European tour - suggestions

[rowtietowers]

Hi Nick/Ed
I'm from the North East region but always enjoy reading your reports in Porsche Post. We regularly go to France with our Boxster(s) and have been to the Dordogne & Honfleur numerous times (both which we love), Loire Valley, Hotel de France in Chartres sur Le Loire etc etc. We're now looking to extend our itinerary to include among others Alsace in Eastern France, Black Forest, Holland, Luxembourg & Belgium. Do you have any suggestions of routes, hotels that you could recommend, top tips etc - unfortunately once Porsche Post is read, it gets recycled to either the takeaway, dentists or doctors so I can't go back over older issues! Any suggestions gratefully received - we always use Eurotunnel but looking to possibly return using Amsterdam to Newcastle ferry crossing.
Regards

Trevor

 

[tiskev]

Have you done the Loire more or less all the way ? The lake at Lacanau is woth
a visit.You could head off after Bordeaux towards St,Tropez Nice etc ?

 

[Nick_USA]

Hi Trevor,

we do have routes and suggested hotels etc for many of the places you mention. I will come back to you.

best

Nick

 

[paul08]

Get one of the Brittany Ferries boats to Bilbao or Santnder and head to the Picos region. Fantastic roads, great scenery, and not too busy. Popular with motorbikers and cannot understand why more cars do not head there

 

[rowtietowers]

Have you done the Loire more or less all the way ? The lake at Lacanau is woth
a visit.You could head off after Bordeaux towards St,Tropez Nice etc ?

Not yet - been to Samuar & Le Chartres sue Le Loire so plenty of scope there. Not been past the Dordogne southbound yet but it's on our must do list at some point in the future.

 

[rowtietowers]

Hi Trevor,

we do have routes and suggested hotels etc for many of the places you mention. I will come back to you.

best

Nick

Thanks Nick - look forward to hearing your suggestions. For longer stays we sometimes use HomeAway but for shorter stays, we'll be looking at hotels
Regards
Trevor

 

[rowtietowers]

Get one of the Brittany Ferries boats to Bilbao or Santnder and head to the Picos region. Fantastic roads, great scenery, and not too busy. Popular with motorbikers and cannot understand why more cars do not head there

Hi - again something we've thought about but more to travelling back up through France. I've heard the Picos region is lovely as I'd read a magazine article some time ago so it's a possibility for future trips. I think this time we're looking to stay more Northerly and cover possibly the Black Forest, Alsace then travel back through Belgium & Holland but decent weather will also dictate where we pick.

 

[don alexander]

Have just returned from a fortnight touring the Rhine/Black Forest and then into Alsace. Further into France(Burgundy) and returning through Belgium.
Used the Newcastle/Amsterdam ferry both ways. Happy to give you more details on our route.

 

[mr pg]

The D430 in the Vosges region near Mulhouse is worth trying, and in Mulhouse I'd highly recommend visiting the Schlumpf car Collection. Amazing place.

 

[rowtietowers]

Have just returned from a fortnight touring the Rhine/Black Forest and then into Alsace. Further into France(Burgundy) and returning through Belgium.
Used the Newcastle/Amsterdam ferry both ways. Happy to give you more details on our route.

Thanks Don - that sounds similar to what we were initially looking at. Just ordered an A3 European map book so will do a bit more research but would be interested in your route & suggestions of stopovers/hotels - would like to try and stay at least somewhere for 5 nights or so then link the other places with 2-3 nights in each. Certainly Colmar is on our list and perhaps Freiburg with stopovers in either Holland or Belgium on the way out & back.

 

[rowtietowers]

Sorted!!
Change of plan - we're going to head to Epernay from Eurotunnel then via Troyes, Dijon, loop around via Morez, Chambery then onto Grenoble to do Route Napoleon before heading across to Carcassonne, Albi and working our way up back probably via A20 to Eurotunnel - about 18 days in total.
Thanks for all your suggestions - they will all be taken into account when planning our future trips []

 

[Chrishazle]

I'd second the suggestion of the Picos for another trip, 2 years ago we took the ferry to Santander (and had the worst crossing anyone could remember, 15th September!) then went roughly west in and out of the Picos to Santiago, then east along the south side of the mountains and through the Pyrenees to Lourdes (Marbella for catholics!), northish via the Millau (there's a superb visitor centre under the viaduct on the main road to Millau) and the Puy de Dome, finally to Epernay region for a little shopping! Superb trip, 2600 miles in 19 days, 968 cab never missed a beat. For hotels in Spain look at the Paradores and join their free Amigos thing for good deals.

 

[paul08]

Sorted!!
Change of plan - we're going to head to Epernay from Eurotunnel then via Troyes, Dijon, loop around via Morez, Chambery then onto Grenoble to do Route Napoleon before heading across to Carcassonne, Albi and working our way up back probably via A20 to Eurotunnel - about 18 days in total.
Thanks for all your suggestions - they will all be taken into account when planning our future trips []

That should be fun. We did something similar this summer, although in a motorhome!

Can I suggest that you might like to get a copy of a recent Ride magazine (the July issue I think). And yes, I know it is for motorbikers. The magazine has a supplement of about 100 routes for tours etc in and around France. If you have a stand-alone sat-nav (Garmin or Tom Tom) you can download the routes to your satnav. The routes can be found here:
http://www.ride.co.uk/routes/ The link also allows you to view the routes in Google Maps.

 

[rowtietowers]

Sorted!!
Change of plan - we're going to head to Epernay from Eurotunnel then via Troyes, Dijon, loop around via Morez, Chambery then onto Grenoble to do Route Napoleon before heading across to Carcassonne, Albi and working our way up back probably via A20 to Eurotunnel - about 18 days in total.
Thanks for all your suggestions - they will all be taken into account when planning our future trips []

That should be fun. We did something similar this summer, although in a motorhome!

Can I suggest that you might like to get a copy of a recent Ride magazine (the July issue I think). And yes, I know it is for motorbikers. The magazine has a supplement of about 100 routes for tours etc in and around France. If you have a stand-alone sat-nav (Garmin or Tom Tom) you can download the routes to your satnav. The routes can be found here:
http://www.ride.co.uk/routes/ The link also allows you to view the routes in Google Maps.

Thanks Paul - that's great. Will see if I can pick up a copy or at least download the files (doesn't work on an IPad as it just brings up a load of code)

 

[paul08]

It is a great shame that car manufacturers do not give drivers the option of downloading routes planned on a computer to our car's satnav. If bike manufacturers can do it (with garmin or TomTom supplied devices and Bmw with their Garmin supplied, but BMW branded, devices) then why not BMW cars or VAG cars?

I have done some of the Ride magazine routes around the Picos and northern Spain on a m'bike and in my Spyder. They were epic

 

[rowtietowers]

All booked now:-
Eurotunnel to Troyes (2 nights), Troyes to Annecy (2 nights), Annecy to Gap via Route Napoleon (2 nights), Gap to Mougins via Route Napoleon (5 nights), Mougins to just north of Colmar (4 nights), Colmar to Lille (1 night), Lille to Eurotunnel then home
My only question is the route from Mougins (just outside Cannes) to Colmar - we'd like to travel back though Italy via Lake Como then though Switzerland via Basle before getting to Colmar (slightly shorter than going back though France and slightly slower). I know about the Vignette for Swiss motorways but what about the Italian toll roads - we have a Sanef toll pass for France and that works great as you don't need to worry about getting too close to the toll booths to pay!

 

[mr pg]

We used a number of Italian toll roads this summer and next time would also look at getting a tag as we have for France.