Driving from London to Italy - advice needed

[ttalloo]

We are leaving for Italy next weekend by car with the DC (3.6yrs and 22mos), and I'm trying to work out how best to structure our journey.

It will take us about 14 hours (without allowing for any stops). We're planning to set off at 8am from London, so that we have crossed the Channel by midday (allowing for at least one stop), after which it will take another 5 hours to get to Basel, and then another 4 or 5 to our destination in Northern Italy, assuming we don't stop, which with two toddlers in the car is going to be happening at least once every hour or so.

Assuming we set off from Calais at midday, we will need to stop somewhere for lunch at, drive for a couple of hours, stop again for a break and drive for another couple of hours, and then I would like us to arrive at a nice hotel with a decent restaurant nearby so that we can eat and spend the night. I don't think we'll have got to the French/Swiss border by that point so I'm trying to work out where in Eastern France we will need to stop - and can't!

Does anyone have any ideas? Any recommendations or advice would be much appreciated!

Hi there, we're doing this next weekend too!

We're going to stop overnight in Basle as we didn't want to do it all in one go, and we're going a bit further than you to Tuscany - where are you going in Italy? We are stopping in one of the formula 1 hotels.

No advice on the journey I'm afraid as it is our first time doing such a long journey. We are getting portable dvd players and loading the ipods, and hoping for the best!

Hi beattiebow!

DH wants to stay the night in Basel, but I don't think we're going to get there by 5pm if we leave at 8am. What time are you setting off?

(We're going to Lugagnano Val d'Arda, which is a couple of hours from MIlan - I think. Planning this trip is severely stretching my limited sense of geography.)

we will be in Calais at Midday (a 9.30 crossing) , and dh thinks we'll be in Basel by 8pm. We have a big van/car and can't go very fast. We just used the AA website to work out our route/where to stop. dh wanted to do it all in one go!!

Don't do it in one go! Not with little ones.... We have just done the trip from Como in reverse and the driving took much longer for each stage than Via Michelin/Google Maps said.

Calais to Basel - at least 6 hours. Basel to San Gottardo tunnel at least 2. And there were big queues heading south to the tunnel the other day.

Also big traffic jams/road works after the Swiss/Italian border approaching Milan.

If you think where the notional stop points are on your journey, go to Booking.com, you can enter a destination, then look at where it is on the map. Then you can click on the map, scroll out and look at all available hotels in a given area.

If you know which way you are driving I might be able to recommend something....

Calais to Basel is a very long hike with little ones. DH & I have done channel ports to Zurich in one go (without children) in 7 hours, but we shared the driving and hardly stopped (and we were in a fast car - travelling the belgium, luxembourg, germany route)

IME Basel to Lugano is possible in 3 hours but the Gotthard sometimes has delays of up to 2 hours to get through. You could go over the San Bernadino but it's a long drive and you'd need to weigh up the extra miles versus traffic.

I'd agree that 2-3 hours driving to the tunnel is about right though.

If you've got a smart phone, swissinfo.ch has travel information (not sure if it's available in english, but you can get the gist in german or french) which may help you plan stops etc.

is there a better time to hit the tunnel?

portofino, drayford, where would you recommend stopping for the night after Calais?

Like beattiebow we expect to be leaving Calais around midday, heading towards Basel, which is where DH wants to spend the night, but I'd like to be stopping for the night around 5pm so that we can give the DCs a chance to stretch their legs, eat a proper dinner and go to bed at about their usual time. My feeling was (confirmed by you both!) that we wouldn't get to Basel in five hours unless we didn't stop once and DH drove like Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari!

Which way are you driving ttalloo? Via France or Belgium/Lux/Germany? ( & where are you staying in Italy??)

Beattie - according to my SIL (who lives not far from Como and travels to Berne regularly) it can be busy at all times of the day - a lot of lorries use the tunnel at night, but generally late night is quieter. Also, Friday night and Sunday night can be a nightmare apparently.

Google Earth says that your destination in Italy is 11.5 hours from Calais. Basel is 6h47.

If you are looking at stopping for the night around 5/6pm, then that would be in the Strasbourg area.

Personally, I would push on to Basel just because it is going to be a shitty day anyway. You can stop at the little Aires on French motorways every hour or so for 10 minutes (they are all about 20 minutes apart, and there is a big one in the Reims area, iirc).

