Crossing the Alps

We’d originally planned to have a two-night stop before crossing the Alps, so that we could get some laundry done. But with the great weather conditions, and the chance to meet up with Teresa in Verona, we soon abandoned that idea. The drive along the Romantic Road twisted and turned so much that it took hours to reach anywhere near the end town of Füssen, and from where we would set off for the Brenner Pass.

I’m not kidding – for two hours solid, we were only 1.5 hours from Füssen, but it never seemed to get any nearer. Just as we thought we were making progress, we came to a “Road Closed” sign.  This was after we had sneaked along a narrow, tarmacked bicycle lane as well. The detour would have taken us miles out of our way. And the Audi is four-wheel drive, so what could go wrong? We found out when we reached the end section of road that had been dug up, and was still being re-laid by workmen. The man in the bright-yellow digger obligingly moved over for us though, we bumped and rutted over the surface, and rejoined the proper road within minutes. Phew!

But it was now getting on for 17:00, and Füssen was still 30km away. We decided to find a guesthouse in the locality, rather than research hotels with parking in the town itself. It wasn’t long before we passed a typical, Alpine guesthouse. I should say at this point, that the architecture had changed from medieval German to Alpine as we neared the mountains. We did a sharp U-turn, ‘Googled’ its reviews, and parked up outside. Yes, they had a room, and could do dinner for us. We had a view of the Alps and all was good. After an excellent schnitzel, a glass of wine and an early night, it was time to set off on the next leg of our adventure.

The next morning, we drove to one the beautiful schlosses in the area, just for a quick peek. It’s the one that was in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’. Füssen looked beautiful, and we may even go there on our return. A quick stop at a petrol station to buy the Austrian motorways’ vignette, and we started our wending climb.

Everyone talks about the Brenner Pass and the stunning scenery, but from Füssen, we first had to cross the Fern Pass, which I read about on a website called ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Roads’. A man had been driving his family along it when the heavy snow started, and they had to turn around. The snow ploughs got it clear, and he set off again the next morning, writing that it had been so twisty that his children had been car sick. Well, maybe they had overdosed on a sugary breakfast, because the climb was very easy, and the descent only had a few switchbacks, and we’ve had a lot worse. It’s single-lane, so if you do get stuck behind a truck for a while, you have to put up with it, but there were straight stretches and passing places.

The Fern Pass

At the top, we pulled into the café car park, along with everyone else. Sadly, it wasn’t open yet, but there was a coachload of German or Austrian youths being pratt-ish, so we skipped the coffee van, and descended. The scenery was absolutely stunning, it was an easy ride, Schumacher had handed over to his granny for the drive. All was lovely.

Eventually we were on the Autobahn that leads to the Brenner. We queued up and squashed into the small toll area to pay our fee, and watched as the ‘Poliz’ stopped the only other British car we’d seen. Perhaps they hadn’t bought their vignette?

In a road tunnel at 4490 ft above sea level

And we started to climb. Another road, this time two lanes. We stopped at one of the regular services for coffee. Eventually, at the pass itself, we were herded into a single lane to cross the majestic bridge. Apparently, it needs a lot of repairs, and will remain single lane for ages. We recognised the top from the YouTube videos and webcams we had watched back in Cirencester. And suddenly we were over the border in Italy.

And you know what Italy has? Italian drivers!

It was a fast, two-lane motorway down through northern Italy, heavy with trucks. We drove passed some quite industrial areas. Why I had expected it to be all fabulous scenery I don’t know. It took a lot of concentration. By the way, did I say we’d had the roof down all this time? We had to pull over for a super Italian coffee in the services, and to put the roof up, so that we could shelter from the sun and diesel fumes.

By the time the autostrada had reached the top of Lake Garda, we’d had enough of motorways, and took the exit. We drove down the eastern lake-shore to our hotel at the bottom of the lake in the town of Peschiera del Garda, which has a railway station from where we could get a train to Verona to meet Teresa. We passed through pretty places, and congratulated ourselves on choosing this scenic route.

We arrived into the outskirts of PdG: oh no, had we made a mistake? It really wasn’t appealing. We consoled ourselves that it was by the water, and we would be ok. And then we turned to go across a canal that entered the lake [Ed, turns out it was a moat for the old fortified settlement], and suddenly everything was beautiful. Our hearts lifted, our spirits went through the roof (and that was easy as Schumacher’s Granny had put the roof back down). We found our boutique hotel (the 'Pavillon'), and drove into their underground car park.

Our 'quarters' at Lake Garda

The hotel (really a restaurant with suites) had formerly been a military barracks in the 19th century, replete with enormous saloons, meeting rooms etc. The conversion had been done very sympathetically, with different eating areas and outdoor terraces. The suites were jaw-droppingly stunning.

We entered ours through a shared ante-room with comfy seating (shared with one other suite), then into an enormous dining room with a table and seating for eight, plus two comfy Chesterfields. Off this led a kitchen, and another suite, and our own. You could have played tennis in this room and still had seating for spectators.

The door to our suite opened into a large room with a bed for the entire Von Trapp family, a super bathroom, and, to Richard’s delight, a sauna. He used it for its intended purpose, and I used the residual heat to dry some hand-washing!

Our windows overlooked the canal into the lake, and we were delighted to see a gondola waft by. And we hadn't even go to Venice yet...