Tips for a day trip between European cities

Paris from Zurich is just over 400 miles. Let me say to take a pocket full of Euros for tolls. It's mostly an autobahn type of trip. From Venice to Vienna is 374 miles, and you'll be going thru some mountains. Northeast Italy is very beautiful. Vienna is also no slouch in the beauty department. I still find it an underrated, but still great city. Just take your picnic with you on both trips. They can be done if you just get at it early.

Calvin, it's not any where near 1/2 way between Venice and Vienna but Villach Austria is a lovely town to stop for a coffee or lunch. The Drau River runs through it and there's a nice pedestian area with shops and restaurants. There's also a really nice church there with a bell tower.

Hi David, How much roughly are we talking about for tolls? Also driving from Venice to Vianna, some say I need snow chains even in April but some say it should be fine with normal tyres in April. However the law in Austria requires all cars to have winter tyres or mud & snow tyres till mid April. I will be getting my car with mud & Snow tyres. Should that be enough or must carry snow chains? Being in Australia, I am not that experienced in driving in snow. Thanks Nancy for the suggestion. A friend of mine is also suggesting Villach and Graz.

Calvin, You can see how much your tolls will be by planning your route on the Via Michelin website. Have you factored into the cost of the car the large fee you will likely be charged for renting it in Italy and returning it in Amsterdam?

Thanks Andrea for the Michelin website. It is very helpful. Toll figure for the whole trip turned out to be lot more than expected. Regarding the cost of one way rental, we are actually taking the Peugeot lease car and got it during early bird sale so the one way fee is 50% of the actual amount. Which is still a lot of money. But getting a car from normal car rentals were lot more expensive than what we are paying plus we are getting a brand new car straight from the factory with zero access fees etc. We may not be able to do the same or similar road trip again so for once in a life time experience, I am hoping it worths the extra expenses. I am sure there will be many unexpected expenses on the road :)

I've done a lease and it was nice to have that new vehicle. There are pros and cons to driving, as there are for most things. Having the car may be more expensive for you than other modes of transportation, but it will give you freedom you don't get with a train. Will you have a GPS? I didn't for my first European road trip. We joked each day that the day was not complete without having to turn around at least once! After that trip I have always had a GPS and it definitely makes navigating easier. Not to mention giving one the freedom to go off track when something looks interesting, knowing that it will be easy to get back on your way to where you need to go.

I don't know what the exact legal requirement is, but you almost certainly will not need to use snow tires or chains in April, unless you drive VERY high into the mountains. Most of the major roads run through valleys and tunnels. If there's any fresh snow fall at all during that time, the accumulation will be insignificant on the roads. I don't think it was mentinoed yet, but to drive in Austria and Switzerland, you will need to purchase a vignette sticker at the border for each country. I assume your intinerary follows the sequence you listed above? If so, a good stop-over for lunch between Munich and Zurich would be Lindau on the Bodensee. Have lunch at a restaurant on the harbor, and if the weather is clear, enjoy the amazing view of the lake and the Alps. Brussels to Amsterdam doesn't take more than a few hours (traffic permitting), so you have time to linger. I can think of any number of suggestions, but some include a quick stop in Antwerp, checking out the windmill cluster at Kinderdijk (between Dordrecht and Rotterdam), or perhaps even a quick detour to Ghent or Brugge. If there are any kids in your party, or adults who really like trains, some suggestions could include Railz Miniworld in Rotterdam or the very kid-friendly Nederlands Spoorweg (Dutch Rail) museum in Utrecht. Without punching the route into ViaMichelin, I'm estimating that you may not have anytime to see much between Zurich and Paris. You may have to eat lunch at a rest stop service station.

Thanks Andrea. The car comes with GPS system but I am not sure if that has whole Europe map or just France. As a backup plan, we have 2 phones with working GPS and have downloaded full Europe map so hopefully we will not get lost much. Thanks Tom for the tips. Yes I did find out about the toll stickers for Austria and Switzerland. Even after using that sticker, Austria seem to have some special toll ways to charge additional tolls. Switzerland is bit confusing though. I could only find information regarding annual sticker costing 40CHF, not any short term ones.Do we need to pay for whole year when we are there just for few days ? Googling Lindau,it seems like a nice place to stop over. However my wife wants to go via Wattens, Austria to see the Swaroviski Crystal world. It won't be too much of a detour to get to Lindau though. Any idea about other places on the way from Wattens to Zurich. Just trying to gather as much information possible so we don't waste much time in searching etc during the trip. And yes, trip from Zurich to Paris...it will be a long day Thanks again

"Even after using that sticker, Austria seem to have some special toll ways to charge additional tolls. Switzerland is bit confusing though. I could only find information regarding annual sticker costing 40CHF, not any short term ones.Do we need to pay for whole year when we are there just for few days ?" Although there may be others of which I'm not aware, I'm a little more than 50% certain that the only toll road in Austria is A13 as it moves through the Brenner Pass. Unlike the Austrians, the Swiss only sell annual vingettes.

You could check with the company you're leasing through for the GPS Information, but I would be surprised if it didn't cover all of Europe. I second Tom's suggestion of stopping at the Bodensee for lunch if you can. We did that while driving from the Black Forest to Fussen and it was such A nice area. We ate lunch outside with a view of the lake and it was beautiful. Someday I hope to go back and spend more time in that region.

Between Vienna and Prague you can stop in Melk and Cesky Krumlov.

A few words about Swiss and Austrian vignettes. Any road with a green sign in Switzerland requires a vignette. They are only of one type for cars - an annual sticker which costs CHF40, and is valid from December of the prior year, the entire year of the number on the sticker, and to the end of the following January - up to 14 months. They must be stuck to the windscreen in specific places and they come apart when removed so they can't be transferred. It is illegal to affix it with tape. The rules for the Austrian vignette are similar but different. Again, required on all high speed highways and motorways, with vignette checking police near the national borders. They can be obtained for various lengths of validity, for a short as ten days. They are proportionally more expensive than the Swiss ones, €7.90 (may have just gone up) for 10 days. The difference is that Austria has many toll tunnels which require both the vignette and the payment of a toll (not cheap). The Grossglockner road is a toll road. It is also illegal in Austria to affix the sticker other than with the sticky stuff it comes with, and they are non-transferable. The Europabruecke south of Innsbruck towards Italy requires a non-trivial toll and a vignette. One slight compensation might be that the auto fuel in Austria, particularly the diesel, is some of the cheapest in Europe. I'm afraid that is not the case in Switzerland. You might do well to study the relative prices of fuel for your trip. We usually arrange to top up in the cheaper country and run the tank down in the more expensive ones.