How feasible is driving to Rome?

[Sprogonthetyne]

Not all at once, we were thinking of stopping somewhere in France for 4 nights, then doing a second long drive into Italy, stopping there for another 4 nights, then a third 4 night stop halfway home. Each leg of the journey would be about 12 hours, which we were thinking of doing overnight so the kids sleep through it.

There would be two of us sharing the driving, and I usually work nights, so I'm confident about my ability to stay up and still be alert. Would this work or would we just be tired and crabby for half the holiday and loose too much time sleeping before/ after each drive?

It may not work as it depends on what his obsession is exactly, but if it's just about Roman ruins then Nimes in the south of France has some great ones and a Roman museum. Likely to be much less busy than Rome and now as far to drive to.

Kids are weird. My dd's absolute highlight of Rome was the Circus Maximus - which used to be where they did the chariot racing - but is now like a big empty field. She practically cried with emotion to see it. The other thing she liked was the glass lift to the top of the Victor Emmanuel monument. The forum and colosseum - not bothered. She's doing a History degree now and often wishes she'd paid more attention to places we've been. 😁

The drive sounds absolutely horrendous to me. When you take account of fuel costs, hotels for stopovers, toll roads and motorways then surely it would be more economical to fly to Rome?

Plus, I really have to say that you simply cannot do Rome in a day. You'll need several days. We once spent 4 days there. We saw a lot of it but still couldn't fit everything in.

The other thing is Rome traffic and the driving there as the usual rules of the road barely seemed to apply there. It's very dog eat dog.

Over the past 40 years or so I've driven regularly in and through France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, although not as far south as Rome.
From my experiences I found Italian drivers to be, frankly, bonkers. Two examples -- overtaking me on a blind bend on a narrow mountain road and ploughing through a pack of cyclists coming in the opposite direction. And reversing out of a small side road into a fast main road, on the phone and smoking a cigarette. Those are engraved into my brain.
And seeing a foreign woman driving a foreign car seems to drive some male Italian motorists into a frenzy. They stop at nothing in their desperation to get past you.
Drivers in France, Spain, Portugal seem more civilised. But Germany can be hair-raising, particularly on those southern autobahns which are old and narrow, with just two lanes but no speed limit.
Terrifying. You pull out to overtake an elderly Merc crammed with a family inluding kids, Grandma and Pa, family dog, budgie in a cage, only doing about 50 mph and suddenly the tiny speck in your rear view mirror morphs into a Porsche SUV sitting on your tail and leaning on his horn to get you out of his way.
Travelling these days we do about six hours driving max, plus a couple of stops, to give about 7-1/2 to eight hours travel in a day. We switch drivers every two hours.

19 hours of driving? Whyn earth would anyone want to do that? What’s wrong with EasyJet & picking up a hire car from the airport?

We just drove to Spain. I would do 2 stops on your way rather then 4 nights in France. And then 2 stops on your way back.
We did 1 stop both ways in France but I think your travel is about 4 hours more then ours was.

I think if the journey is the thing then do it.

The people who have the destination as the thing would hate it.

I did it many time - Wales, France, Switzerland, Italy. We really enjoyed it. We had a vague destination, came off the motorway many times and meandered. Wonderful memories.

BUT - the journey/meandering was the point.

When I was younger driving from South London to Dover early hours ...then morning ferry to calais,day and night stop in calais,rest for my dad grandad and uncle who shared the driving between the two vehicles,
Start again in the early hours driving through France to cunit in Spain and honestly is the best memories I have of my childhood .....we explored new areas of each country each year we went the journey is what you make it and Rome is very much doeable as well as exciting and memorable...I say as long as you can afford the tolls the pit stops the food refreshment stops that are very much needed then go do it xxxx

How old is he? Children interrail for free (just need seat reservations) which makes trains really doable.

We went to Rome by train this year (from Scotland). The trains were great and it was really relaxing to have a day sitting on the train reading and looking at the view in between blocks of city days - can't imagine driving would feel nearly so much like a holiday.

I can tell you exactly because we did it!
Vaguely planned a route but only booked via booking,com on the day because didn’t want pressure to get anywhere. Shared the drives.

Euro tunnel at lunchtime ( hate early morning drives). Drove up to Belgium to avoid tolls. Stopped in Durberry for the night. Lovely little town.
Next day drove to Dachau. Night there ( weirdly there was a massive beer festival on) Did a tour of the concentration camp in the morning then drove into Austria and had lunch in a town there. After lunch drive through Italy but couldn’t find anywhere we liked the look of to stop so drove until 9pm in the end.. At a petrol station there was a advert for a hotel in a village overlooking of Florence. Booked it and turned out to be AMAZING. Like a palace with an outdoor pool that was open all night. Next day was a short drive to Rome and we parked near the bus station and got the bus in.

On the way back we drove to Milan and stayed the night. In the morning went to see the painting of the Last Supper and Cathedral. Left to drive through the Swiss mountains and had lunch in Switzerland. Drove in the afternoon to a village in the Alsace. Stayed the night there . Next day drove to a village in the Champagne region and stayed the night as we weren’t due to return until the next day,.

Best trip ever. Worse bit was the M20. Showed how bad English traffic and roads are. And the service stations…just embarrassing compared to Europe.

This sounds great! Any tips on how to plan / book this?

This sounds AMAZING, I am very jealous!

Really interesting thread - we're looking at where we could drive to for summer hols this year other than Northern France, and some great ideas here. We're somewhere in between the journey people and the destination people, I'd say, but the friends we go with are less inclined to adventure!

@monpetitlapin that sounds bananas, love it 😂

It's absolutely doable. My parents were teachers and we drove to Italy every summer, the furthest we ever travelled was Amalfi.

It was done over six weeks though and it is a hell of a long way.

Not sure you'd be wanting to drive in Rome. It's not for the faint hearted.