Road Trip around the Alps

nutjobb

Ok am planning on flying to Nice September 26th, renting a car there and spend that night in Nice. Next day head north towards Ecrins National park stay night there. On to Ginderwald or Interlacken and stay there. Hit the Susten, Furka, Grimsel and Gothard passes and head down towards Lake Como district and spend another night there. Final leg of the journey back to Nice for the final night and fly home again. Will have another night somewhere along the way also.

Has anyone done a trip like this and can offer some advice? Recommend some routes/changes? Do's and dont's for driving in the Alps, that kinda thing. Or if I'm missing out on anything.

Do all rental companies hold a large sum of money for the excess(will be using debit card) and is it better to have it booked before arrival?

I have attached a general route on Google maps if anyone can recommend anything better along the way.

Total distance around 1600km

pjq

Car Hire;
Do book in advance, try autoeurope online for an idea of costs, then try the airline car rental offers in addition to hertz avis and budget. Choose a reputable car hire company , some make their money with excessive fuel or damage charges at drop off time.
When you have a reasonable price , check that there is no charge for getting a green card to drive across borders.
Get an annual or a daily excess insurance, the car hire company offer will be much more expensive, try carhireexcess .
The small print will tell you about the amount of excess blocked on a credit card .
Read online about checking the car for damage and photographing at pick-up.
ViaMichellin is good for planning routes ( check for scenic routes) with an estimate of time required and toll charges due. Check petrol prices in each country, you can save by tanking in cheaper country.
Make sure the fuel policy is clear, and return full if required.
Download a good sat-nav app to your phone, make sure it works off line ( maps.me or google are good) and have a phone holder and charger to use in car.
Consider if a drop-off in Milan would be more economical than the return trip via Turin.

CelticRambler

nutjobb wrote: »

I have attached a general route on Google maps if anyone can recommend anything better along the way.

Total distance around 1600km

nutjobb wrote: »

Do's and dont's for driving in the Alps, that kinda thing. Or if I'm missing out on anything.

Don't No. 1: don't trust Google Maps to give you accurate timings! 1600km in 21h is an average speed of 75kmh. You might manage that if you stick to motorways ... but not a chance of hitting that on the Swiss leg! :cool:

viaMichelin gives you an average speed of 65kmh using motorways whenever possible (55% of the route, and avoiding Interlaken, Grindenwald and the Sustenstrasse)

nutjobb wrote: »

flying to Nice September 26th... spend that night in Nice. Next day head north towards Ecrins National park stay night there. On to Ginderwald or Interlacken and stay there. Hit the Susten, Furka, Grimsel and Gothard passes and head down towards Lake Como district and spend another night there. Final leg of the journey back to Nice for the final night and fly home again. Will have another night somewhere along the way also.

Has anyone done a trip like this and can offer some advice? Recommend some routes/changes?

I've done most of the French and Swiss parts of that route, most recently two weeks ago. I wanted to head down to Turin and around through Monaco to Nice, but was out voted ... so I'll do that in October.

Hence my first observation: if I understand your itinerary correctly, you're hoping to do this in six days? That's pushing it, unless you're doing it only for the drive. You've got very little time to do anything else.

At that time of year, if you take the non-motorway roads (no choice if you want to do those Swiss passes), you're in peak campervan season, so could well be stuck at 30-40kmh for most of the day. Even if you're not, most of the non-motorway roads on that route go through one town after another after another, with speed limits of 30 and 50kmh (or 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60kmh in Switzerland :eek: ... which is why I have a motorway vignette for Switzerland. :pac: )

You've also included an "either/or but not both" - you can take either the Susten or the Grimsel-Furka passes, but both. Now while every pass has it's own "personality", to a certain extent, once you've had your mind blown by one, the rest are less impressive! :rolleyes: You'll need to balance the time available with the adrenaline rush! I'd do the Susten pass, then down to Andermatt via the Göschenen Gorge/Devil's Bridge where Red Hugh O'Neill lost all his money.

For info, we left Bregenz at about 10h00 on a Wednesday (exactly two weeks ago!) and drove via the Oberalp and Furka passes to stop for the night at the Great Saint Bernard pass. 380km. We arrived at the GSB at around 21h00, having taken a few rest breaks en route. I would have preferred to have taken longer, but we wanted to be in the Aosta valley early the next day (didn't get there till late afternoon, in the end, because we went walking instead ... :pac: )

Anyway, without wishing to pour cold water on your plan, I'd separate that itinerary into two trips. Starting from Nice (assuming you've already booked flights) I'd go up as far as Annecy (one night), then across the Petit Saint Bernard to Aosta (maybe one night in the Saint Bernard resort at Rosière, if you're into walking, and/or divert to the artist's town of Cogne before you get to Aosta), then down the Aosta valley and round the corner to Turin, to complete your circuit as before.

I'd do Switerland-Austria-JuraFrance as a completely separate adventure.

josip

Last year we did the St. Bernard pass (up the mountains with the doggies, awww) and the Simplon pass (big Mussolini era Eagle like thing). Both were well worth doing and closer to Nice than some of your itinerary. Also nearby was the Verzasca dam if you fancy a quick bungee.
The Swiss motorway vignette was poor value for short trips and cost €40.
Make sure you leave enough time to get out and have a walk around/hike at the tops of the passes.
Switzerland is expensive for lots of stuff, especially in small villages higher up the valleys. Do your shopping lower down in bigger towns.

CelticRambler

josip wrote: »

The Swiss motorway vignette was poor value for short trips and cost €40.

Yes and no. Remember that's for the whole year (calendar year, not much left). I don't know how many M50 crossings that equates to, but one single trip from Paris to Toulouse in a car will cost 35€30 - only 2€70 less than my 2017 vignette.

But yes, if you're not going to be burning the motorway kms over several days, it's a hefty charge.

BTW: if you opt out of motorway driving in Switzerland (and Italy), remember that the road signage colours are reversed compared to Ireland/UK/France/Germany - blue is ordinary/main road, green is motorway.