European road trip

Rich76 · Aug 15, 2019

well the time has come again for the annual trip around Europe for the family holiday , this year is a bit of an epic one taking in 6 country’s and around 2500 miles in 14 days.

Due to changing the car we won’t be in the Audi this year but will be in the 320i m sport

I’ve got a cleaning kit packed and looking at the weather across Europe for the early part of the week I will need it!

Luckily this weekend I’m at work Saturday morning so sill be taking full advantage of the valeting bay to give the car a good clean

The route for the trip is

France
Belgium
Luxembourg ( over night in saarbruken )
Munich ( another nights stop plus a walk around the city)
Austria ( visiting Salzburg abd hanger 7)
Italy ( lake Garda)

Spending a few days in Austria so hoping to get on some scenic roads before driving over the alps and in to Italy for a week.

Will be posting pictures when I can buy doubt I’ll have much in the way of WiFi or 4g in Austria unless I go in to a town .

HOGG · Aug 15, 2019

Just make sure you have European breakdown cover....

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Rich76 · Aug 15, 2019

HOGG said:
Just make sure you have European breakdown cover....

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Yeah have a fully comprehensive pack for Uk and Europe via Greenflag

Best value out there, a year with them costs less than AA or RAC want for two weeks European cover

NevMan · Aug 15, 2019

Rich76 said:
well the time has come again for the annual trip around Europe for the family holiday , this year is a bit of an epic one taking in 6 country’s and around 2500 miles in 14 days.

Due to changing the car we won’t be in the Audi this year but will be in the 320i m sport

I’ve got a cleaning kit packed and looking at the weather across Europe for the early part of the week I will need it!

Luckily this weekend I’m at work Saturday morning so sill be taking full advantage of the valeting bay to give the car a good clean

The route for the trip is

France
Belgium
Luxembourg ( over night in saarbruken )
Munich ( another nights stop plus a walk around the city)
Austria ( visiting Salzburg abd hanger 7)
Italy ( lake Garda)

Spending a few days in Austria so hoping to get on some scenic roads before driving over the alps and in to Italy for a week.

Will be posting pictures when I can buy doubt I’ll have much in the way of WiFi or 4g in Austria unless I go in to a town .

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Dan_G · Aug 16, 2019

Do you get a spare wheel or the bottle of gunk and a compressor in the BM?

Rich76 · Aug 16, 2019

Dan_G said:
Do you get a spare wheel or the bottle of gunk and a compressor in the BM?

Nope run flats as standard on the m sport

Rich76 · Aug 17, 2019

Productive day at work today!
One enquiry in 4 hours a plus free access to the dealership valet tent = lots of cleaning !

Exterior and engine bay plus the spark plugs changed!
I must say bmw excelled themselves with the plugs!
Not only do you need a special spark plug socket to get them out but the 4th plug is buried under the scuttle panel !
Que a couple of extensions and a wobble drive!
Was so much fun and they suggest changing them every second service !

But the rest of the car now looks good ( pity about the weather in Europe ) !

Rich76 · Aug 18, 2019

All ready for stage one !

Looking good!

But not much space in the boot!

Rich76 · Aug 19, 2019

500 miles down !

Nice easy roads, very few roadworks and when there is there were no holdups !

Well inside Germany now and some of the speeds they go past you at are unreal!

Nagging wife next to me is helping to keep the numbers in two figures

HOGG · Aug 19, 2019

Yep. Mine's like that

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RS3 S. · Aug 20, 2019

..........same when we did it,did get 145 showing on the speedo for a couple of miles, last car RS3.

Rich76 said:
500 miles down !

Nice easy roads, very few roadworks and when there is there were no holdups !

Well inside Germany now and some of the speeds they go past you at are unreal!

Nagging wife next to me is helping to keep the numbers in two figures

Rich76 · Aug 21, 2019

Now in sankt peter am kammersberg Austria

What can I say , well no matter what the weather or road conditions done users of the autobahn only have one speed ! Fast!
They didnt even slow down in torrential rain!

So in the last 1000 miles we have visited the bmw museum in Munich , I can recommend this for any one interested in cars , my 14 yr old wanna be engineer daughter loved it !

The beer in Munich is spot on aswell !

Today we visited Redbull hanger 7 and what a place that is !

Just down the road from hanger 7 is an outlet village and park and ride for the city Center!
Well as I pull in to the car park entrance a rather nice man in a polizi uniform gesterurd me to shop , now how was packing a rather nice side holster so I obliged !
Five minutes later of checking my car documentes he asked me to blow into his special machine !
As it was only lunch time I blew a big fat zero!

I will add pictures when I get better internet but here are a couple including my view for the next few days

Rich76 · Aug 22, 2019

Well today the sun gods came out for a few hours and I managed to clean the last 1000?of dirt off the car !
Discovered a few new stone chips and a scratch on the wing that certainly wasn’t there at the weekend !
I’ll get the triple q out tomorrow and that should sort it!

