London-Paris-Alps-Venice-Athens

I am an experienced traveller, but I'd like your advice for achieving
what I recognize to be a very compressed schedule. *Based on my past
experiences I believe this two-week schedule is possible, except for
the things I do not know, which is where rte comes in. *What do you
think?

The anchors are a visit to England to visit Shakespearean sites, and
Athens to see the Parthenon. *Driving the Alps in general is important,
and crossing the Stelvio Pass is the key part of that. *If one drives
through the Alps, then Venice is just waiting there for some visiting,
and it is a very special place (and would have flights to Athens).


Saturday - arrive in London, rent car from the airport, drive to Bath,
visit Avebury, Lacock and Castle Combe along the way, visit Bath rest
of day to work off jet lag

Sunday - early morning Special Access Pass to visit Stonehenge, drive
through Cotswolds villages, arrive at Stratford-upon-Avon and visit
Shakespeare houses

Monday - return car to airport, train to London, walking tour around
Westminster, National Picture Gallery, get tickets for Tower

Tuesday - visit Tower and Crown Jewels first thing in the morning, then
visit British museum, time visit to see Shakespeare play in New Globe

Wednesday - train to Paris (depending on departure schedule, perhaps
visiting Tower this morning to provide more British Museum time on
prior day)

Thursday - visit the Louvre, go to top of Eiffel Tower

Friday - go to airport and rent a car, and drive to Davos, Switzerland.
*I will check to confirm I can rent a car and drive it outside the
country.

Saturday - cross the Stelvio Pass, drive through the Alps to Venice,
drop car off at airport, arrive at hotel

Sunday - St. Mark's, Doge's Palace, walking tour, walking tour at night

Monday - Breakfast at Nico's Gelateria, go to airport (yes just one day
in Venice), flight to Athens, rent car from airport and drive to a nice
hotel I found south of Corinth on the Saronic Gulf

Sunday - visit Ancient Corinth, drive to Ancient Olympia (options: the
fast Gulf of Corinth coast road around to Pirgos and then head in east,
or take the highway toward Tripolis and somehow take those tiny winding
roads across the center of the peninsula?)

Monday - visit Ancient Olympia, drive to Ancient Delphi

Tuesday - visit Ancient Delphi, drive to Thermopylae, Marathon, Sounion

Wednesday - drop car off at airport, bus into Athens, see non-Acropolis
sites, e.g. the big Archeological Museum

Thursday - early morning arrival at Acropolis to visit it, perhaps more
Acheological Museum

Friday - flight to Frankfurt, flight to USA

Sunday - arrive home

--
Dan Stephenson
http://stepheda.com
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On Sun, 31 Mar 2013, Dan Stephenson wrote:

I am an experienced traveller, but I'd like your advice for achieving
what I recognize to be a very compressed schedule. *

definitely something I won't do (surely not by car, could be fun by
train)

Driving the Alps in general is important, and crossing the Stelvio
Pass is the key part of that. *If one drives through the Alps, then
Venice is just waiting there

You do not tell us WHEN you plan that. You should check that Stelvio
(and possibly some other passes) are open. I guess they are currently
still closed by snow.

Not sure why you have chosen exactly Stelvio among all possible Alp
passes. Also you do not tell us details on the routes.

To make the Stelvio you could either get to Bormio from Zernez and
Livigno, and then cross the Stelvio northwards, then drive to Bolzano
and all the way down to Venice.

Or you could drive from Zernez to Prato allo Stelvio via val Mustair and
then cross the Stelvio southwards to Bormio, then drive to Ponte di
Legno, Edolo and down Val Camonica to Brescia and then plain motorway to
Venice (that sort of the route google maps suggests for
Davos-Bormio-Venice, except that it skips Stelvio and does
Davos-Zernez-Livigno-Bormio !). Apparently for Davos-Zernez it suggests
the Vereina rail tunnel.

