½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

[QUOTE=sgarrido]Can anyone, who has experience driving from the UK to Puglia, advice on the best route to follow across Europe?

We are driving over with a van at the end of the month so we want to plan the route in advance

Thanks

Sgarrido[/QUOTE]

there are quite a few routes, depends from where you are crossing, to if you
mind lots of tolls or scenary.as you are going to puglia, hitting italy from milan
down the A1 to bolonga and onto the A14 is pretty direct.working backwards
then calais-rhiems-strassburg-basle-milan.

We're doing it next Tuesday, we've looked at all the previouse threads and are taking Alan Haynes route. ;)

[QUOTE=sgarrido]Can anyone, who has experience driving from the UK to Puglia, advice on the best route to follow across Europe?

We are driving over with a van at the end of the month so we want to plan the route in advance

Thanks

Sgarrido[/QUOTE]
We have done this journey a few times at least as far as Abruzzo,all factors considered ie. tolls,traffic, easy ride with no map reading,time etc we definitely prefer UK - Belgium -germany-frankfurt -stuttgart-munich -austria-brenner pass -bolzano - modena -bologna -rimini then down the adriatic coastmotorway.most will suggest thru France-switzerland but we've seen heavier tolls and a lot more traffic at the end of the day there wasn't a lot of difference in time.no road tolls in belgium,germany,austria,no tunnels,nice drive good services along route.

Would second that - we drove down to Puglia via Brenner at the end of August. Only chose that route because of the floods. However, it was excellent and we came back that way. We went out on bank holiday weekend which was a very busy weekend in Germany and Italy but encountered no hold-ups at all. On every other occasion when we have gone through Switzerland, although the roads are good, the traffic has been horrendous.

The only problem we had was that we had intended to go on the old Brenner Pass rather than the motorway but couldn't get off the motorway where we thought and had to pay a very hefty toll. After paying this we thought we may as well use it. Coming back we used the old pass which was a very easy and scenic route.

We also encountered 'tomato protests' around Foggia. The motorway was closed and we were rerouted onto the main road. We were then held up for hours in the early hours of the morning by what turned out to be a road block of tractors. We were so tired that we just snoozed in the car and didn't think too much about it. However, after about three hours someone knocked on the window and let us know that cars were being allowed though but not lorries - we were in the lorry queue! No problems on route back.

Good luck.

I totally agree with Sebastiano over many years of travelling to Marche I have tried most routes and have found the Belgium Germany Austria route to be the best and as tolls only start when you reach Italy the most cost effective

any good places to stay overnight on this route?

Thanks to everyone, we will follow the Brenner pass route. :)

I will let you know how it goes

S

[QUOTE=Rod Cattini]I totally agree with Sebastiano over many years of travelling to Marche I have tried most routes and have found the Belgium Germany Austria route to be the best and as tolls only start when you reach Italy the most cost effective[/QUOTE]

never done this route yet, thought it would be a good route for the dolimites,
so may do it next year, but i don,t understand how it can be quicker,or
more cost effective than through switzerland and down past milan.

you use 65miles more of italian toll roads and do an extra 180 miles [extra
fuel] and an extra 3 hours atleast driving. and don't you pay tolls in austria? or is that only for m/ways. on the plus side you have the dolimites..

My family drives a couple of times a year from the South-east UK to just south of Rome (and have done for 30 or 40 years now). The fastest route we've found is all the way down through France (hence motorways and tolls) but we do this:

Calais - Reims - Troyes - Dijon - Bourge-en-Bresse - Mont Blanc - Aosta - Alessandria - Modena - Bologna - Firenze - Roma

I think it's very slightly longer then going the Strasbourg-Basle-Milan way but we definately think it's the fastest - avoids the horrendous traffic around Milan and north of it to the Gottard tunnel etc.