Switzerland

We started our trip in Frankfurt early in the morning as we had quite a long drive to Geneva ahead of us. We only made a short stop in Basel to see a little bit of the city and at Murtensee to go for a swim.

The next day we really started the road trip with the first days driving through Switzerland eastwards, after doing a little sightseeing in Geneva, of course. We visited the United Nations Office, climbed St Pierre Cathedral to get great views over Geneva and the lake, walked along the lake shore and had a look at the Geneva Water Fountain.

Leaving Geneva we drove into through the Rhone Valley deeper into the Alps region. There are some great views along the way, especially if you’ll leave the main road in Sierre and take the upper road to Leuk. We stayed in Fiesch to take the gondola up to the Aletsch glacier, one of my personal highlights on the trip. The views are amazing and there are some hiking opportunities, too. We decided to walk the UNESCO Höhenweg from Eggishorn to Bettmerhorn, which takes about 2-3 hours. Of course we first climbed to the summit of Eggishorn before leaving the beautiful views of the Aletsch Glacier. There is public transport getting you back to Fiesch in case you parked your care there, but prepare for waiting up to 40minutes for the next connection.

Next stop would be Interlaken to take the train to the mountain ridge Schynige Platte the next day. Unfortunately, the weather conditions weren’t great and we couldn’t enjoy the views that we hoped for. We still did a little hike up there, but that was a rather underwhelming experience, especially compared to the hike the day before and considering the rather long train ride that’ll take you up (50min for 7k, 1.4km up). The drive to our next accommodation in Lucerne was nice. We didn’t do much in the city, though, except for visiting the Chapel Bridge and the Rathaussteg.

The next day we drove to Zürich for some city sightseeing and continued to Fiss because we wanted to continue our trip through Austria before going south to Italy, but that should change quickly. We passed Vaduz, Liechentenstein, on the way, but didn't really stop due to the rain.

5 countries in 30 hours

Our first night in Austria didn’t go as planned, I guess. Not that we’ve planned much for the night, but we spent most of it replanning our route and going through different scenarios. The rain would follow us eastwards, so we decided to stop the Austria part as quickly as it started and go south the next day. We had initially planned to go east, then south to Italy and west again in the direction of France. Through France we would go home.

Instead we decided to go the other way around, so go directly to France and start from there going to Italy and then though Austria back home. We would miss some parts of France, of course, but considering the weather forecast this would be our best shot. It would also be a long drive and including our drive through Liechtenstein the day before we would be driving through parts of five different countries in less than 30 hours: Liechtenstein, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France.

Of course, you have to make stops on the way, not only for eating but to also move your legs a little, so we made a couple of them with a variety of lakes (Lake Silvaplana & Lake Sils), cities (Turin), forts and mountains (Briançon, the highest city in France). We would have loved to stay longer at each of these places, especially Briançon, but wanted to arrive in Marseille before midnight so we kept it as short as possible. Our last stop was at one of the largest artificial lakes in western Europe: Lac de Serre-Ponçon, where we watched the sunset before the last two hours of driving.

From coast to coast 

The next few days we drove along the coast until we reached the capital of Italy, Rome, as this was our turning point back north, and then drove up the Adriatic Coast to Venice. We did some sightseeing in Marseille, went to St. Tropez, Cannes and Monaco and of course spent some time at the beach as well before we crossed the boarder. We also realised that driving on toll roads might be more expensive but wouldn’t take as nearly as much time as the free roads (which almost got us in trouble a few times with arriving late at the accommodation).

The days in Italy were quite similar. Spending some time at the beach, strolling through cities and taking pictures of beautiful landscapes around us. I really liked Florenz (it’s not on the coast, obviously, but we made a detour for this city), was surprised positively by the city of Genua and of course we made a stop at that strange tower in Pisa, taking pictures of people taking supposably funny pictures.

In Rome we actually spent two nights to have one full day to explore the city. Of course we went to all the touristy places like the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine, we visited St. Peter's Square in the Vatican but didn’t go into St. Peter's Basilica (what a line!), we went to the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain (which unfortunately was under construction, we didn’t throw anything into it though), the Piazza Navona and Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps. That’s all I can remember by name, but we probably saw a lot more sights that I don’t know the name of anymore.

