Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 17:04:13 +0000
Reply-To: Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Subject: Bus trip from Munich over the Alps to Venice
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My family, the gold '85 Westy and I took a week long trip through central Europe this May.
We started from a friends place near Munich, crossed over into Austria via Garmish-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck, then over the Brenner pass to Italy. The mountain ridge between Garmish-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck was surprisingly steep. 17% on the Austrian side! Good to motor brake on the way down, and we were stuck in 2nd on the way back. The towns of Garmish-Partenkirchen and Mittenwald are touristy, but worth a stop. In Garmish one can walk through a canyon, Partnachklamme, with a creek rushing at the bottom. Mittenwald is the smaller of the two. Both have lots of hikes nearby. Some alpine hikes can be reached effortlessly using the ski resort chair lifts, which also run in the summer for hikers and bikers. An alternative is to detour off the main route via lake Kochel. Another steep climb between two lakes.
From Innsbruck there are two choices to cross the Brenner pass. The most common is the toll expressway (Eur9 for the Austrian part, Eur 15 for the Italian part to Verona). There is also an old winding road. We tried each of them on the way there and home.
Once over Brenner, we turned East on E66, which stays high in the alps. Here is a landscape of mountains, lakes and rivers with some nice campgrounds, and lots of hiking.
From the mountains we headed south. We didn;t go directly to Venice, as one can not drive to the city anyway, but towards Jesolo. We camped on the eastern tip of Lido Jesolo (Jesolo Beach), and took the 20min ferry to Venice. In May this was relatively quiet, but it gets very busy in the main season, like almost every beach resort on the Adriatic. Did the tourist route in Venice, but also found a calmer, non-tourist area by just walking 20min along the water towards the north east, near the armory.
On the way back we camped at the famous Garda lake. It was a long weekend, and roads along the lake were choked with tourists. We were lucky to find a spot in the municipal camping near the walled town of Lazise. I would recommend to focus on the historic towns, as all the waterfront between them is developed with generic tourist facilitates complete with theme parks. Want dinosaurs or Disney?
We drove back on the expressway from Verona to Innsbruck. It is a scenic drive in a deep valley with the near vertical mountain walls of the Dolomites on either side. Bolzano and Merano makes nice stops on the way.
Martin (82 Westy 1.9TD in Canada, 85 Westy1.9 gas in Europe)VW Westy Diesel Home
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