Travelling Through Europe - Journey Times
Having read Lee Davey's "European Odyssey" in the club's January 2022 magazine, I now feel inspired to follow the route that Lee and his family took from France to Croatia, and back again. However, Lee's article did not give any indication of travel / journey times between the different stops. I am conscious of making the mistake of not allowing enough travel time between stopovers. Any advice / guidance on how much time to allocate, so as to allow for a relaxing drive would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.
Comments
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If you put your route into ViaMichelin.com and specify motorway or non motorway - it will give you an indication of driving time - but then you will have to allow for stops for food, fuel, toilets and shopping.
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Last trip I did was in early summer of 2018. You can do it comfortably in 4 days to Istria. I usually cross the channel in the afternoon and night stop not far from Calais which means the first day on the Continent is a full days driving. The route I use took me through Begium, Luxemborg, Germany, all on free motorways then Austria, and Italy. I avoided the toll roads in Austria but paid the low cost of tolls in Italy and Croatia,
Day 1. 270 miles Calais to Sarlouis Germany all free motorway
Day 2. 282 miles Sarlouis to Fussen Germany all free motorway
Day 3. 166 miles down the Fern pass into Austria and up the Old Brenner Pass to Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy (note caravans are not allowed use the Old Brenner Pass and must use the toll motorway into Italy) Slower going through the Alps
Day 4. 220 miles through Solvenia and into Croatia to Selce. Toll charges on Italian and Croatian motorways (low cost)
Total distance 938 miles
On the 5th day on went on to Split for a couple of weeks.
For more detail click >here<
peedee
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Agree that ViaMichelin is good, you can specify your own vehicle type and whether you're towing or not and the app will use this to give distance, time, cost of fuel and tolls, if applicable.
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Another vote for viamichelin. I've found the on the road driving times to be very accurate. The bonus for us is we've always used a Garmin and now Avtex C&MC satnav which uses the same mapping.
Colin
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Here's a link to my second trip to Cres, Croatia.
I didn't 'race' to get there and did approximately 250-270 miles each day (5-6 hours easy driving with stops) Enjoy your trip
thttps://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-together/your-stories/jonray57/second-trip-to-cres/
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Can I add that the last time I went to Lake Garda it took me 12 days - because we kept stopping to see interesting places along the way. Croatia might have taken nearly three weeks.
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Like with all things it depends. Is the destination the main focus of the holiday and the travelling just an inconvenience or are both equally important? When we worked we usually had a main destination in mind but we would always spend a number of days in one place en route and maybe a couple of days at sites on the way back. Once we retired and were able to go on much longer trips, in our case 8/9 weeks we did tours that took in all the places we wanted to visit and one night stops were kept to a minimum. Out of the peak summer months you do have freedom to change plans if you wish.
As far as route planning is concerned I still use Microsoft Autoroute (still a bit surprised it still works in Windows 10!!!) Having worked out the distances I use an Excel spreadsheet to collate all the information. It may seem a bit OTT but its something I have been doing for years!
David
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I travelled to Croatia in 2019 as part of a 2 month trip from 18th August. No locations were pre-booked. Our stops were :
- 163 miles from Home to the free aire at Cite Europe Calais (1 night)
- 203 Miles to the MH aire at Han-sur-Lesse, Ardennes (1 night)
- 105 miles to Campingpark, Treviris, Trier (2 nights)
- 135 miles to Camping Freedom Bridge, Neckargemund (4 nights)
- 109 miles to the Stellplatz #P2 at Rothenburg ob der Tauber (1 night)
- 295 miles to the Stellplatz at Schneeburghof, Merano (1 night)
- 222 miles to Camping Miramare, Venician Lagoon (3 nights)
- 198 miles to Camping Jezevac, Krk, Croatia (9 nights)
- 116 miles to Camping Aquileia, Nr Trieste (3 nights)
- 160 miles to the Sosta at Pescheira del Garda (4 nights)
- 137 miles to Camping Village Lago Maggiore (5 nights)
- 180 miles to Aire Camping-Car Park at Savines-le-Lac (1 night)
- 122 miles to Camping La Sorgette, L'Isle sur la Sorgue (15 nights)
- 24 miles to Camping Pont d'Avignon (5 nights)
- 191 miles to Camping Municipal, Macon (3 nights)
- 227 miles to a free MH Aire near Sully sur Loire (1 night)
- 228 miles to a municipal aire at Le Crotoy, Baie de Somme (1 night)
- 23 miles to an Aire Camping-Car Park at Merlimont (2 nights)
- 48 miles to the free aire at Cite Europe, Calais
- 163 miles back home to Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Total of 3,050 miles, 39mph (average), 29mpg for a 2.3 Litre A Class Dethleffs Advantage.
