driving to austria - any advice please?

morning all, my first post on here so be kind please.

girlfriend and i doing our first drive out to the snow in europe. we're headed out of uk morning train on fri dec 18th chunnel to calais then driving to austria (bregenz pass i think) and then on through reschia (resia?) pass into northern italy. It's all about the sudtirol. once here we have 2 weeks and will be toing and froing around the border country here.

but what I'm after is your expert travel tips for getting there. my general plan is to get through belgium and into germany as fast as possible, then go straight south to austria. any routes, advice, tips at all welcome.

on the way out planning an all dayer of driving so we can hit the slopes on the saturday but on the way back 2nd of jan - looking for a good place to stop within around 6 hours drive of the french chunnel. suggestions, recommendations, welcome.

motor is a vw transporter kombi

thanks in advance

Welcome Benny. I have done the drive across Belgium many times. I recommend you head up to Dunkirk, and then east to Lille, Tournai, Namur (this is the E42 route) and then south using the E411 route to Luxembourg and Metx before heading east again to Strasbourg and down to Basel. You can then use the Swiss motorways to get across to St Gallen and Lake Konstanz.
If you want to avoid Switzerland, head east from Luxembourg to Kaiserslauten, Ludwigshafen, and then down to Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and Ulm and on to Friedrichshafen.
I am not so sure about from Bregenz down to Italy, but it looks like going past St Anton and onto Landeck and dropping south from there. You should consider a stopover in Samnaun as you will be going right past it and skiing Ischgl.
Sounds like an adventure!
On the return journey, Basel/Mulhouse would be as good a place as any to stop over leaving a short enough journey to the port. Theres plenty of cheap hotels near the airport on the motorway.

I would go ..Lille > Luxembourg (fill up there its the cheapest in Europe)>Strasbourg > Stuttgart> Munich >Innsbruck to Brenner pass..the route you mentioned you would use the Arlberg tunnel and is longer and more expensive

ps

Going through Switzerland is longer to Innsbruck and would cost the Swiss road tax £40

That would be a much more direct motorway route into Italy to be fair, but maybe he mentioned the Resia pass for a reason?

wow great answer first time thanks. That sounds like what google recommended (stuttgart route) but I need to get out the map now before I can ask anything else.

but yes had planned on missing out switzerland for the extra "carnet" price and you've got it, once in Austria Landeck is the hub, continue east to innsbruck or south into Italy. we always drive this area but normally fly first.

ishgl on my mind too, as is st anton, but thinking we may save either/both to the last days as would be good to have my legs in order for both resorts.

so how long do those routes take you? do you floor it all the way in a single mission or take it nice and easy? do you need to pay for autobahns?

If you avoid France you wont pay for any autoroutes. It used to take me between 3-4 hours Dunkirk to Luzembourg, steady 130kph. Sometimes more, sometimes less if we were in a hurry )
If you are going across the Brenner then defo head across to Munich. AA route planner is normally about right in travel times.
I'd say something like 12 hours to Brenner Pass from port.

thanks daved, appreciate the petrol point. the resia pass is important to us though as we are not heading across to the dolomites but staying around this area - try to hit all the glaciers in this area alolng with a few other resorts too.

The way I used to go was Lille Luxembourg, Stuttgart, Munich, Innsbruck and over the Brenner pass into Italy and it is toll free 8)