Road trip through Italy, Spain and France

I have a friend coming to visit from Australia, I currently live in the UK, and he has expressed a desire to do a road trip through Italy, Spain and France. This trip will be for the beginning of September. Neither one of us has planned a road trip before and therefore are a bit lost as to where to begin.

I have looked at the map of Europe and it seems like the best place to start would be to fly to Italy, drive through Italy, down to Spain and up to France as we need to end in Hossegor, France.

We both love amazing scenery and would love to drive down through the Italian coast, the problem is we only have one and a half - two weeks for this trip so we need to know the shortest way through whilst at the same time being able to find some amazing experiences.

If there is anyone out there that has done this before or could give some pointers in the right direction I would be very grateful. (He is a surfer therefore will enjoy places where he can surf also).

We don't want to back pack through either we would want to stay in hotels along the way.

Many thanks

p.s it's my friends first time in Europe so I really want him to have a once in a life time experiance, especially because he is coming so far.

A few years ago, we did a road trip from Rome to Venice, Tuscany and the Amalfi coast--and that took 15 days. I'd suggest with your short time frame you stick to one country and a few key cities. Or else drive from one destination to your final destination, with stops along the way. If you try to see it all you will spend your entire trip inside the car.

[ Edit: Edited on 15-Jun-2009, at 10:21 by tway ]

hello
lm doing a similar trip in early September except l ll be travelling in Lombardy , Liguria and then
by plane to Spain
so l would appreciate it if you share all the info possible on hotels you find in Italy,
all l know so far is that the weather starts to get a bit colder in September around the mid 60 degrees

thanks

I just got back from a couple of weeks in Italy. spent a bit of time in Sardinia, Tuscany and the Alps. the beaches in Sardinia are beautiful and we stayed in a little village called fertilia not far from Algehro, so there wasnt much in the way of tourists, just alot of Italians. Its not really a surf beach though, but to be honest i dont think there is much in the way of surf along the mediteranean coast. but if your mate wants to surf he should head to the algarve in southern portugal which is supoosed to be the best in europe. im heading there for a surf holiday next week. in tuscany we stayed in Lucca which is an old Etruscan walled city which was really nice and from there you can travel up the Garfagnana valley which is beautiful, feels like real tuscany. we went to this small village called barga and some of the views were amazing. then stayed in the alps for a couple of days near a place called Aosta. needless to say the scenery was amazing. so we spent two or three days in each of those three places and it took us 11 days although we could've done it in less time it was better not to rush it i think. hope this helps at all.

Your trip sounds very optimistic to do in 2 weeks, but you know what they say... where there's a will...

Having looked into doing the italian road trip myself, I am curious as to how you are going to get the car (rent/buy)? I'd be interested to know what the best price you've been quoted.

Cheers,

Kat

Hey everybody.

Im working on a trip for my family. We plan to start in Barcelona, renting a van, and drive the coast to northern Italy. I am looking for good deals on car rentals (6 people). I am also looking for the good deals on hotels in both Marseille and Nice. If anyone has some advice on other places to visit along the way, id appreciate it! We will take our time, so I want to hit up as many sweet spots as possible. Thanks guys : )