St Jean de Maurienne, Tunnel du Fréjus and Beyond

chasncath
chasncath Forum Participant Posts: 1,659
1000 Comments
edited August 2013 in Your stories #1

On Saturday we said ‘au revoir’ to our grandsons, their parents and their dog, and followed the river Arc up the Maurienne valley to St Jean where we planned to stop the night before heading for Italy. We arrived in the early afternoon and hunkered down for the forecasted thunderstorm which arrived on schedule. The municipal campsite is close to the town centre and is popular with cyclists keen on cycling over cols.

 It was a good jumping-off point for the next part of our journey through the mountains to the Italian Lakes; incidentally, there’s a Carrefour supermarket where you can top up with diesel on the route to re-join the D1006 to Modane.

 We left next morning and drove up to Modane and the Fréjus tunnel. It costs a stonking 54€ for motorhomes and caravans, but an hour after setting off we were through the tunnel and cruising down towards Turin. Why not use the Col de Cenis and save money? Because we’re wimps and we had a long way to go. Twisting, unguarded mountain roads are not for us!

 There’s little in the way of campsites across north-western Italy until you come to the lakes. Travelling along the Torino to Milano autostrada, we arrived at Camping Sassabanek on the shores of Lake Iseo in time for a refreshing swim in one of the pools. We chose Iseo as it’s principally a holiday destination for Italians and low-season started here this week: Lake Garda, on the other hand, is still in full Teutonic holiday mode

 We’re going to spend a few days more in this area before we set off for Croatia and the island of Cres where we hope to spend most of September: perhaps we’ll send you all a ‘Postcard’ 

Comments

  • chasncath
    chasncath Forum Participant Posts: 1,659
    1000 Comments
    edited August 2013 #2

    Here are some links which might be useful if you want to come this way.

    http://www.campingdesgrandscols.com/uk/index.aspx

    http://www.sftrf.fr/web/guest/tarif/tunnel

    http://www.sassabanek.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2&lang=en

     

     

     

     

  • chasncath
    chasncath Forum Participant Posts: 1,659
    1000 Comments
    edited August 2013 #3

    By chance we've met our chums, Ray and Pat, who live ine the Lot. Here's a photo:

  • chasncath
    chasncath Forum Participant Posts: 1,659
    1000 Comments
    edited August 2013 #4

  • royandsharont
    royandsharont Forum Participant Posts: 735
    100 Comments
    edited August 2013 #5

    Hi Chas & Cath, glad to see you are touring again & I look forward to reading about your travels. That was a heafty toll!!! We quite fancy travelling to Greece but Sharon does not fancy the route but has no particular reasons why. I think she is just apprehensive
    about some of the countries. I look forward to reading about Croatia.

    Regards, Roy

  • Eurotour
    Eurotour Forum Participant Posts: 14
    edited November 2013 #6

    Last year we wanted to go from Lake Maggiore to Lake Annecy, as you have stated the tunnel options of which the Frejus is the cheapest, work out fairly exspensive. We instead took the senic route over the Simplon Pass into Switzerland and then traveled through
    to Geneva on the non toll roads and round to Lake Annecy. The trip was easy completed in the day with a largish caravan in tow and pretty route to boot. The Simplon is used by HGV's so although reaching 6000 ft plus nothing to worry about apart from keeping
    one eye on the road while watching the view.

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