Driving from UK to Greece

[Thedreamoneday]

I'm driving from UK to Greece this April, ideally I only want to do 4hrs ish driving per day (250-300miles) from Calais, then I'm looking to get a ferry from Italy to igoumenitsa.

Has anyone got any suggestions of routes, scenic would be good but not essential, potential b&bs or other cheap accommodation, these would need on site parking to accommodate a large car (Jeep Grand Cherokee) and mid size trailer. Also I'm looking at the ferry from Ancona to Igoumenitsa is that the cheapest?

I'm only early stages of planning this so any pointers would be great.

Thanks

 

[vyv_cox]

The most direct route is through Belgium, Luxembourg for cheapest diesel in W Europe, south towards Metz, through the tunnel and down to Basle, Gotthard Pass, Milan and it is then almost a straight line to Ancona. Alternative is through Austria but we prefer the Swiss route. It may be cheaper to drive right down to Bari but it's a very long way and the accommodation on the ferry probably makes up the cost difference. Can't help with accommodation, we have only done it (many times) in a motorhome.

 

[RichardS]

I'm driving from UK to Greece this April, ideally I only want to do 4hrs ish driving per day (250-300miles) from Calais, then I'm looking to get a ferry from Italy to igoumenitsa.

Has anyone got any suggestions of routes, scenic would be good but not essential, potential b&bs or other cheap accommodation, these would need on site parking to accommodate a large car (Jeep Grand Cherokee) and mid size trailer. Also I'm looking at the ferry from Ancona to Igoumenitsa is that the cheapest?

I'm only early stages of planning this so any pointers would be great.

Thanks

I guess I'm stating the obvious but at 4 hours driving per day it's going to take you a very long time and with a trailer you'll just not average 250 - 300 miles.

We drive to Croatia several times a year and you definitely need to take the northerly route from Calais round Brussels past Cologne (Koln) Frankfurt, Nuremburg, Munich, Salzburg then down towards Trieste and the Italian East coast. Ancona is a good crossing point but it's cheaper the further South down the Italian coast you go. However, after such a long drive I agree with you that it's good to get off the road asap.

Driving down through Slovenia and Croatia is a very very long option as the roads after Dubrovnik are tediously slow.

In the past we've gone through to Patras rather than Igoumenitsa to minimise the driving but it depends where in Greece you are headed for.

Richard

Actually Trieste is too far East for Ancona so you need a more direct route South from Salzburg but that's not one that I've actually driven.

 

[duncan99210]

Towing a trailer you might want to avoid the higher tolls on the French autoroutes, so you might want to consider going via Belgium, Germany and Austria. 3 - 4 hours driving a day will take you a week or more, so that'll push your costs up.

Accommodation on route. We use booking.com to find places to stay. Avoid the very cheapest, they often tend to be hostel type places but mid priced places are all pretty reasonable.

Ferries. There are ferries from Trieste, Venice, Ancona, Bari and Brindisi to Igounemitsa. The last two you can make the crossing without the need for cabins, all of the others we regard a cabin as a necessity. The car and passenger element of the fare is reasonably priced, cabins are expensive! We've just about given up on the on board catering and tend to take large supplies of munchies and drinks to see us through. There's not much to choose between the various companies operating on the routes in terms of price and quality of service.

We looked at driving all the way but the hassle of transiting none EU/EEA countries in terms of getting medical and car insurance put us off the idea. Then my cousin, working for the US Peace Corps in Albania, completely finished the job by describing the driving conditions there.

 

[Thedreamoneday]

Excellent, exactly the sort of knowledge I'm looking for.

The 4 hours is only approximate, we could easily do 5-6hrs if needed and thinking of the mileage, I'm probably thinking of what I do now whilst in my company car, so maybe I need to re calculate that but no rush needed which is unique for us.

Boat is in Preveza which is why we're looking at igoumenitsa but I'm open to any other departure ports if it makes traveling sense.

 

[nimbusgb]

Go to Dunkirk not Calais.

Brussels, Luxembourg, Stuttgart, Innsbruch, Bolzano, Trento, Verona, Modena, Ancona. 1700 km, tolls in Italy approx €70, Tax Carnet in Austria €8.70 ( 10 days )
Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Basel, Lucern, Milan, Modena, Ancona, 1550km , Tax Carnet in Switzerland €40, tolls in Italy €90.

