German & Austrian Alps holiday advice please

Looking at taking camper down as far as Salzburg this summer, from central Scotland. Just mrs_oab and I.

We will have 14/15 days total, including travelling. Keen though to not travel every day – I would rather have a few days of ‘long hours in the van’ in between staying put on a site for a few days.

Plan is to take both touring bikes and the mountainbikes, some pootling, perhaps a bike park, some hillwalking via cable cars, a lake or three to swim in.

Suggested plan:
After work – down to Dover (can you sleep in the carpark in Dover?)
Early morning ferry.
Calais to Fussen area, via a Belgian town or city (maybe Ghent).
3 days in the Fussen (ish) area.
3 days in Salzburg (ish) area. Going to Salzburg for one day is a ‘must’ as I have access to the Schloss Leopoldskron.
3 days somewhere (pref. back towards UK geographically, Germany likely). Suggest me a place!
2 days travel back towards Calais.
1 Day back up UK.

Any areas I should consider, different routes, places to ride / walk / visit / activities. Campsite suggestions welcome.

I’m not sure of how it’s work with your geography/plan but I love Innsbruck and surrounding area. It’s a lovely city in it’s own right and right on the doorstep of the mountains.

You can get to Soelden, Obergurgl and Hochgurgl very easily which give you hill walking, stunning views and cable cars that you want. The other direction gives you the glacier at Hintertuxer Gletscher.

Hull – Rotterdam ferry misses a chunk of crappy England driving and sorts overnights after a day of driving.

Harz Mtns in Germany are OK and some nice spa towns.

Speyer Technik Museum has a gated camper van park if you want an interesting stop off in Germany. Cathedral and numerous ice cream bars a short walk.

We’ve done Rotterdam to Damuls in Austria in a 1 day steady drive (arriving at known accommodation about 21:30pm). Going down east side of Germany motorway is a bit less manic. The whole Bregenzerwald bit of Austria is a quiet corner that is often overlooked. Free lift and bus pass if you are staying in the area (not sure if that extends to campsites).

Germany only has a tiny bit of Alps around zugspitze. As a consequence it’s really busy. So if you want mountains push on to Austria. As others have said the rest of Germany is nice, but I’ve never found any fantastic bits. But it’s always been passing thru so maybe I’ve not given it a chance.
Austria- dunno- supposed to be really nice.

Hull – Rotterdam ferry misses a chunk of crappy England driving and sorts overnights after a day of driving.

Indeed, or Newcastle – Amsterdam – it just ups cost. But, the idea of sleeping while travelling is a good one!

As a relatively frequent traveller to the Alps from the Highlands, I would definitely advocate the Newcastle ferry to the Netherlands. Takes out so much pain driving the length of England. We’ve also done the hull ferry, but from the far north it’s still a drag

Years ago we tried the Dover overnight in the van option, it isn’t something I’d repeat! I’m not even sure you can do it now anyway

I’ve just looked up the ferry costs. Bear in mind the first two include overnight cabin.
Newcastle-Amsterdam -£1140
Hull-Rotterdam – £400
Dover-Calais -£270

So no point going Dover. But £1140….err, no.

There is a riding spot 30 mins from Dover port that you can definitely stop overnight…

I drove a van from Calais to Leogang a couple of years ago and it was about 15 hours of driving, Salzburg should be a bit less.

Germany, for riding I’ve been to Geißkopf which was ok & Spicak is 30k from there, but I’ve not been and it’s not really on the way back.

Winterburg, Green hill & Willengen are all close by and nearer Calais

Yes Newcastle is nearer for you guys and when I’ve checked recently it was even dearer than Hull(!) I know the price looks bad on paper, but for us the holiday begins earlier, the driving both ways is easy and it is so much more pleasant than some random overnight in a grim place. We’ve done return from Berner Oberland to Rotterdam in one hit a couple of times with a very early start which again extends your time in the nice bits.  The one time we did the Tunnel it coincided with the summer chaos (2022). We were delayed a few hours but just squeaked through. A work colleague was supposedly on a crossing 4 hours after us and ended up a 24hrs late / overnight in an MPV with 7 people. Never ever had an issue or delay in 20 years of using Hull-Rotterdam.

