plan locked down now:

Calais -> Luxembourg -> Rothenburg -> Salzkammergut -> Galtur -> Titisee-Neustadt -> Baden-Baden -> Luxembourg/Belgium -> Calais

We've pretty much got 2 nights in each location, and 4 nights in Salzkammergut. The Galtur stop was a bit of a random one, but there's a campsite right up the mountains next to a lake that we're looking at for some nice walking right on the door stop, and hoping the weather is good while we're up there! We'll have a stop in Innsbruck for an afternoon on the way between the Salzkammergut and Galtur.

Trawling through google maps has shown up how many tiny ski resorts there are all over the place that I just didn't know about!

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

Ironically OH is just finalising accommodation for our end of the season road trip, as it's blowing a gale here and nigh on all the lifts closed!

We did it pre-pandemic, ski-touring first week of May up at the Lauaret then next day three-day road trip down to Tarifa, Southern Spain.

Plan is this time round, Caños de Meca, just down from Cape Trafalga, great kitesurfing similar to Tarifa but not as busy and close to Cadiz and Jerez where there is the Horse Fair May 7th, plus better options for road biking as Tarifa only really has two routes, though I'll miss cycling with the local groupetta.

We'll stay for four weeks maybe more, just accommodation is a wee bit limited with three mutts, then leave Spain as the holidays start.

Only issue all my kitesurfing gear is in the UK as I was planning on going back and getting the Portsmouth Santander/Bilbao ferry, but all their canine accommodation was booked months ago!

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@Weathercam, what's the dog space like on the Santander ferry? Missus is very anti any sort of kennel as the dog didn't do well at dogs trust before we had him, hence why we're doing the train over to France as we'll all just be in the van.

But depending on what the ferry to Spain is like, it could be a potential for future trips.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@swskier, don't know about that route, we've only ever done the Portsmouth le Havre and you take the dogs in with you in your cabin. Was excellent service. Should imagine Bilbao / Santander would be similar.

About 20 yrs ago we did Swansea Cork and we had a Newfoundland who stayed in the back of the Disco, trouble was there was nigh on a hurricane blowing and the ferry rode out the storm in Swansea bay having left port, so instead of an overnight crossing it was more like 18+ hrs, we were allowed down to the car deck to check on the dogs but he wouldn't pee thinking she was inside still.

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What might be of interest for fellow dog owners is that P&O are having two of their ships adapted to have Pet Lounges. The steward on our ship yesterday was telling me about it. Can’t remember exact names but think they are …… of Canterbury and …. Of Britain. You will be able to take the dog, on a lead, into the lounge and there is a specific deck area that they can visit. Refreshments etc will be available. Might suit people who don’t like to leave their pets in the car alone, or just need a change from the tunnel.

Help!!

Summer road trip

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