First Time Trip Abroad - Help Needed

I see you’re from Chelmsford. We’re over in the UK from Germany at the moment and will be staying at Saltcote Hall CC site in Heybridge over this Bank Holiday weekend. If you have any further questions perhaps you might like to drop by. Just give me a call first.

Re your return tunnel/ferry, just book it on line via your phone or similar. It’s your country of normal residence they will ask for, not where you are on holiday. As others have said, don’t book at the last minute, the prices escalate.

Many campsites in Italy close 3rd week in September so you’ll need to research which will be open when you’re there. The Sostas (Aires) will still be open though. If you’re heading for Como then the route through Switzerland is the shortest and easiest. The St Gottardo tunnel is superb. Re your route, there’s a super Stellplatz at Remich in Luxemburg with water and electric on each pitch for e15/night. Camping Gottardo in Faido, just south of the St Gottardo tunnel is good too. You wil need a vignette for the Swiss motorways but its well worth the cost. Down load the Campercontact app. It’s the only guide you will need for campsites and Aires etc

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I've been checking out ACSI.

I did a drive back from Varallo which is in ValSesia - West (in a car!)  and went down to Turin, out to Susa and then over the top back into France in May so that might be an option to avoid the Mont Blanc tunnel.

Is the Reichenpasse the road that goes up the Inn/Oetz valley?

Thanks for the advice about booking over there (and ET too!) I assumed that was the case but wasn't sure.

Have updated  my profile now!!

Wrinkly, I don’t think you need help at all, but as you mention the Inn valley and Lake Como I will chip in two pennorth.

The Swiss call their section of the Inn valley the Engadine. We once diverted from destination Italy and drove the length of that section - going upstream from Landeck in Austria just because we wanted to visit St Moritz and see if it lived up to the hype. To be honest it didn’t, but there’s scenery in spades and outside the winter sports season few people about.

And if we had gone on from St Moritz over the easy enough Maloja pass  we would have dropped right down to the head of Lake Como. Foolishly we back tracked and went another way to Lake Garda instead - one of our mistakes.

I have every hope your own tour will go well.

We are also 2 hours from Calais and have been to Garda many times with a caravan. Her are my suggestions which use “expensive” autoroutes because they are faster and better.

Tunnel at around lunchtime then 3 hours to the ACSI site at Guignicourt just short of Reims and very close to the motorway.

Autoroute via Metz to Obernai and stop there at the ACSI site.

Cross into Switzerland at Basle, buying the vignette at the border.

You then need one more stop either in Switzerland (Camping Gottica?) or Italy before joining the autostrada to Garda.

“So May would be a good time to go and the weather should be perfect - in June this year it was baking hot (that right AlanandJean?”

Whilst that would seem logical we have had temperatures of 38c in May as well!

More likely however the later you go and our experience this year, when circumstances dictated a later start, and Covid confinement a yearning to return to Italy, has led to a total rethink on where and when we will go next year.

commeyras-hope you are having a great time,

We too were at Lake Garda this May/June at Peschiera del Garda on the aire.  It was very humid and we watched the thunder and lightning rolling across the mountains north of the lake.  It seems that the lake has a micro climate : the north is Alpine with a high risk of thunderstorms whereas the southern end seems to enjoy a much drier and warmer weather.

We travelled via the Tunnel, Langres, the St Gottard Tunnel and Milano but we were on a 2 month trip to Sicily, so we took our time and arrived 5 days after leaving home.

Pre-Covid we visited the Garda area en route to Venice and Croatia.  We used the Fern Pass and Reschen Pass to cross the Alps - very easy with a MH and also suitable for caravans - HGVs and coaches use it too.  However, my abiding memory of that route was travelling in "convoy" in 2 parallel lanes of heavy traffic at 50mph for what seemed like an eternity - at least 60 miles continuously from Bolzano nearly to the turning for Verona - with no overtaking allowed.  I hope the road had improved since then as we now avoid it like the plague.

Garda is a lovely location for a holiday but you will spend almost as long travelling to/from as you will spend lakeside on a 2 week trip.

Happy holidays 

Re Jim's comment about the traffic on the Bolzano - Verona autostrada (I think the overtaking ban stops just north of Garda but by that time I too had lost the will to press the accelerator!).  For many years (at least 20) overtaking by HGVs and caravan has been prohibited on this section and I do not see the ban being removed; there is no speed limit just the overtaking ban with the traffic going at 90 kph (hopefully!). The direct result of this is the queues you mentioned.  This is particularly irksome going north (uphill) and I have to say is often ignored by quite a few caravanners!!!  There is no alternative route from the Brenner as the non autostrada road is a real pain.

Travel on Sundays - there’s a ban on HGVs over the summer months in Italy- and I think it’s all year round in France.

Given the time limitations, I would choose to fly there.