From Rome it was only a short drive to the Adriatic Sea. We went for a swim or two, of course, and then paid a visit to one the most famous cities in Europe: Venice. Here we took an afternoon and explored many alleys, canals and bridges - and didn’t get lost. What a crowded city! 

Lakes, lakes, lakes

We left the coast but would still spend a lot of time at and in the water, only primarily in the  many lakes between Verona and Como.

After our afternoon in Venice we could have gone to Trento easily, which was one of our chosen next destinations, but we decided to take the lake route (don’t know if there’s a name for what we did, probably not, but lake route sounds nice) instead, meaning we would visit Lake Garda, Lake Idro, Lake Iseo, Lake Como, Lake Maggiore and the Lake of Varese, which might not be the prettiest of all these lakes, but definitely the one with the most impressive sunset I’ve probably ever seen and being able to photograph. There are many other lakes around, in case you were wondering.

South Tyrol & Dolomites

What follows next is one of the most impressive (mountain) areas that I’ve been to. And I really wish we’d had more time for hiking and exploring, instead we were driving through South Tyrol and see as much as could in only one day. I can’t even name all the mountains we saw. Considering, though, how famous the Dolomites are these days, I wonder if I just missed that in 2014 because I didn’t have an instagram account or if their fame blew up in the past few years. Anyways, I didn’t know how beautiful this area was before I got there and I will come back some day to spent more time exploring!

Our route was a little zigzag but it was a good one to make the most of the day. Starting in Trento we drove eastwards towards the National Park of the Belluno Dolomites and then north to San Martino di Castrozza. Then we took the fastest route to Bolzano but did not drive into the city. Instead, we drove along the northern part of Schlern-Rosengarten Nature Park to Kastelruth / Castelrotto. From there it was geographically easy to just follow the roads further east to Cortina d'Ampezzo, but you can probably imagine that these roads are no motorways but rather winding mountain passes that will guide you through Nature Parks and mountains wherever you would look. Next were our two last stops: Lake Misurina to catch a distant view of Sorapiss and the Three Peaks of Three Peaks Nature Park, and the Dürrensee with mirroring views of Monte Cristallo.

The last days in Austria

We only had two days left in Austria, but it wasn’t a hard decision what to do first: the Grossglockner High Alpine Road. This 48 kilometer and 36 turns long road provides you with views that are unique in Austria. And you not only get a great view of the largest mountain in the country, the 3.798m high Grossglocker, you can also visit the largest glacier in the Eastern Alps, the nine km long Pasterze Glacier. After that drive we drove to Lake Zell to take a well deserved swim in the lake before heading to Salzburg for a little sightseeing and dinner.

The next day we visited the Eisriesenwelt, the largest ice cave in the world (42km long!) located inside of the Tennen Mountains, only 40km from Salzburg. When you’re visiting please remind yourself that this is an actual ice cave and there’s freezing temperatures inside. Some people seemed to have forgotten that when they were approaching the entrance as they were wearing flip flops, shirts and shorts. The tour lasts around 1 hour and 15 minutes and you’ll walk into the cave for about one kilometer with the Ice Palace being the highlight and end of the tour before you turn around. When you’re there and took the tour, just think about that this cave is way bigger than what you saw during that tour. There are also great views over the valley and surrounding mountains from the entrance of the cave and along the way.

Afterwards we drove back to the High Tauern National Park to visit the Krimml Waterfalls, the highest waterfall in Austria, drive the Gerlos Alpine Road and see the artificial lake Durlassboden located on the other side of the Hochkrimml mountain and providing great views of the Zillertal Alps and the Reichenspitz mountain range. On our way to our last accommodation we made a quick stop in Innsbruck, but didn’t really have time to explore the city.

On our last day we decided to drive along the Silvretta-Hochalpenstraße and visit the Silvretta Stausee with again some great views of the Alps before making a short stop in Bregenz and going back to Frankfurt.