Road trip to Vienna help

[CantDecide]

The kids are now old enough to look after themselves and so we have two weeks (Mrs and I) for a proper road trip. Never done more than a weekend road trip to Wales before so this will be quite a change.

The destination is to be Vienna, why? Because we have never been to Austria and it seemed like a good choice. We are happy to camp when the weather is nice and the locations are good or hotel when easier or we are just really knackered and need a good nights sleep :-) Going in the Cayman S which has pretty good luggage space so we can comfortably pack in the tent, sleeping bags, mats, basic cooking stuff along with clothes etc.

This is to be a driving tour with interesting roads and scenery the main aim. I’ve taken some inspiration from other road trip reports on here so will include some of those points (although I haven’t included the detail below, just bullet points).

The plan so far is:
Day 1
UK to Luxembourg
Day 2
Driving tour around Luxembourg
Day 3
Luxembourg City
Day 4
Stuttgart Porsche Museum
Day 5
Black Forest B500 to Switzerland
Day 6
Swiss passes
Day 7
Swiss passes
Day 8
Into Austria
Day 9
??
Day 10
??
Day 11
??
Day 12
Back through Switzerland
Day 13
Back through France stop off at Reims
Day 14
Home

So far we have booked the Eurotunnel leaving on 1st July and coming back on 14th. That’s it, the rest is completely flexible!

Any suggestions, particularly for the Austria section would be welcome. Thanks in advance!

[mr pg]

In Austria head to Zell am See area and spend a some time doing the Grossglockner Pass, including the leg to the glacier.
Best done earlier as it gets very busy.
Salzburg is worth a visit and Hitler's Eagle Nest is not far from there.
As you're in a Porsche also consider heading to the Gmund museum where the first cars were built.

[skidskid]

Some good suggestions from Mr PG above!

on the Grossglockner visit the restaurant/Alm Mankei (https://fat-international.com/mankei). Its owned by Ferdi Porsche and is a great place to eat and see cool cars. The Gmund Porsche museum is great and the Eagles nest is on the Rossfeldstrasse which is a nice road.

Other stops in Austria would be Halstatt, Krimml waterfalls, Mondsee area.

Vienna is nice but its a long drive from Salzburg (another 3 hours on the motorway), if you dont have your heart set on it spend more time west of Salzburg and explore.

[AmyRichardson]

If you're not stone-cold on the early part of the itinerary then the run south from Luxembourg will be through/along the "timber frame road" (Deutsche Fachwerkstraße) - lots of chocolate box, Hansel and Gretel type places; probably not worth a day, but worth looking into for lunch venues.

[RedWhiteMonkey]

You'll need Swiss and Austrian vignettes.

[s70rmp]

back south through Austria you not that far from Venice - we did it the opposite way when we went but nice stop off there and then hit the Lakes on the way back via Switzerland ?

[CantDecide]

Many thanks for the suggestions, definitely helping me refine parts of the trip!

[PetrolHeadInRecovery]

Possible detour on the way, I think ideally on the way to Austria:

• Go to Chamonix and check out Aiguille du Midi. If hiking's your thing, you can also walk to/from the mid-station of the cablecar use the Mer de Glace cog wheel train for one of the legs up or down.
• Drive from Chamonix to Martigny over the Forclaz pass. Pretty nice views of the town when descending down towards the town. Martigny is an old roman town, there's an amphitheatre and a bit of an old Roman Highway in the garden of a museum that's worth checking out, too (usually impressionist art and permanent archeological stuff and a car museum in the basement)
• Go from Matigny over the Grand St. Bernard pass. There are a couple of hotels on top - and a small museum/breeder of the St. Bernhard dogs.
• It you want to come back to Switzerland, Simplon Pass or passing by Lago Maggiore are quite nice - otherwise, continuing through Italy (Verona-Venice-Udine) is an option. The only unpleasant stretch of the road in Italy is the ring road around Milan. Otherwise, the Italian motorways have calmed down a fair bit over the last 20+ years.