When we were young and wreckless had one or two toddlers, we would aim to arrive at our overnight stop between 9 and 10pm, and then stay somewhere basic (one notch above F1). Now, we always book with a view to arriving around 6pm and then have an evening of it in our destination.

I recommend Google Earth for route planning - you can get loads of info along your route, such as hotels and tourist attractions.

We're going via France and Switzerland and then staying in a small town outside Milan, Drayford.

If the boys have been in the car since 7/8am, I think we'll all be equally desperate to get out of it and have a reasonably civilised evening, hence my wanting us to stop at around 5pm. DH really wants to stay in Basel because he says it's much nicer than Strasbourg (bitter memories of business trips, I think), but if it's nearly 7 hours from Calais we will have to leave London at really stupid o'clock to stand any chance of getting there even for 6pm.

Mme, how much further on from Strasbourg is Basel? And is travelling all day by car with toddlers really as hellish as I imagine?!

Strasbourg - Basel (city centre to city centre) is 1.5 hours.

I think that once they are in the car for several hours, they just get used to it. We have done quite a few 'all-day' stints and find that you can find ways to entertain them - colouring books are good, or perhaps you could stretch to a DVD player.

You basically have a 2-day journey, and personally, I would pack as much pain into one of those days to make the second day much better.

Memories of the trip will be the same for 5 hours driving vs 10 hours, so much better to have 10 hours followed by a short drive the following day.

The problem with stopping at a civilised time is that they do all their sleeping in the hotel, whereas what would be ideal would be for them to sleep in the car. If you want to have a 5pm tea-time, you could get them to change into their pyjamas afterwards and then have another 3 or 4 hours of driving.

Merci beaucoup, Mme!

I'm wondering then, whether we should leave London at 5am, aim to be at Folkestone for 7am so that we are in Calais by 9am. If Basel is about 7 hours from Calais, we could be there by 6pm, allowing for a couple of stops. It would be tight but doable - and maybe I'll just have to let go of the DCs' routine for one day...!

Can you recommend any good hotels in Basel?

Cheaper to stay in France ime! Lots of hotels around just off the main routes around Strasbourg, or even Mulhouse (if you're going that way), such as Novotel or the cheaper Formule type hotels all of which can be booked online before you leave the UK.

Best to be away from Calais as earlier as possible though, just to enusre against any motorway delays.

Do be aware too that if you hit Milan around 5-6pm the traffic can be horrendous. (Think M25 on a Friday evening)

MmeRed... has good suggestions about etertaining DC en route. Story tapes (CD's now - shows the age of my DC's now!!) were our saving grace on our many long journeys to Switzerland and Italy. Also, a good stash of drinks and snacks within easy reach.

I'm off to Switzerland tomorrow - fortunately flying with just my DH! My DC can jolly well make their own way now!

I hope you have a good journey and a great holiday.

I think you can safely let go of their routines. They are not used to sitting in car all day.

Also, when you get to your resort, you may find that children's hours are a lot more relaxed.

I can't remember what it is like in Italy, but we have just come back from Vendee, France, and there, 2 year olds were still jamming at 10pm. I had my preteens going to bed around 9pm, which in restrospect was very harsh.

I would suggest that if you do want to maintain their bedtimes, do it in the car. Get them into their pyjamas and even have a duvet for them. Then get another few hours of driving out of the way. That's unless you want to make an evening of it in your overnight location.

What about Colmar? I looked at that as a possibility on our trip. It looks lovely and is about half way between Strasbourg and Basel.

Colmar does look really pretty, Portofino, as does Turckheim, which isn't very far from there. I'm contemplating the Hotellerie des Deux Clefs, but I suspect DH will want to press on to Basel since it's only about another 20km from there. Complex negotiations will ensue this evening...!

But in the meantime, I am realising I have to be more relaxed over the DC's routines (note to self - we are going to be on holiday), and, as Mme says, having them sleep in the car for a few hours past their normal bedtime is not a problem!

And I need to plan the DCs' entertainment in the car better, so I'm off to Amazon to order some audio DVDs for them (thanks for that tip, Drayford).

