Driving holiday next wwek - traffic as bad as guides say?

[DickusMaximus]

Hi all,

I'm picking up a convertible on Saturday in Innsbruck and planning 7 days driving around in Italy via the Dolomites. I normally do around 300 miles a day. All the guide books say to avoid all of Italy all of August.

Is it really this bad? Any places where perhaps it's less busy?

Thank you.

[iva cosworth]

I am not exactly regular down there but have driven in Italy 3 times in August and it wasn't

too bad but i didn't venture into big cities like Rome,Milan or Florence.

[milk2sugars]

DickusMaximus said:

Hi all,

I'm picking up a convertible on Saturday in Innsbruck and planning 7 days driving around in Italy via the Dolomites. I normally do around 300 miles a day. All the guide books say to avoid all of Italy all of August.

Is it really this bad? Any places where perhaps it's less busy?

Thank you.

For larger places such as Cities yes it will most certainly be gridlock in August. But again that totally depends on what time of the day you plan on going anywhere....Getting there go early....Getting back..much the same.

Smaller villages (which have a lot of character) are a better option and in my opinion this is where you can get a better taste of Italy and less of the Touristy feel in major cities.

This link below will probably be of interest to you on making decisions on where to visit.

http://www.italythisway.com/places/beautiful-villa...

This is the small fishing village where my family are from in Southern Italy.

http://www.italythisway.com/places/atrani.php

[DickusMaximus]

Hi all and thank you very much indeed for your replies.

I'm not going to the cities at all other than Sienna so it'll be autostrada from around 7 am until, say, 9am and then back roads. I guess the passes will be packed so for them I'll leave at 6.30 and get hotels close to them.

All good!