Romantische Strasse

We were still in Greece in Autumn 2024, when Richard started to talk about driving down to Leros next season. There are always a few foreign-registered cars at the marina – British and German in the main, plus the odd Italian job, and I think Richard had wondered before about a Road Trip.

He wanted to make a proper Grand Tour out of it, rather than just zapping down a bunch of motorways for eight hours a day. To do that we really needed to monitor our Schengen days in Greece, to allow us two weeks to drive down and two weeks to return.

The obvious solution was to head into Turkiye again. The other advantage of leaving the EU, was that this would reset Missy Bear’s VAT clock to zero.

In Leros, the early summer months can be brutally hot, and Richard didn’t want to leave the Audi in the open-sun to bake. We asked Rene at Leros Rent-a-Car if she knew somewhere we could store the baby, and she kindly offered their garages (as the rental cars would now be out and about). We flew home from Leros full of research ideas for the winter.

But as the saying goes, “the best laid scheme o’ mice an men gang aft agley”. And ours did indeed gang agley. Yorkshire-based family-health issues prevented us from starting our scheming until the end of January. But then it was February, so we had to travel somewhere for my birthday. And, before we knew it, March had arrived, and we hadn’t really schemed very much.

We sat down at a table, armed with laptops, phones, iPads, and the ‘Lonely Planet - Epic Road Trips of Europe’, which I had acquired in Bath as a Christmas present for Richard. Due to the aforementioned issues up-north, he received his unwrapped parcel only on January 25.

Our main dependencies would be ferry bookings. We spent some time calculating distances to give us 3-4 hours driving each day, with lovely places for overnight stops. We booked car ferries from Ancona (Italy) to mainland Greece, and then from Piraeus to Leros, the home of Missy Bear. We also agreed that we take the Eurostar on Sunday, March 31, leaving Cirencester early morning to arrive in Bruges that same afternoon.

Now the baton was handed over to me to research hotels. We were keen to find hotels with private parking wherever possible (not because of the car per se, but because all of our stuff was in it, including new bits for the boat).

We also wanted to remain flexible, and not have every day mapped out. So we booked our first night hotel in Bruges, and our second night hotel in the German city of Aachen, and then came simply shortlisted options for the future overnight places.

A key consideration was where we actually crossed the Alps (rather than driving around them, along the Cote d’Azure coast into Italy). We looked at two options: the Brenner Pass through Austria; and the Gotthard Tunnel through Switzerland. Both had their advantages and disadvantages. We inclined to the tunnel, as we had been invited to stay overnight by Swiss friends who leaved not far off our route, but they are busy travellers also, and we couldn’t make the dates work.

Two weeks before we were due to cross the Alps, we were able to get the long-range forecasts. The Brenner Pass would receive real dumps of snow before and after our crossing, and it is mandatory in Austria to have winter or all-season tyres, and to carry snow-chains. On the other hand, Switzerland has looser regulations, so we invested in their mandatory car “snow socks”, and agreed to keep an eye on the weather.

In reality, these passes are main roads that are kept clear with a veritable army of snow ploughs, but you don’t want to get caught on a small feeder road, or in a snow storm before the ploughs are unleashed.

Bruges by boat

We set off from Cirencester a day earlier than planned, so that we could overnight near the tunnel, and get an early start into Belgium on the Sunday. In the event, we arrived in Bruges too early to check into our hotel. But we sorted out the bags, and, more importantly, got the car into their nearby garage. I sorted out the paperwork while Richard went off to park a few hundred metres away in the hotel car park. This involved taking the car up a floor in a car-lift, and of course, being in a right-hand drive, two-door car (longer doors), he had to squeeze out, run around to the other side of the lift, press the buttons, squeeze back in, and then reverse out on to the next floor.

Delicious German fayre, in the medieval town hall bar

Bruges was delightful, and Aachen was worth a visit just for the cathedral and the delicious sauerbraten. But it was the following day that offered Richard the treat he had been waiting for – unfettered speed on the German Autobahns. But the Germans had also 'gang aft agley', as there were speed signs all the time: 90km for roadworks or bends; 110km or 130km restrictions; no speed restrictions followed immediately by a 130km sign. I think it’s the north-south Autobahns along the Rhine that offer the longest opportunity, but we were heading east past busy Cologne and Frankfurt.

And it was really busy. We’d be doing (say) 150km/h, and a BMW would appear up our backside from nowhere. I think our top speed was only about 180km/h, but I did bite my lips as we sped at 150km/h past a parked police car. I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it, and was quite relieved when Richard suggested pulling off, and heading cross country to our next overnight stop.

Richard has described the German ‘Romantic Road’ in his blog, and I really enjoyed being back in Germany in an area I’d not visited before. My German language skills appeared from some dark, off-line storage in my brain, without the need for a Babel fish.

On the way to Greece

Decision time soon arrived! The Gotthard tunnel was tempting, as we had found a lovely lakeside village to stay the night just through Lichtenstein. But the weather was hot and sunny with no sign of snow. An old university friend of mine, Teresa, was working for a few days in north Italy, and we could meet up easily in Verona. And so, the more direct Brenner Pass it would be…