Judge your consumption to not fill up in Switzerland ( diesel €1.24 / l ) as it's expensive and if possible to get on the ferry with a low / empty tank, Fuel in Italy is expensive too ( €1.33 /l ) diesel. Luxembourg €0.86 /l diesel. Fuel up in Igounomitsa €1.03 / l diesel

You have 1000 miles to do. It's a long drive. 3 to 4 hours a day ... will take a week to do it! Driving hard, can be done in about 16 hours of driving / 24 hours elapsed.

Not much point in going further south to Bari to catch the ferry, it still takes just under 24 hours aboard, similarly the Brindisi ferry is decidedly 'rough' in the 3rd world sense and they run slower to conserve fuel so it's still overnight and you have to add about €80 in tolls to get from Ancona to the heel of Italy and in Italy the fuel costs are steep.

Ancona to Igounomitsa is 24 hours aboard. Book a cabin, shower, proper beds, relax. igounomitsa to Preveza is an hour and a half drive. if you go to Patras and drive back to Preveza it'll be 3 hours ( if I remember correctly the Patras bridge doesn't take major credit cards, cash only )
If you must take it slow, take the slower routes over the Alps. Fernn pass into Innsbruch is lovely, Austria, picturesque. Innsbruch to Bolzano 'over the top' rather than on the motorway is truly stunning. ( But don't do it in the snow without windscreen wipers ....... )

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zSNZ7CuU6lkc.khyGCSCdO5Qw&usp=sharing

 

[Tranona]

I used the route suggested by Vyv and did it in two days from an early morning arrival at Dunkirk to Brindisi with an overnight stop in Switzerland. My return took a week doing much what you plan. In that case it is perhaps best to choose a "tourist" route with overnight stops in interesting places. It does however, significantly add to the cost. Good suggestion to use booking.com for stops. Good information on locations, facilities etc on the website and reliable in my experience.

 

[BrianH]

Brussels, Luxembourg, Stuttgart, Innsbruch, Bolzano, Trento, Verona, Modena, Ancona. 1700 km, tolls in Italy approx €70, Tax Carnet in Austria €8.70 ( 10 days )
Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Basel, Lucern, Milan, Modena, Ancona, 1550km , Tax Carnet in Switzerland €40, tolls in Italy €90.

Little to add other than the Swiss Autobahn Vignette (Sfr 40 not € - agreed that at the moment similar at 1.1:1) is valid for the calendar year. A point if you will be returning or making more than one journey.

Avoid the Gotthard Tunnel at weekends or any holiday period - it is overloaded at the best of times and it is frustrating to be delayed an hour or two with long queues at both ends. With my own travel to the boat in the Adriatic two or three times a year I have given up on it and now use the Lötschberg rail tunnel, Kandersteg–Goppenstein, an easy drive-on, drive off, 15km link that costs Sfr 25.00 (weekdays) or Sfr 28.00 (weekends) - although your trailer will cost more. The trains run continuously and I have never had more than a 15 minute wait for the next one. Then down to the Rhône valley east until turning south at Brig for the Simplon pass - an excellent road that rarely has too much traffic - down to Milan on dual-carriage roads then autostrada with circa €7 tolls.

 

[Davy_S]

We have driven the route several times, its each to their own of course, the best route for us (to Kefalonia) was Calais to Ancona. We stopped at Troyes and Chambery and made a leisurely trip, then we stayed at the Merengo hotel in Italy (fantastic place) we only paid around 30 euro for accommodation including breakfast. My opinion is that the French roads are worth paying the tolls. We towed through the short route via Switzerland once, the waggons were a nightmare! never again. the last stretch to Ancona can be busy, but the rest is very quiet roads. We will always go this route now.

 

[nimbusgb]

Little to add other than the Swiss Autobahn Vignette (Sfr 40 not € - agreed that at the moment similar at 1.1:1) is valid for the calendar year. A point if you will be returning or making more than one journey.

