Driving to Florence from Manchester - tips needed please
 

Hi
It's our 20th anniversary in August and we decided that a trip to Italy is how we wanted to celebrate it. We've only been to Italy a few times and DS was going to be there at the same time. We've been to Venice and Milan and so Florence it is this time. We've loved our previous driving holidays (we drove to Athens for the Olympics in 2004) and so this is my first considered draft at our schedule:

Saturday 23 - leave Manchester early and overnight in Ghent
Sunday 24 - morning in Ghent and then overnight in Metz
Monday 25 - after checking out the Pompidou Centre overnight north of Interlaken
Tuesday 26 - drive to Florence
Wdnesday 27 - in Florence
Thursday 28 - in Florence
Friday 29 - after a last morning in Florence drive the 90 miles to Modena for dinner at Osteria Francescana where DS, who will by now be in the south of France, will try and join us. Table for 3 booked. Overnight at Hotel Cervetta 5, which is just a short stroll from the restaurant.
Saturday 30 - overnight in Binn, Switzerland
Sunday 31 - drive to Clos de la Prairie, 60 miles south of Calais
Monday 1 - drive to Calais for some intensive shopping and get an early afternoon Eurotunnel, arriving home in Manchester tired but happy.

I know there are some long drives at the beginning and end of the trip and particularly on Saturday 30th but we have done long day drives before and they are fine.

I guess that what I'm looking for is any advice or tips on things not to miss en route; tweaks to make to the schedule; restaurants etc. Our budget is approx. £100 a night for accommodation and I think it will be a mix of airbnb and tripadvisor places.

Thanks, Tim

Wondering why Interlaken. The shortest itinerary through Switzerland would be Basel-Luzern-Gotthard-Chiasso. The Interlaken zone is not very well connected if you are heading south by car (by train it would be much easier).

I have driven from Lytham to Siena.

I find driving later on the first day makes sense. Overnight in Dover and get the first ferry the next morning. Particularly in August when the kids are off school, a friend took 9 hours to drive from Manchester to London last weekend.

Beware of the tolls and factor them into journey.

Enjoy the trip, it is a great experience.

Asps - I've long wanted to see Interlaken although is seems a very expensive place to stay in, and it didn't seem to be a huge sidetrack off the shortest route although you are right it is a slight detour.

Dickie - 9 hours sounds horrendous - am hopeful we will have better luck - am mindful that it is a bank holiday weekend and we're geared up to set off early. I was thinking Eurotunnel over ferries as it's so much quicker. I wanted to reach Ghent as it looks so lovely and I'm sure it will be a quick taste as a prelude to a longer stay in the future. Thanks for the advice about tolls.

I'm intrigued about what, apart from cheap wine and beer and a few Gallic twists (big tins of petits pois) on basic food, you expect will come from "intensive shopping" in Calais.

I second the problem with your first day. In theory, a painless 7 hr drive - but MCR-Folkestone over summer weekends is utterly unpredictable, and Eurotunnel requires you to prebook a specific train. The M25 through Kent is lousy with speed cameras, so you can't make up for time lost on the M6 or between the M40 and A3 .

I'm very, very worried about your Binn-Calais day. The motorways through Burgundy are bad enough most summer Saturdays: but August 30 is a rentree Saturday in France - and it's the main route from the south of France to most of Germany and Scandinavia, and those Nordics will be going home too. The bit through Switzerland, in my less extensive experience, can rival Central England for sheer horror on summer Saturdays. I think you'll struggle to manage it in less than 12 hours.

There can be real issues on the French/Swiss border.

The Swiss make runs over to France to stock up on cheap booze, this can create huge queues when entering Switzerland as the Swiss authorities try to periodically search every car for those exceeding their import limits. We were stuck in what was probably a 3 hours queue at Basel. After 10 minutes at the back a Swiss customers officer spotted our British plates and the fact that we were displaying the correct Swiss motorway vignette, asked where we were going and sent us to the front of the queue.

I think the best approach to this trip is to focus on what you want to achieve. It is either a lazy jolly around Europe or a swift trip down to Florence to enjoy the fact that you are driving your own car and spend more time when there. Lose focus and you can end up getting nowhere and having little time in Florence.

I lost count of the number of times my wife spotted a famous name town at a motorway exit and begged to go. It was very difficult to drive the length of the A22 in Italy knowing Lake Garda was on the other side of a hill but having no time to stop.

On a final note I would have second thoughts about stopping in Florence. The traffic can be terrible, the ZTL is large and quite frankly it isn't that impressive a city unless you are sat on Piazza Michelangelo looking down on it. Your car may be a hindrance in Florence.

What about staying in Chianti and having a day trip into Florence?

After driving from Manchester I think I'd be glad of the rest that the ferry offers.
Eurotunnel is very strict on trains nowadays in my experience.
Getting to Gent could be another nightmare if it is a hot day. The motorway fills up with day trippers to the coast, especially in Belgium where it can feel as if all of Brussels is on the move. By the time you get there they will all be heading home and the motorway could be several lanes of solid.

Maybe you could leave home on Friday evening, stay somewhere closer to Dover/Folkestone and get an earlier ferry/train on Saturday.

No, cheap wine and beer and Gallic twists sounds good - I've never done a big shop in Calais and have always wanted to. I'll not build up my expectations though and we'll avoid the predictable Carrefour.

The advice on delays and the rentree is excellent and we will build in extra time that first day by leaving early. Yes, the Binn-Calais day will be a long one but if we expect it to be 12 hours then anything less will be a bonus. I'll make sure that the drive times are featured in my trip report. I'm a fan of AA route planner and find their drive times accurate under normal circumstances.

Dickie and Hetismij - thank you for the excellent advice and words of warning. Leaving Friday night is a good idea but I know we will both have had exhausting weeks at work and Friday nights are usually spent in wind down mode.

I think the focus is Osteria Francescana (as its the one thing that is booked) and having DS join us there but we are relaxed about the fact that he might prefer to stay in the south of France with his mates.

We are limited to just 5 days holiday from work and having a party here was always the other option so we are looking on this as just a bonus trip to Europe and have a fairly relaxed attitude to it as opposed to the very detailed planning and focus that has gone in to previous main holidays.

The drive from Metz to Interlaken is on a Monday and is just 255 miles so we will make sure we see the Pompidou Centre as soon as it opens hopefully and plan for delays.

The pitfalls of having a car in Florence are noted but I think I'd prefer to stay in the city - when we went to Venice I was so glad that we stayed right in the centre rather than day tripping in. There seems so much to see in Florence and I'm already feeling slightly bad that we only have 3 nights there.

Have you driven your British car on the opposite side of the road before? How about when sober? Thinking a rental might be a better option.

Yes Russ, this will be our third and smallest driving holiday in Europe and our first with sat-nav, drove across the Arc de Triomphe roundabout once which was scarey but great fun.