Lunch stop and best route between Lautetbrunnen and Vernazza

www.rome2rio.com will give you some initial ideas. Put in your two locations, and the options on the left under driving will show some options and gives you info on toll roads on each road if you click on specific details.

ViaMichelin suggest three different routes. The midpoint on all of them would be a bit north of Milan. I've never driven in that area, so I can't suggest a specific convenient place to stop.

"Where to park our car safely for 3 nights before taking train to Vernazza." - where will you be for those 3 nights? And you have 1 vehicle for a "large family"?

Carol,

A few thoughts on your questions......

• Best driving route - I'll leave that to the others as I always travel by train on that route. It's much easier and more relaxing.
• Lunch stop - whatever town you happen to be in at lunch time.
• Where to park the car - You could park the car at the large lot on the beach in Monterosso, as it's only about a ten minute trip from there to Vernazza by train. You could also leave the car in the large car park near the La Spezia station, and it's also a short trip from there Vernazza.

A few other questions that occurred to me in reading your post.....

• Have you driven in Europe before?
• Which countries will you be visiting?
• Which country will you rent the car and where will you drop it off?
• Are you aware of the potentially expensive "caveats" regarding driving in Italy (and some other countries)?
• When will this trip be taking place?

Yep - I would totally do this by train, but the OP was quite adamant about being happy to drive throughout Europe. PS: Driving is not all of the happiness you may think.

Thank you to all who responded. To those who enjoy train travel I am happy it works well for you !!! We rent a car and take to the open road stopping whenever we want , venturing to back roads and places we would not have visited. We have driven all over Europe for three week summer road trips for years . For six people the train is no less expensive and we enjoy the convenience and spontaneity. I guess it's whatever works for people. I was recently in China for three weeks where you cannot rent a car and we did not like being without a car . The trains were clean and fast but we were always needing rides to and from everywhere and it got expensive. And time consuming. When we are tired it's nice to get into the car and go.
Someday it may change but for now we llove a good road trip.