On the downside I am not sure what pads got fitted by the garage I purchased it from to get it through the MOT but Jesus do they give some dust off!
I’ll be looking to replace them when I get back maybe with something a little updated

Rich76 · Aug 24, 2019

Now made it as far as Italy !
Car is filthy again
But sun is out so so Ill clean it again this week

Plus point my view is stunning

Rich76 · Aug 27, 2019

Peschiera del Garda on lake Garda is amazing !
Great food , great people
Fantastic cocktails and a lot of fantastic German beer!

Car is very dirty from the rain on the way down through the alps but it will be cleaned again prior to setting off home

PGunter · Aug 28, 2019

Love a good euro road trip. The alps are stunning roads to drive. Hope you got off the main routes to explore.

Rich76 · Aug 29, 2019

PGunter said:
Love a good euro road trip. The alps are stunning roads to drive. Hope you got off the main routes to explore.

Yes whilst in Austria we travelled around a fair bit on some lovely local roads !

Yesterday was a massive day for us, my 14 year old daughter is autistic and hates even the thought of me and her younger brother going to a theme park let alone going on any of the rides !
Well at lake Garda is a place called Garda land. Absolutely fantastic place some real white knuckle rides but also lots if smaller ones.
Well over the last few weeks she has watched you tube videos of some of the rides and so last night we purchased the evening ticket £20 gets you in from 6pm till close at 11pm!

And not only did she let me and her brother ride the runaway mine train she came on it aswell!
And she loved it!
Now she wants to go to Florida and all the parks there !

CarbonMike · Aug 29, 2019

Thats awesome to hear.

The parks in Florida are loads of fun, but buy a que jump ticket in advance before you fly out is my advice tho.

PGunter · Aug 30, 2019

Much prefer the alpine passes to a theme park ride... they are stunning and great fun. Just saying..

Rich76 · Aug 31, 2019

PGunter said:
Much prefer the alpine passes to a theme park ride... they are stunning and great fun. Just saying..

Yes I must admit I do like a challenging drive , wish I still had the time and money to spend on having a track car and doing track days !

Today was the start of the journey home , took in both the Brenner pass and the fern pass both fantastic roads to drive even at slow speeds abd you get to see so much more of the country by taking the old roads !

Been on the road for nearly 11 hrs today which was not what was intended but slow traffic on the pass and having to find a new place to Stay delayed things!
We are much closer to home tonight than was anticipated so a nice cruise tomorrow of around 7hrs

Car is doing well , averaging about 43mpg !
Is presently loaded up with a case or two of German beer !

Rich76 · Sep 29, 2019

Well been home a while now so must update

we covered 2500 miles in the 14 days we were away, drive some fantastic roads some much faster than others, well yiu have to keep up with the flow of traffic on the autobahn right?

visited some lovely places, Austria is amazing and is certainly somewhere we will be visiting again , the area around sankt peter am kammersberg is hardly touched by the tourist route although very popular in summer with walkers and in recent years mountain bikers it is still very traditional and picturesque.
The roads in the area are a delight to drive and lovely and smooth with very few pot holes

Italy is a lovely place probably my favourite holiday destination, lovely and relaxing ( when not driving) great food, great beer and my favourite bit is the fascination for every other restaurant or bar to not be an English , Irish or American theme like you seem to find in Spain and increasingly over the last few years France !!!

staying on lake Garda is always a pleasure as is visiting some of the other towns on the lake, the ferry boat service is very good as are the buses

as for the car it was fine, it did for some random reason decide that the drl and sidelight bulbs were going to die but as is required I had spares with me.
Averaged 43mpg which isn’t so bad , I did pick up a few extra stone chips and a scrape on the front bumper !

already on a mission to sort next years road trip, might even be several as looking at doing a weekend to one of the car races

bredhurststeve · Sep 29, 2019

I’m just in the throes of planning a road trip to Milan mid October so am looking at lots of threads to decide where to visit, where to stop overnight etc.
We are only doing eight days and want to stop in Paris on the 21st for two nights so will be a bit of a whistle stop tour whilst keeping to speed limits as I do not want lots of fines.
Did you do all of the driving and how far did you do before stopping at a hotel or other?

Rich76 · Sep 29, 2019

I did all of the driving , doing around five or six hours a day as I had my kids (10 and 14) in the car

use via Michelin for the route and booking.com for accommodation

route all planned out before we left

we did Calais to sarrbruken to Milan to sankt peter am kammersberg ( stayed 4 nights) the Peschiera del Garda (stayed 7 night )

return was a bit quicker but still easy to do

Peschiera del Garda to karlsruhe ( overnight stop) then Calais

just make sure the route your going doesn’t require snow tyres or chains as a lot of the passes will be getting snow on October

European road trip

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