Edit

Cross posted with yours. £1140 – ouch. £400-£600 Hull sounds about right depending o time of year. I’m never convinced trekking down to Dover is that much cheaper when you cost everything in (fuel, accommodation, extra time off work as we can be at Hull in 2.5 ish hours so can save half a day of holiday).

Watching…

£1140 – ouch

And that is with a current 20% discount….

We are on that ferry at Easter and it is £360 return for two of us on bikes…

100% use the Hull-Rotterdam Ferry.

Yes, its more expensive than the tunnel/dover ferry.

You’ve all day to get there. Even in peak summer, the queues are never big, its quick to load and you can eat a proper dinner.

This is all time you would otherwisebe spending on theM1/M25, or in a traffic Jam, or in a Holiday Inn at Dover – (that doesnt move whilst you sleep).

You wake up at 6-7am ish, get a breakfast and a coffee, a bit of fresh air while they dock, down to the car and out and onto a fast, easy motorway by 9am. Your route to the alps is now quickly out of Holland and onto fast, free flowing, toll free german autobahns, east initially and then heading south through the black forest.

Not the wrong end of an extra 4, 5, 6 hours of driving, including the M25, the hellish queues at dover, landing in Calais at the wrong time, etc etc, already knackered, already spent more than an entire day driving etc etc And now you have to drive through france/luxembourg/belgium potentially…..

Honestly, its worth it.

I’m not sure you can stay at the docks. We spent the night in a layby here ct15 6en with a couple of others. It is literally a layby but very quiet and only a few minutes from the port. It’s on park4night if you use that app

Germany only has a tiny bit of Alps around zugspitze

this is simply wrong – the Bavarian Alps stretch from near Lake Constance to Salzburg, we’ve visited many different bits of it.  The Allgau Alps are fantastic, the area around Tegernesee//Schliersee and Cheimgau are also good mountains to explore but different in character. The Karwendel are much nicer than the German Zugspitze area (the Austrian side is much nicer). That doesn’t even mention Berchtesgarden or Wetterstein.

@matt_outandabout – we’ve spent most of our summer holidays in the last 10-11 years in various parts of Germany and Austria.  It’s a brilliant place for walking, gravel biking and via ferrata (klettersteig). We’ve got loads of photos and suggestions for campsites so feel free to message me.

The best advice is do NOT try to fit too much in as you only have 2 weeks. Also, make use of the stellplatze network (same as aires in France)

https://stellplatz.info/reisemobilstellplatz

From your plan the early Belgian stopover could be an issue as you probably need to head east to make progress towards Salzburg. Maybe a stop in the Ardenees on the way back, if time allows, would be better. Satevelot and Malmedy are ~5-6hrs from Rotterdam and are amazing for cycling – lots of road riding and easy bike rides on old railway lines in the area.   (In September we spent our last 2 days at Le Crotoy in the Baie de Somme. Great seafood, lots of easy cycling on quiet waymarked trails and just generally a very chilled out place.)

When we go to the Bavarian Alps we usually drive from Rotterdam to a stellplatze in Greding, just north of Ingolstadt. It’s a long drive on day 1 but means you can be in your mountain town within 2-3hrs the next morning and playing on the hills after lunch.

Unless you want to go to mad Ludwig’s Disney castle Fussen isn’t as nice as other towns or hillly areas. Is it a good location to explore from though.  When you’re there you’ll probably be popping in and out of Austria all the time. It’s best to view it all as one big playground and ignore the border.

If you’re in the Salzburg area for a few days, Berchtesgaden is worth it, busy or not. Visit the Eagle’s Nest and see if you can spot the pilgrims vs the tourists. 🙂

Not sure how I’d play the drive across from Rotterdam, you could certainly get as far as Munich in a day, spend a day mooching around there then head on to Salzburg. Depends if you have any particular riding in mind on the way, and your appetite for driving when you’re changing locations.