Avoid the Gotthard Tunnel at weekends or any holiday period - it is overloaded at the best of times and it is frustrating to be delayed an hour or two with long queues at both ends. With my own travel to the boat in the Adriatic two or three times a year I have given up on it and now use the Lötschberg rail tunnel, Kandersteg–Goppenstein, an easy drive-on, drive off, 15km link that costs Sfr 25.00 (weekdays) or Sfr 28.00 (weekends) - although your trailer will cost more. The trains run continuously and I have never had more than a 15 minute wait for the next one. Then down to the Rhône valley east until turning south at Brig for the Simplon pass - an excellent road that rarely has too much traffic - down to Milan on dual-carriage roads then autostrada with circa €7 tolls.

I deliberately converted to € to keep the comparisons easy The Lötschberg tunnel is a hoot! We've done it twice, first time was a complete surprise.

 

[duncan99210]

A quick thought about ferries. If you're planning on doing a return journey, you can get a reduction if you book both legs at the same time (30% IIRC). Jenny at Karyatis Travel in Preveza can do your booking for you: we've found it's worth using her as the ferry company websites are often not working properly, she calls the booking offices direct to do the bookings. Email karyatistravel@hotmail.com
Usual no connection just a satisfied customer thingy.

 

[captmikecoin]

A further thought on the ferry front. Minoan lines have been cheaper in my experience on the Ancona route and they have a 30% early booking discount going at present but it runs out tomorrow! I book through Viamare in London (+442082063420) but you can also call Minoan direct in Greece on +30 2810 229602. Usual disclaimers.

 

[AndrewB]

Take a look at the three routes recommended by the route planner www.viamichelin.co.uk, setting Calais and Ancona as the end points. We now always go by route 2**, which is the one also recommended by Vyv_Cox and Tranona, via the St Gotthard Tunnel (but beware long queues in peak seasons).

Our pattern is six hours driving per day, 300-350 miles, catching the 8am Dover-Calais ferry and arriving in Ancona for the 4pm ferry to Greece after two overnight stops. There are plenty of hotels and B&B's down this route, we now regularly use one near Toul, France, and a second in Piacenza, Italy. I won't specifically recommend them as they might not be to your taste. As we are usually carrying lots of boat stuff in the car our choices are based on cheap places with safe parking, never in centre of cities where only expensive hotels have parking. For that reason, if you are getting the morning ferry from Ancona you'll need another stop nearby, then a hotel in one of the coastal resorts on the SS16 is preferable to Ancona itself.

Coming back is a more leisurely affair as then we'll take time out to visit places.

**I see it's now shown as route 1. Anyway, it's the central route of the three.

 

[Dave100456]

Drove UK to Turkey, first part of which was is in common with your desired route. I chose to go Venice to Igoumenitsa as the longer crossing gave me an opportunity to catch up on sleep after 800 mile days. It's a great ferry route and the crew were quite happy with me sleeping in a hammock on deck. The savings on fuel and travel through non EU countries convinced me this was the best option. I timed my journey at the beginning of the season when the ferry route opened but be aware of the possibility of snow on the alpine passes can be a problem.

 

[Thedreamoneday]

Thanks everyone, as always excellent detail and plenty to get my teeth into.

I just need a few hours now to see which out of the many options best suit our needs.

Thanks again

 

[vyv_cox]

Some further comments. The route between Luxembourg and Basel via Metz is toll-free except for a small sum for the tunnel, €12 from memory, and is almost all dual carrageway. I agree about the queues for the Gotthard tunnel, can be frustrating. Motorway tolls for Switzerland and Austria are about the same if the apparently voluntary Austrian one is paid, although the fee to cross the pass is compulsory. Italian tolls used to be minor but are becoming more of a consideration.

 

[BrianH]

The Lötschberg tunnel is a hoot! We've done it twice, first time was a complete surprise.

I now prefer the Lötschberg rail link despite the non-autobahn section to Brig, half-completed and delayed this past twenty years. The Simplon pass road is a delight to drive with a reasonably-powered car for the ascent and the ability to slip into a lower gear to limit brake wear on the descent. But that's because the Bernese Oberland is on my doorstep, I can imagine that entering Switzerland at Basel the Gotthard route is the logical one to reach Italy.

