Alternative to Frejus or Mont Blanc tunnels.

Is this because you are heading solely to Italy? or are you doing  some touring of France as well? great San Bernardo is a climb but i survived with the perforated ear drum its part tunnel part gallery and although they have put concrete sides up there is still daylight to be seen in most of it anyway. about 5km in total so is shorter than mont blanc about 11km and ashorter that freju about 12km

If you are solely heading for Italy there are other options but they are to the east,and wont fit in with a tour of France.

We chose to travel down thru France as we are familiar with the roads after previous hols. We have ferry to Dunkirk from where we shall meander down thru Reims, Dijon, Turin (amongst others) avoding autoroutes. We try not to overplan as we shall prob stopover for a few days here and there depending upon the weather etc. We intend to come back thru Germany etc. As I said we don't overplan. Just that I don't fancy the long tunnels although I know that's quicker but shmbo is nervous about narrow mountain roads.

Hi Graha.

I sympathise with you.  I don't like tunnels overmuch myself and my wife is not keen on very mountainous roads.  The following routes fit in with your wife's concerns.

I don't know if this is any help to you but we have travelled in/out of Italy by 2 different non-tunnel routes.

In 2006 we left travelled to the Lake Como area,  We travelled by free autoroutes from Dunkerque down to Switzerland via France, Luxembourg and Belgium and then into France again.  We then turned west just south of Nancy to take the N66 the the Ballon des Vosges mountains.  The N66 is a good road through these relatively low mountains and it copes with gradients with long, easy hairpins.  We then crossed into Germany and into Switzerland near Basle.  We then took the Swiss autoroutes to the northern end of the St Gotthard Tunnel. 

We had intended to take the tunnel but a puncture enroute meant that we arrived at the tunnel at tea time on the last Friday in July.  At that time most of Europe seemed to be queued for the tunnel so we decided to take the St Gotthard Pass. The  good quality road was not too steep or narrow.  It descended to the summit by series of hairpins.   and then there was a longish flattish "plateau" stretch at the summit of the pass before it descended again by long, hairpins.  We were towing our Avondale Landranger twin-axke with a Vauxhall Monterey and it coped easily with the pass.

In 2007 we travelled to Italy using the St Gotthard Tunnel.  On our way home, however, we had a breakdown which meant that we were towing our 'van with a hired tow car provided by Red Pennant insurance.  The car, the largest they could provide in Italy, was a little underpowered for towing our 'van so we opted to take Brenner Pass Motorway from near Lake Garda into Austria.  This was, of course a motorway and had no "scarey" bits.

Of course the Swiss one does require Swiss motorway vignettes for both the car and caravan and the Brenner motorway has a toll charge as well needing a motorway vignette.  The Austrian vignette is only required for the car is much cheaper than the Swiss ones..  In addition both of these routes do include short tunnels/gallleries as that is the only way the roads can cross the mountainous terrain. 

I hope these routes may be of some use to you. 

Best wishes

Tim

Thanks for your advice Tim but was hoping to stick to France/Italy on the way out and save the excitement of vignettes for the return trip. Might have to grit my teeth and take the Frejus tunnel. Still wondering about the D1006 from Modane near the start of the tunnel.

Have to make my mind up soon. I suppose I could come further south through Grenoble and then Briancon.

Graham

Two years ago we went through the Tunnel de Frejus. I am also not keen on long road tunnels but have to say it wasnot too bad. A bigger cause of stress is the price! Have you thought about the Mont Cenis Pass which is an alternative. I have not used it because it was still closed when we went through the tunnel. If you need a nice overnight near the Tunnel we liked this Municipal http://www.davidklyne.co.uk/camping_municipal_des_grand_cols.htm

David

David,

thanks for that, the camp site looks nice. Mont Cenis Pass - where is that; can't find it on my map?

Regards

Graham

Type "Mont Cenis" in to Google maps, and it takes you to it.

Jim.

Aah yes, this is the D1006 from Modane which I asked about in my earlier post. Will I be able to use this route without 4wd? The map shows several winter sports venues along the way. Looks like a nicer option than the tunnel. Thanks

Graham

Sorry Graham; can't help you on that one. Perhaps others may have more info, or look up ski info in that area.

Jim.

I used the Mont Cenis Passs a couple of times some 23 years ago - not towing. Although the surface was a bit rough in places there were plenty of pull-off areas and no feeling of claustrophobia. Some reasonable scenery too. I seem to remember it was banned to HGVs. The CC Europe handbooks have a section on moutain passes so this may help too.

Try setting up a route on www.viamichelin.com and selecting the car and caravan option and see if they produce a route over the pass or advise you not to. just put in a couple of towns close to the ends of the pass as your Start and Destination points so as to limit the choices.