J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by benny12345

hi all,
in follow up the first part of this thread... had already decided best route to reschenpass into north west italy was via folkestone, dunkerque, begium, luxembourg, stuttgart, kaiserslautern then into the Bregenz pass, arlberg tunnel to Landeck then south.

However, went to visit the father-in-law this weekend and he is a veteran, pan european cyclist who likes to plan journeys, in detail. Afterall he's done Istanbul to London and you don't want too many surprises along those sorts of trips. So we set him the task of planning our route earlier this week. No information from us, just to see what he came up with.

His detailed (and colour coded) A4 itinerary showed a very direct line from calais, st quentin, reims, st dizier, Nancy, up a climb (960m) to Colmar, cross into Germany at Freiburg, get him a photo at Titisee ( :lol:) then friedrichshafen, into the Bregenz pass again.

I wanted to post it on here in case anyone else has done and can make any comments - on paper looks very direct, so comparisons would be interesting. Most interesting of all is its quite a bit shorter. SO the question is,,,are french roads really that bad compared to the German ones?

thanks everyone for all info. everything you've written has been erad and re-read by me and the missus. i'm looking into winter tyres but the additional, unexpected, outlay might be too much this year. i'm on the lookout for deals though so if you see any, do let me know.

on the travel route, and to give a bit of info back now we've been researching, my 2009 euro maps arrived yesterday morning so been going through in detail today. Sock man's advice seems to be the route to do still - wish we had more time as when planning this route you look at all the places and imagine stopping at them all. whereas we'll downing caffeine and ploughing right through :shock:

anyway, until this morning was not totally decided about bregenz/arlberg, versus innsbruck route to landeck. the arlberg route includes a tunnel tarrif of €8.50 and we were wondering if actually worthwhile. however we googled the distances and the travel times aqnd arlberg route turned out to be only 6km shorter but 40 minutes quicker.

nuff said, bregenz it is. thought it was worth passing on as 40 minutes at that stage is a good saving for us.

total journey
google says

ulm, bregenz, landeck, reschenpass then destination 1241km and 14 hours.

not in austria

thanks also for info on vignette, i was aware of these but must say I've got away with them loads before, normally in a hire car from italy - i'm going into austria for just a day to begin, then back a week later for a week. bit annoying but €7.70 pretty reasonable.

hmm winter tyres...i like the idea of more gear. got my snowshoes, now get some for the van too. nice. but they're only a year old so will have a nose tomorrow see if i can see this Marks and Spencer label before doing anything rash.

plan has updated now to one of the following:

a) leave folkestone around 6pm by chunnel on the 18th. drive until we can drive no more, sleep in german motorway cafe in the van, then up early, espresso fueled early start up bregenz pass into austria, squeeze in an afternoon on the snow at ischgl/st anton, drive on to destination in italy other side of resia pass.
b) leave folkestone around 8am by chunnel on the 18th, drive all day, kip in van near belpiano at top of resia pass italy, arise and get first taste of snow at said resort for the 19th before short drive to destination and showers (!)

leaning with b as means a whole rather than half day on the snow, but a means driving more at night which is probably less stressful traffic wise. don't mind driving, don't like traffic.

which solden we talking about?

eek. no. I've got chains ready for when I need them but no winter tyres. I reckon if i have a GB badge on I'll prob be ok as far as the law is concerned....

Driving a VW anyway, I'm propping up their economy, they can't risk pulling me over.

we;re stopping 3 differnt places in the area, but will get out on the snow at 4, possibly 5 different resorts. 2 in austria, 3 in italy. no rest for the girlfriend. yesterday all of those got a good layer and today too hopefully. Always want more though. One of the place said total snowfall last year at this time was around 4m and it's only just hit 2 now (base of 130cm)- however it was pretty avalanchey last year. it's early days yet though and sometimes what's printed as 5 cm on a website turns out to be 10 fresh up a hill.

just want to thank everyone for their info - and wish the best of snow for the season - checked the route again last night and made some amendments but will hit the stuttgart route, ulm then down to bodensee and up the bregenz pass, past st anton to Landeck. May come back via munchen to test the time difference.

we're now planning on leaving the night before and sleeping one (chilly) night in the van at folkestone before the train so friday 18th we can be driving the continent all day. think we will take the sock guy's advice and try ischgl/samnaun out too, always been slightly put off by crowds but i'm guessing 19th might be quieter? probably opening day so maybe not. come on the snow!