I made the mistake when returning last November of thinking to re-try it as I saw few foreign vehicles between Venice and Milan, thinking that so late in the year there would be no problem despite it being a Sunday ... when I usually travel to profit from the truck ban, and there was, indeed, little traffic after the Chiasso border, especially past the St Bernadino junction to Zürich. But bad move, there was a long queue before the tunnel, two lanes stopped about two kms before the entrance, creeping forward very slowly. After a while it became obvious the outer lane was faster (I was inner) and after an hour of crawling it became obvious why. The traffic lights above each autobahn lane and before where they merge was not synchronising between the two lanes, which it did the last time I was there, alternating red/green to allow each lane to filter equally into the single one. Now both were changing together such that the most aggressive could force forward as both changed to green and it was an interesting psychological example that outer lane drivers were the most aggressive and thereby enabled their lane to dominate the flow.

Once in the tunnel it was clear that the function of the traffic lights was now no longer for fair distribution between the two lanes into the single tunnel lane but to control for fewer vehicles into the tunnel thereby forcing more spacing between them in bursts. The fact that the lights could be programmed to do both with a period of both being red before alternating greens either must have escaped the organisers ... or be beyond the system's functionality.

No doubt the cautious filtering and delay techniques are a legacy of the horrific fire in 2001 but I have never noticed such long queues and delays that now occur, which must be due to the increased number of vehicles every year. There is an interesting comment about that accident here: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/gotthard-tunnel-safer-ten-years-after-inferno/31390366

 

[RichardS]

Motorway tolls for Switzerland and Austria are about the same if the apparently voluntary Austrian one is paid, although the fee to cross the pass is compulsory.

Although if you touch the Austrian motorway system don't take Vyv's "apparently voluntary" comment too literally. In 2013 I bought the vignette for 15-ish Euro but didn't stick it on the windscreen immediately as it was 4:00 in the morning and still dark. I was stopped by an Austrian border guard a couple of hours later when leaving Austria. I showed him the vignette but copped a 120 Euro cash fine for "non displayment".

I was polite and respectful but pehaps the memories of 1945 are still too fresh?

Richard

 

[billcole]

In the summer it's quite nice to drive over the Gotthard pass instead of queing for the tunnel. It works quite well to stop overnight at the Kyriad Mulhouse Nord after the Channel ferry. In the morning fill up with cheap fuel at the big Carrefour which is almost opposite the hotel (before crossing into expensive Switzerland), and also get provisions in the Carrefour for a picnic which can be eaten while looking at the impressive view from the meadows just after the top of the Gotthard pass.

 

[Cariadco]

Just drove from Corfu to Calais, just before Xmas and here's our journey details below, which I posted on a Corfu facebook site. Ok, so it's in reverse to your plan, but you might find it interesting:

Corfu Ferry over to Ingominetsa, left Corfu 9pm, arrived in Ingo an hour or so later, killed a couple of hours and caught the 1 am ferry to Ancona. Had a nice room, a couple of pints, bed.....good breakfast and lunch, all got a bit boring by the time we got to Ancon. Both Ferries and the Room cost total 360 euros. Drove from Ancona at about 5 PM, Getting out was a bit long drawn with the tea-time traffic. Heading for the French Alps, via Bologna, Turin, dead obvious route really. Italy was a bit fast and furious. We were doing 130/140 kph and little Fiat Chinqochento's and 500's were still passing us!! Went through Frejus Tunnel at about Midnight, burst into French rain on the other side and made our way down to the Ibis in Chanbery, to spend the night. Couldn't find it and eventually got to bed at about 2 am. Great cheap hotel (and they welcome pets). Set off at 8 am, heading for Calais and the 8 PM Ferry.. So headed for Lyon, Dijon, Reims and eventually got to Calais for 4 PM. France was mind numbingly boring. Hour after Hour..on and on.... Service stations were good, though. As we got to Calais a little early, I rolled upto the Ferry terminal, and unbeknown to us, they put us on the 5 PM ferry!! Got to Dover at 7 pm (clock change) and flew upto the M25, round Heathrow bit, off up the M40/42/6/54 and got to Mid Wales around 1 am. All fairly straightforward, and the Missus navigated the whole route on an 8 year old map. Used about 300 euros in Fuel and Toll's (Have plenty of small euro notes to hand). Milage was about 750 kms to Chambery and about 850 from there to Calais.