Mont Blanc tunnel in August: likely waiting times and how difficult is it?

[Enfrancais]

Hi, does anyone have any experience of the Mont Blanc tunnel? Travelling in August. Will there be a long waiting time? I bloody hate tunnels too; how bad is it?

Anyone?

It’s quite easy to figure out how to avoid the busy periods https://tunnelmb.net/en-US/closures-and-forecasts

It’s a bit boring driving through but very regulated and safe. Done it loads of times, never had a big issue.

We did it in late July/ early August a couple of years ago. The climb up was quite slow moving around multiple hairpin bends but it was very scenic. The thing that shocked me was the cost - seem to remember it was €55 or maybe more?
On last year’s trip we came back home from Italy via the Timmelsjoch pass and that was something else. It was raining hard and visibility near zero in places. It would’ve been spectacular on a nice day!

Did it recently - France to Italy we sat stationary/crawled for an hour for the last 1km before you enter the tunnel.

When we did the Italy-France drive 4 days later the Italian side was completely clear but the queue on the French side was even longer than when we’d done it a few days earlier!

There is an alternative route that adds an hour driving time vs the potential 2-3 hours wait at the tunnel. Just weighing up which is better. Im scared of tunnels so would prefer the alternative route and can imagine sitting outside it it for an hour plus will make things worse rather than just cracking on! What do you think?

Sounds like you don't need to use the tunnel or want to so i wouldn't

Definitely but I am not the driver and he does! So just trying to be objective as read the queuing times on a Monday in August are 2-3 hours but don't know how likely that is.

Done both tunnels as well as pass a couple of times. Tunnel traffic is really unpredictable. It can be anything from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Tunnel is a bit intimidating as it is both direction of traffic in a single tunnel.
You can follow the live waiting times here: https://www.gotthard-live.ch/en

The pass is a nice drive, you can get stuck in traffic like behind a caravan but not many caravans do the pass. With a car it is quite easy. There is a lovely restaurant just after the pass if you are driving south that has gorgeous views.
If you want to take the pass make sure you get off the motorway early as the latter exits are often closed if the tunnel has long waiting times to avoid the pass getting flooded with traffic