As a rough rule of thumb, I plan my routes based on an average speed of 50 mph, including stops. That worked out quite well on the above itinerary, apart from long delays caused by queues to get on and off the Italian toll motorways.
Hope this helps.
Jim
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It's surprising how low average speeds become over time. When using Via Michelin, I input for a caravan although driving a motorhome. That gives a time nearer to what is achievable. Overall though I find when travelling over distances that average speed still works out around the 40-45mph mark.
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Thank you everyone - there's lots of useful advice and recommendations for me to consider.
I realise in hindsight that I omitted quite a few vital details about our proposed trip! We plan to go away for 28 days during the summer school holidays. Our initial idea is to spend 7 days travelling to Croatia, with a 14 night stay there, before spending the remaining 7 days for the return journey back to the UK. We will be towing a caravan and will have our three children with us, ages ranging from 6 to 14, so do not want to be spending too many hours in the car each day.
ViaMichelin gets a lot of mentions, so I will definitely give that a go.
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Is Croatia the best place to take children of that age? Would they be happier somewhere with bigger sandier beaches where they can run and play?
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It’s difficult when you’re constrained by school holidays. Croatia will be very busy with locals, Germans and Dutch for sure in July/August, but so will everywhere else. In the days when we had to travel during school holidays lake and river destinations always proved popular with the kids - lots to do swimming, jumping off rocks, fishing, canoeing etc. Many lakes & rivers have a beach of sorts and are generally much less crowded. France with it’s many lakes, river gorges and plan d’eau provides loads of good options bordering excellent campsites.
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I hadn't considered the fact that Croatia has rocky beaches, so I'm glad that I started looking into this now as it gives me the opportunity to start tweaking my original plan. Any suggestions for other areas where there are big sandy beaches on the lower end of Europe?
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The majority are rocky Leu but not all. Camping Omis has a sandy beach. I wouldn't let this put you off unless the children particularly want to play on a sandy beach but you will get a wider choice in southern France and the Costas.
peedee
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A bit far compared to say the Costa Brava which has some great beaches and campsites and can be reach easily with 3 night stops. >El Delfin Verde< is my particular favourite. My kids loved it there but is now very expensive in peak season. There are cheaper ones to be found around the Bay of Roses.
peedee
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The Mediterranean beaches of the Languedoc region in SW France are almost all large and sandy. The coast between Agde and Angeles-sur-Mere could meet your needs. I’ll be busy, but there’s quite a bit of space so doesn’t feel crowded - plenty of campsites in the area. For something different, the coast of Northern Spain is fairly wild with big sandy beaches, a bit reminiscent of North Cornwall without the crowds. However, weather not always reliable.
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I have no idea whether LEU wants a five star campsite with a full scale water park with multiple slides, children’s clubs and immediate beach access…or a simpler site with only a traditional pool and located a few miles back from the beach. Prices vary considerably .
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On a French/Spanish toll motorway, with so little traffic and billiard table smooth surfaces, cruising at 100 kph (62 mph) is fairly easy and stress free...a tad more if desired...just set the cruise control where you're comfortable.
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I suspect a lot will depend on how long you stop for lunch etc. Obviously if you take a 3 hour lunch then average times will drop.
On a long journey we tend to have a 10-15 minute morning stop for coffee, then 30 minutes for lunch and another 15 minute break in the afternoon so if we are out for say 6 hours we would be driving for 5, someone else doing 6 hours but only driving for 4 would of course average less doing the same speeds. Like BB we go about 60-65 on M/Way type roads and use them when we can, if you are using the A type roads with continual slowing down for roundabouts, chicanes, 50km speed limits then average MPH will naturally drop.
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