South England to Naples

[butlj016]

I need some advice on the best way to get from the south of England to Naples. i have to go to Naples to carry out scientific research on Mount Vesuvius in June and I'm torn as to the best way to do it.

I need a car while in Naples and only being 21 at the time, flying there and hiring a car for a month is going to cost a bomb - about £600-700 with all the extra costs like young driver excess (plus then having to leave a huge deposit as insurance). Does anyone know if it would be cheaper for me to spend a day or two driving there (i'm a pretty confident driver so should be ok driving on the wrong side of the road) or just fly and fork out to hire a car?? I have my own Ford KA collection at home which i think is pretty economical. Even if it is a little bit more to drive i imagine the drive is amazing.

If you think driving is the best way, don't suppose people would be able to help with a breakdown of how much it would likely be to do the trip there and back.

Thanks in advance for your help much appreciated

[matsoc]

I would defintely choose to use my car avoiding expensive French tolls going thorough Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany and Austria, sleeping 1 night in Ulm in South Germany. Being June you can also avoid tunnels tolls going through Brennero pass. In Italy you could follow E45 saving some tolls in some stretches that are free but almost motorway like with lmit at 110kph instead of 130kph.

[GeorgeK]

Depending on how long you intend to stay in Napoli it will be worthwhile taking your car there. The trip from the UK will be quite long though. Just be warned that Napoli is a crazy place and the driving is even crazier down there (not mentioning the risk of finding you car on 4 sets of bricks). However, you'll love it. It is a fantastic city and the people are great.

[KM666]

Ressurection time! When I drove from Chippenham to north east of Genoa in january I booked eurotunnel in advance and paid £70. I took 260€ which covered mt blanc toll and all the french and italian tolls and refueling in a fully loaded (Read overloaded) 20vt Octavia, I think average mpg was 32 over the trip. A cpouple of things to bear in mind, try to do all refeulling in France, petrol in Italy is 1.70€ in most places whereas at French service stations it was 1.35 to 1.45€ a litre.

European breakdown cover is a bit of a ripoff but depends how confident you are that the car is up to the task. My car has no spare tyre and I made it in the end. Due to the car being overloaded, and my co driver booting it upto 180kmph on the french side I did get an engine light come on around Lyon and a hot starting issue in the alps after 13 hours of solid driving, but i'm conifident if we took it easier with a lighter load it would've been faultless.

We took blankets etc in case of the worse case scenario and I had a fairly well stocked tool box with spare sensors, coils etc, stuff that is known weak points on the car, but never had to open the bonnet besides checking fluid levels.

The swiss drive like nutters, and italians like to tailgate. Not because you are going too slowly, but they seem to like to keep as small a gap as possible. If they want you to move over on an autoroute most will continue to indicate left as they approach from behind.

Enjoy the trip and if you look on my profile we offer accomdoation 40km ne of Genoa. A mountain location where your own transport is essential.