On 2013-04-02 04:09:35 -0500, Giovanni Drogo said:

On Sun, 31 Mar 2013, Dan Stephenson wrote:

I am an experienced traveller, but I'd like your advice for achieving
what I recognize to be a very compressed schedule. *

definitely something I won't do (surely not by car, could be fun by train)

Well I like to do scenic driving


Driving the Alps in general is important, and crossing the Stelvio Pass
is the key part of that. *If one drives through the Alps, then Venice
is just waiting there

You do not tell us WHEN you plan that. You should check that Stelvio
(and possibly some other passes) are open. I guess they are currently
still closed by snow.

That is a good point. Living in Texas USA, I am not accustomed to
snowy climes. I'll have to factor that in, and perhaps go a little
later.


Not sure why you have chosen exactly Stelvio among all possible Alp
passes. Also you do not tell us details on the routes.

The routes aren't so critical, I'll decide the exact route en-route, I
was just checking thematic plausablity to reach Davos from Paris in a
day, and Davos to Venice in a day.


To make the Stelvio you could either get to Bormio from Zernez and
Livigno, and then cross the Stelvio northwards, then drive to Bolzano
and all the way down to Venice.

Or you could drive from Zernez to Prato allo Stelvio via val Mustair
and then cross the Stelvio southwards to Bormio, then drive to Ponte di
Legno, Edolo and down Val Camonica to Brescia and then plain motorway
to Venice (that sort of the route google maps suggests for
Davos-Bormio-Venice, except that it skips Stelvio and does
Davos-Zernez-Livigno-Bormio !). Apparently for Davos-Zernez it suggests
the Vereina rail tunnel.

From my recollection travelling through that area before, it's ALL
beautimous. So I would ask if there are any glaciers that one can
drive to and walk someone close to the face? That would definitely
shape my route. Any ideas?

--
Dan Stephenson
http://stepheda.com
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Dan Stephenson wrote:

definitely something I won't do (surely not by car, could be fun by train)

Well I like to do scenic driving

I do not drive at all. But there are very nice scenic trains in
Switzerland. There are mountain buses too. Sometimes I take part to a
contest between public transport fans which consists in finding the
quickest timetable among places ... instructive but hardly realistic.

You do not tell us WHEN you plan that. You should check that Stelvio
(and possibly some other passes) are open. I guess they are
currently still closed by snow.

That is a good point. Living in Texas USA, I am not accustomed to
snowy climes. I'll have to factor that in, and perhaps go a little
later.

Apparently I can't find easily an official place giving details on all
passes (I googled "apertura passi alpini") but it looks like Stelvio is
closed until end May.

So I would ask if there are any glaciers that one can drive to
and walk someone close to the face? That would definitely shape my route.

I am pretty sure of the Morteratsch glacier, which can be reached in a
20-min very easy (flat) walk from the rail station (did it). However
that is on the St.Moritz-Bernina-Tirano route, on the swiss side before
arriving up to Bernina Pass.

You could go down all the way to Poschiavo and Tirano (the way the train
does, you will see the nice spiral viaduct at Brusio), and then up again
to Bormio, but it's likely to be long. Otherwise from somewhere between
Bernina and Poschiavo there is a detour to Livigno which leads you to
Bormio from NW.

The other glacier I heard about but did not see is the Ghiacciaio dei
Forni near S.Caterina Valfurva, that's slightly E from Bormio, and from
there other passes lead east to Trentino (and then Venice).

But if you do both you will skip Stelvio, or have to come back.

Or you could arrange to do Pontresina-Morteratsch-Bernina-Livigno then
turn north back into Switzerland, val Mustair, do Stelvio from the north
to Bormio, then S.Caterina, Forni and continue east from there. But I
guess that would require to split the Davos-Venice step in two days.

From Bormio you could go up yo the lakes of Cancano through the
so-called "scale di Fraele" (Fraele stairs, a rather steep road), but
that's a dead end (no way to drive towards Stelvio). Places are nice.
Just before the ascent there is a curious fortified church
http://www.valtellina.it/info/61/chi...identr o.html
(it was bloody cold in an early june morning).

We did a walk from near the towers of Fraele to Arnoga (which is on the
road from Livigno to Bormio) along the old decauville dirt road. An easy
walk, about 3 hours at constant altitude of 1800 m, rather scenic. I do
not know whether the road is open to cars.

