24Jun'11Off
Day 9
Last night we spend our night in Fondo (it). In a hotel, because of the rain and because we wanted to cover some distance (venice->interlaken). The only way we could do that, trow most of the planned route overboard and use a lot of autovia. But the morning started on top of a mountain, so we had to drive to the highway.. offcourse lots of twisty roads.
After blasting over the autovia, we reached Switzerland and drove over the Sustenpass. Finally a mountain pass without countless hairpins.
22Jun'11Off
Day 7
No driving today. Just a visit to Venice. My first visit.
It was a very hot day (34C), which made wandering around the city a bit tiresome. Lots of old and artsy stuff, not really my thing. But it's nice to have been there at least once.
20Jun'11Off
Day 5/6
The plan was to stay in Sospel for 2 nights, so we could spend an entire day in Monaco. But the night before we arrived really late on the camping (pitched the tents in the dark). And there was a no bbq policy, so we decided to look for another camping the next day (in Imergo, Italy). After pitching our tents in Italy we drove back to Monaco for a drive over the F1gp-track and a little walkabout around town.
Very warm today, so lots of fluids. Since Monaco is more of a working-city than a tourist city, there really isn't that much to do but just take some pictures of the 'famous' F1 track. In the end we probably could have skipped this city and spend our time more efficient (i.e. drive to a camping more in the direction of Venice)
The following morning: A 590km drive via AutoVia to Venice. Boooooooring.
19Jun'11Off
Day 4
Lots of mountain passes today.
Starting with Col d'Izoard, Col de Restefond and Col de la Bonette. Driving over Col de la Bonette we drove through Camp des Fourches and decided to take out our chairs and a table for lunch 
Driving mountain passes all day got a bit (understatement) tiresome. But we still had a long way to go to our next stop; Sospel. But had to drive the Col de Turini in order to get there. Halfway up, i really had it. Stop that mountain, i want off. Enough driving for the day. Unfortunately it took about an hour to get over the top and down again.
18Jun'11Off
day 1,2 and 3
Day 3 already... Didn't really had the time to write something.
Day1
Home (NL)-> Thionville(FR). We booked a F1 hotel in Thionville. First and last time for a F1 hotel. Unclean rooms, noisy, shared bathroom/shower. Never again.
The way to the hotel was a disaster as well. 40 mins traffic jam @Antwerp. 20mins traffic around @Brussels. 20 mins @Namur and again @Luxemburg City.
But it finally got us halfway to our real start of the tour through the alps.
But never ever wil i stay at a F1 hotel.
Checked in and drove back to Luxemburg for a dinner in the city. The meat at the Brasilian restaurant was absolultely one of the best i tasted in a long time.
Day2
Thionville -> Le Grand-Bornand.
We decided to take the n57 instead of the autoroute (shorter, 38 euros cheaper)
@Lausanne(CH) it started to rain.
Crossing Geneva, entering France, our trip finalt started. No more highways. Just lots of great driving roads. Just 75km? below Geneva we reached our destination. Camping l'Escale.
Rain,rain,rain..
Not a great start for sleeping in a tent.
We put up a 4x4 tarp to have a rain shelter zo we could put up a tent without having to stand in the pouring rain. It rained al day, all night, and all morning. Had a dinner at the camping restaurant. Friendly staff.
It rained so insanely hard I couldn't even sleep. Just way to way too loud all that rain pouring on just a few microns of ribstop tent fabric.. Apparently I wasn't the only one having troubles with sleeping
Day3
And at 7am it still rained, but we decided to start packing. Not so great 
I rained trough most of the day. But the roads where great. Loads of twisty roads, steep climbs and descents. Col d'Iseran, still some snow above 2500m elevation. And cold (+3C). Col du Galibier, where suddenly my powersteering decided to go on strike just 5 hairpins before reaching the tunnel entrance.
WHY!?!?! Almost every roadtrip a car breaks down or loses few parts along the way. (Mostly it's just Allen)
After taking some pictures and the car cooled down, the powersteering seemed to work just fine again.
I guess 70kms of climbing and descending the Cols @ 4kRPM+ all the time isn't so good for the steering pump.
Put not taking any chance, we opted for the tunnel shortcut instead of another 250m uphil+downhill. But other great news. It stopped raining!
The powersteering worked for the next hour to the camping. So i hope everything is just fine and it was just a bit overworked/overdriven.
Picked a spot on the campground..(Or probably multiple spots,, since we have a 200m^2 spot in use now ) and finaly everything could dry in the sun, which it did very fast.
And we cooked our own food at the camping.
It's really dark and quiet over here. So let's see if i finally get some sleep.
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14Jun'11Off
Planning/Preparation
The reason
After stumbling upon some great pictures of the alpine roads, things started to itch again. We really had to go drive the alpine passes. It's been a while since we had a multi-day roadtrip, Scotland Feb'09. That trip was insane, 2600+ km's in just 6 driving days. Not counting the ferry to Newcastle and 60% being single lane roads... Let's just say we didn't really have the time to enjoy that amazing Scottish scenery.
So after studying this list, I started to create a route. Keeping a few things in mind:
- No more than 5 hours a day of driving.
- A couple of rest days (no driving) to explore a city.
- Try to keep the costs down
The mountain passes
We've got 12 days for this trip, and it's impossible to drive all the passes in that time, so the route created is "just" 3800kms.
France: Col d'Iseran, Col du Galibier, Col d'Izoard, Col de Restefond, Col de la Bonette, Col de Turini, Col de Braus
Italy: Passo Giau, Passo Valparola, Passo Pordoi, Passo Sella, Passo Gavia
Switserland: Fluelepass, Albulapass, Oberalppass, Furkapass, Grimselpass
And our days off are in: Monaco, Venice and on the Jungfraujoch @ 3,454meters.
Where to sleep
Hotels tend to get a bit expensive, since we're with 3 persons. A possible solution: camping! Because neither one of us had a tent; we bought tents, sleeping bags and other camping gear. And it all sounded so cheap
Of course we had to test the tents. A little practice in pitching the tent in my backyard was clearly needed. The first tent took us 30 minutes, while the second tent only took 10 minutes (in a very strong wind). So we're ready for the campgrounds 
Trying to find campsites along the route was quite difficult. Apparently there aren't that many along the French/Italian border in the alps. But we've found them... just hope the weather will be at least dry.
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alps
Col d'Izoard
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