Italian road trip ideas?

[FF1078]

Hi all.

My wife and I haven't had a proper holiday for 2 years as were saving for a house. My wife would like to go to Italy and she likes shopping, a lot!

Question is is a road trip really a holiday? We've done Marbella from York before and we ended up driving 6-800 miles on some days and it was knackering TBH. Sally's legs swelled up and she was bored and if she drove I was a nervous wreck. We did that in 2 weeks but rushed there over 2 days had a weeks holiday and then 3 days back.

If you did Italy how long would you take? We'd want to take it steady with maybe 3-4 hours driving per day. Would we make it to the best bits?

Would a fortnight be enough or would it require 3 weeks?

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[P R]

I recently got back from a 2.5 week road trip. My advice would be to find somewhere nice to stay for a week or so, and then plan around that. Also book nice hotels, that way the journey becomes more of the holiday, as oppose to a motel just off the motorway!
Where are you in the UK? That makes a difference on routes / ferry crossings etc.

 

[FF1078]

I recently got back from a 2.5 week road trip. My advice would be to find somewhere nice to stay for a week or so, and then plan around that. Also book nice hotels, that way the journey becomes more of the holiday, as oppose to a motel just off the motorway!
Where are you in the UK? That makes a difference on routes / ferry crossings etc.

Were only 20 miles from Hull so overnight ferry and your in Zeebrugge refreshed and ready for the journey.

 

[P R]

Thats the way I went (from Stokesley, near Middlesbrough). I went outward leg via Rotterdam as it meant I could do a full day work then travel to Hull, it goes later in the day. From Rotterdam I went to Basel to stay with relatives. That was quite a journey, but from there went to Como (3hrs), then Florence for 2 nights (4 hours) then down to the house we have an hour south of Rome (4 hours).
On the way back stayed in Maranello, then a place just into France north of Lausanne, then back to Zeebrugge. No day was too bad.

 

[conaero]

I recently got back from a 2.5 week road trip. My advice would be to find somewhere nice to stay for a week or so, and then plan around that. Also book nice hotels, that way the journey becomes more of the holiday, as oppose to a motel just off the motorway!
Where are you in the UK? That makes a difference on routes / ferry crossings etc.

This is how we work the forum trips. Find a suitable destination and destinations en route then find the hotel and go from there.

One place we did go was here on the Portofino Peninsula and I would highly recommend you consider it:

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel...Dei_Dogi-Camogli_Italian_Riviera_Liguria.html

 

[Felonious Crud]

Our experience also suggests not just thrashing down as fast as you can. Treat the whole journey as part of the holiday and try to limit the max driving hours in one day to something sensible. From Zeebrugge, Antwerp is nice if you fancy a break soon after the ferry. You could easily head through Germany and across the Alps into Italy. Germany has some great stopover places - Karlsruhe, Baden Baden and Black Forest are all worth a stop and worthy of an afternoon's meandering, beers at pavement bar and all that good European stuff, a nice evening meal and so on. Plus you get to stretch your legs on the autobahn.

 

[P R]

Luxembourg city is also very nice, and a nice halfway between Zeebrugge and Switzerland.

 

[Felonious Crud]

PS - we came back via the Netherlands once - ferry from the Hook to Harwich. I'm not sure if other UK ferries go to the Hook, but it's not a bad start or end point for a Eurothrash.

 

[CatmanV2]

The centenary bash was OK

FIrst night in Troyes. Then Geneva, but would probably find somewhere different, then Modena. Felt OK

C

 

[lifes2short]

my advise would be don't do it unless you both enjoy driving, get on a plane and just fly out to somewhere like the Amalfi coast, relax and enjoy, you can always hire a car out there.

 

[allandwf]

My advise is do it, limit driving to 3 to 4 hours max a day. Don't over plan it. We had two or three places we wanted to go and booked them, then just looked to where we would roughly be in about a three hour drive the next day then just booked that hotel the day before, there are plenty to choose from. Saw great bits of the country that way. Enjoy whatever you decide.

 

[safrane]

You are already much further away being in the NE.

Have you thought about the car train from Holland/France?

 

[zagatoes30]

Driving holidays only work if both are up for it, doesn't mean both have to drive but the one that doesn't needs to like being a passenger. Assuming that then make the stop overs part of the trip, nice hotels or decent restaurants of both.

 

[Felonious Crud]

You are already much further away being in the NE.

Have you thought about the car train from Holland/France?

It looks like most of these are being wound up. They still seem to go from Düsseldorf, but even that is with a much-reduced schedule. Hardly a surprise - when we looked a few years ago it was coming out to be about a grand for four of us. Boll0cks to that, we mused.

 

[FIFTY]

My wife and I came back from our Maserati road trip honeymoon to Italy about a month ago

Itinerary: (all travel times with stops)

Guildford - Frieburg over night stop - 11 hours travelling including time at/on euro tunnel
Freiburg to Bellano on Lake Como - 2 nights 4 - 5 hrs
Bellano - Vinci in Tuscany - 4 nights - 4-5 hrs
Vinci to Boscoreale nr Pompeii - 5 nights - 5-6 hours
Return:
Boscoreale to Innsbruck, Austria 9 hours
Innsbruck to Stuttgart - 5 hours
Stuttgart to Guildford 11 hours inc time at Eurotunnel

We did all of that in 2 weeks, if you want to chop down the long legs then going for 2-3 weeks with some extra stops will sort that...

Furthest south we ended up was Amalfi, we covered about 3400 miles and I am glad we decided to venture to the south of Italy as originally we were only going to tour the north. The difference in culture (and climate) is very nice to experience for yourself.

 

[Scaf]

Interesting........ when I first got Nuvola GTS I did full on drive like I stole it trip to Bologna via the Alps - it was awsome, but no wifey as she does not like fast twisty roads.

But she does like the idea of driving through Italy in a Maserati, we are currently considering me driving down over a 2-3 days, her flying down to join me for week and then her flying back and me driving - best of both worlds !

 

[Felonious Crud]

Interesting........ when I first got Nuvola GTS I did full on drive like I stole it trip to Bologna via the Alps - it was awsome, but no wifey as she does not like fast twisty roads.

But she does like the idea of driving through Italy in a Maserati, we are currently considering me driving down over a 2-3 days, her flying down to join me for week and then her flying back and me driving - best of both worlds !

A European road trip without the wife? Bite her bloody hand off! You've nailed it, Scaf.

 

[D Walker]

A European road trip without the wife? Bite her bloody hand off! You've nailed it, Scaf.

I couldn’t imagine doing it without mine, I’m setting myself limits of no more than 250/300 miles a day with a 2 night stay every 3 days and. 3 night stay in the middle, so need to get somewhere decent for that bit where I can do some driving while SWMBO sits by pool.. thinking boat to Santander then across and up through Italy.Swiss, France etc....

 

[Wanderer]

I'm considering a trip to Kyiv, end Nov., thought about driving it in the QP but common sense says a £40 return flight from Stansted makes more sense....

 

[allandwf]

I couldn’t imagine doing it without mine, I’m setting myself limits of no more than 250/300 miles a day with a 2 night stay every 3 days and. 3 night stay in the middle, so need to get somewhere decent for that bit where I can do some driving while SWMBO sits by pool.. thinking boat to Santander then across and up through Italy.Swiss, France etc....

Malcesine on Lake Garda is lovely, and relatively kid free