Another nice glacier, easy accessible, is at the Rhone sources in
Switzerland (Rhonegletscher, we got there by postal bus while doing a
train trip Luzern-Goschenen-Andermatt-Oberwald-Brig). Might consider it
for the Paris-Davos-or-wherever stretch.

"Dan Stephenson" wrote in message
news:20130403182141188-stephedanospam@maccom...
From my recollection travelling through that area before, it's ALL
beautimous. So I would ask if there are any glaciers that one can drive
to and walk someone close to the face? That would definitely shape my
route. Any ideas?

Not aware of any worthwhile glacier faces on mainland Europe (even in
Norway).

You have to go to the far north islands (Iceland/Greenland/Svalbard) for
that

tim

On 2013-04-04 12:32:39 -0500, tim...... said:

"Dan Stephenson" wrote in message
news:20130403182141188-stephedanospam@maccom...
From my recollection travelling through that area before, it's ALL
beautimous. So I would ask if there are any glaciers that one can
drive to and walk someone close to the face? That would definitely
shape my route. Any ideas?

Not aware of any worthwhile glacier faces on mainland Europe (even in Norway).

You have to go to the far north islands (Iceland/Greenland/Svalbard) for that

tim

That depends on your definition of "worthwhile".

Norway is the most beautiful places I've driven, the whole length of it
is. It's a tour a person should take once in their lives. And the
Lofoten penninsula in particular... it's Land Of The Lost.

--
Dan Stephenson
http://stepheda.com
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2013-04-04 12:32:39 -0500, tim...... said:

"Dan Stephenson" wrote in message
news:20130403182141188-stephedanospam@maccom...
From my recollection travelling through that area before, it's ALL
beautimous. So I would ask if there are any glaciers that one can
drive to and walk someone close to the face? That would definitely
shape my route. Any ideas?
Not aware of any worthwhile glacier faces on mainland Europe (even in Norway).
You have to go to the far north islands (Iceland/Greenland/Svalbard) for that
tim

That depends on your definition of "worthwhile".

Norway is the most beautiful places I've driven, the whole length of it
is. It's a tour a person should take once in their lives. And the
Lofoten penninsula in particular... it's Land Of The Lost.

I can't handle a lot of walking nowadays, so I'm traveling by ship-- going
south on the Hurtigruten this time, with a Lofoten excursion. It'snice
taking the hotel and restaurant along! 8-). I took the northbound trip a
few years ago, between Viking ship museums in Copenhagen(well, Roskilde)
and Oslo. Gorgeous country!

--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist with iPad

From my recollection travelling through that area before, it's ALL
beautimous. So I would ask if there are any glaciers that one can
drive to and walk someone close to the face? That would definitely
shape my route. Any ideas?


There's there glacier which is the source of the Rhône, about halfway up
the west ramp of the Furkapass from Gletsch.
I don't know if you can get to teh face, but there are ice tunnels etc.


Also about 3/4 the way up the west side of the Sustenpass is the
Steingletscher. Quite small but you can walk up to it and on to it.


--
Tim C. Linz, Austria.

In article
ngr.vans.vg,
Giovanni Drogo wrote:

You do not tell us WHEN you plan that. You should check that Stelvio
(and possibly some other passes) are open. I guess they are currently
still closed by snow.

Not sure why you have chosen exactly Stelvio among all possible Alp
passes. Also you do not tell us details on the routes.

How high is it?

I'm going for 2 weeks in late May, spending a few days in Val Gardena,
hoping to drive around the Gardena and Sella passes.

Hope I don't have to worry about tire chains by then.

Then at the end of the trip, spending a couple of days in Aosta. May
drive to Chamonix to go up the cable car there.

On Sat, 06 Apr 2013 20:46:14 -0700, poldy wrote in post :
news
How high is it?

I'm going for 2 weeks in late May, spending a few days in Val Gardena,
hoping to drive around the Gardena and Sella passes.

Late may is touch and go for the Stelvio. You'll probably be able to get up
from Bormio but not over the east ramp. There is still over 2m of snow at
the top on the road.


--
Tim C. Linz, Austria.