Personally we like to get the driving over and done with. Our 3 dcs (12, 10, 3) have always been used to long car journeys so it's no issue. We quite often do a lot of driving overnight (rear seats recline so with a few fleece blankets they're quite snug). And we've never had to stop every hour. Even when potty training the dcs could go 4-5 hours without a wee so why would I expect any different on a journey? I'm just always prepared for high energy holiday beginnings!

We have a rule of taking a break every 2 hours and swapping drivers. We always felt that this was safer - less risk of white line fever.

We drove to Italy last year with 3mo DD and stopped nr Colmar. It was very nice. We were camping though so can't recommend a hotel.

Have just got back from France with now 14mo DD and found that that we could drive for 2-3 hours non stop if I supplied her with a steady stream of biscuits and toys...I had so many little items for entertaining a toddler in the footwell I hardly had space for my feet

The BEST thing I took was a small bag full of rubbish. I mean literally rubbish - empty yoghurt pots, small cardboard boxes etc. Might not work for older toddlers, but kept DD entertained for hours

About San Gottardo - the tunnel is awful and you probably will get stuck in traffic. However, have you considered going over the pass? It takes longer under 'normal' circumstances but when the tunnel traffic is bad spending an hour and a half getting over the pass is much preferable to spending two hours stuck in the tunnel queue in my opinion, and the view on the way up and from the top is stunning.

The other reason I'm suggesting it is that my parents and I did this drive annualy when I was little (from about age 5 onwards) and it was always my favourite bit. There's a resting area with a restaurant and a little shop at the top where they'd buy me an ice cream and let me take a picture of the view; looking forward to that kept me quiet in the back for at least three hours in advance!

I can't really help you about stopping places, as we were starting from Eindhoven in the southern Netherlands so our travel times were a bit different. For the first few years we did the whole thing in one go (Eindhoven - Tuscany in one haul, more than 1000 miles, madness thinking about it now....), then my dad decided he didn't want to do that any more and we started stopping overnight. We used the Moevenpick hotel in Chiasso (Swiss-Italian border) a few times, which is good but probably too far for your needs, as well as various hotels in Como (Northern Italy) but again, probably not much use to you.

We always go throught the San Gottardo at night and it has never been a problem.

Oh, and avoid crossing the border at basel during morning rush hour. that could delay you.

Just glancing through this again, this year we have done 2 fairly long trips with 3 small children in the car, both times we drove overnight. we did 2 hours each at first andwhen we got tired switched every hour. We never hit delays, the kids sleep and the roads has much les traffic. I wouuld recommend it.

We have done lots of epic drives ever since DC were tiny.

Story tapes are brill as soon as they are old enough and kept DD1 going for an entire day once.

French aires are great for a 15 minute stop. Many have playgrounds to burn off some energy. Food is good in the more restauranty ones.

My top tip is it doesn't matter what the town is like (Basel vs Strasbourg etc) as you won't care at all when you get there. You will want (a) a drink (b) a nice dinner (c) somewhere for the children to play and (d) a good sleep. In our experience (13 years of it every summer) a Novotel normally fits the bill with great room/breakfast costs (kids love the buffet) but eye wateringly costly drinks/meals. They are normally in shockingly ugly areas (by motorways, on industrial estates) but well disguised by landscaping and we never have the energy to venture outside anyway.

Good luck!

Have just got back from our two weeks in Italy, and just wanted to say thanks to all of you for your brilliant advice.

The DCs were pretty good, all things considered, in the car - endless streams of biscuits, bananas and chocolate, toys and songs kept them reasonably well amused, as did spotting livestock, excavators, caravans and mountains.

I was impressed by the frequency and standards of French aires, although DS1 was appalled by some of the toilet facilities ("There's no toilet, Mummy. Like in the olden days!"). We ended up staying in Turckheim, near Colmar in France, in a gorgeous and comfortable hotel that served amazing breakfast (four different types of sweet tart, yum) and had the most enormous and docile dog the DCs had ever seen.

And the drive all told was OK - I'd definitely do again, but I wish I'd seen Naoko's post about the Gottard Tunnel before we left - 1km queue, half an hour just to get in, and slow going throughout on the way back. I would far rather have gone over the pass, especially given the view, had I known about it, so I'll definitely bear that in mind for next time.

So thanks again - you all made planning and executing a pretty daunting trip much easier!

You clearly need me to map read for you .