When we did that area with the kids we headed down after Salzburg towards Zell Am See/ Saalbach-Hinterglem, which has the bike park and a variety of trails. From there you’re only a few hours from the heart of the Dolomites, if you fancied getting some via ferrata done. 🙂

if you get as far as Zell am See – do the Pinzgauer Spaziergang. Probably the nicest and easiest 10 mile big ridge walk you can do locally with a cable car at each end.

I wouldn’t get quite as poetic about the Autobahn as Snotrag. When crashes do happen they tend to be big and messy causing long delays. The route down Kassel-Fulda-Nuremburg-Ingolstadt is a nicer run and quieter than going down the west side.

And if you do end up driving into Germany through NL you might accidentally pass….

https://mountainbikemuseum.nl/

It might be worth looking at the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry. Surprisingly, it might actually be a shorter journey to the Alps than Dover-Calais depending on your destination.

Overnight Saturday night, it’s really cheap for caravans (& I think motorhomes), it’s about £300 return for us with an 8m caravan in the school holidays. You’ll get a short (6 hour) night’s sleep on the boat.

We start about 20 miles North of you & usually leave after work on a Friday, stop at Tebay campsite, then do the rest on Saturday morning, arriving in Newhaven in time for dinner in the pub.

Coming home, you’ll be off early morning & be round London before there is any other traffic on the road. Potentially home by mid-afternoon.

Newcastle ferry is ok, but the ships are old (they keep painting the extremely tired cabins, but you can tell they’re both >40 year old, third hand and soon to be sailing to Alang to meet the beach), slow (as a result the timing is sub optimal) and disembarkation for cars can be very much dependant on how quickly they unload the trucks first. With a camper you might be ok though as they tend to put them on the lower car decks. With a motorbike you can wait in Ijmuiden for anything up to an hour while they faff about raising and lowering various ramps. The Hull -Rotterdam ferry has separate linkspans for cars and vans <2.4m high so you’re off pretty quick. They’ll also let you board from 5pm right through to departure at 8:30pm. Both routes are expensive now. I think our summer booking was £750 return with the Velle, with a huge discount from somewhere. They basically work out how much cost and pain it is to drive to Dover from the North, stay an extra night somewhere and then have to traverse the dullest bits of France to get into Germany and add that to the cost of a basic ferry journey.

If you choose either route don’t get bladdered on the way out: I’ve been breathalysed several times in Ijmuiden and Rotterdam just before passport control.

On the way out we have variously stopped in:

Frankfurt – well Bad Soden – awesome Zoo and great open air pool up the hill in Koenigstein);

Koln,

Adenau  – the Nurburgring is funny even for non petrol heads, Adenau town is lovely,

Nuremburg – Herzogenerach on the outskirts is the home to Adidas and Puma. They have a nice hotel on the Adidas campus which is often empty. My daughters were enthralled to stay there at the same time as the German Women’s football team about three days after we’d beaten them.

Stuttgart – truly great European city. MB museum is brilliant. Octoberfest at end of September amazeballs.

Boppard on The Rhein – picture postcard perfect and just down the road from the Lorelei

Speyer – beautiful city with the most amazing transport & technical museum and an oversupply of ice cream parlours. We stay at the Domhoff – conveniently has an onsite brewery.

I’ll have a think and see where else we’ve been – we usually do that whole journey about twice a year.

Depends what route you are taking, but if you’re heading out  via Calais the following may be on your route.

Freiburg im Breisgau is a fun riding spot. Pedal up, big hills, long trails. Not many trails there, but well worth a day or 2.

Lac Blanc is really fun as well. Small bike bikepark with chair lift.

Serfaus fiss ladis – top spot, loads to ride.

Tournavaux and La Semoy are just a few hours drive from Calais. Both great pedal up spots worth a visit if you’re in the area with time to ride.

Frieburg in Breisgau, sw Germany, has a cracking campsite to the east of the city, some really good, surprisingly knarly riding and loads of good places to eat & drink.

Troyes is a good overnight stop if you want to break the drive up through France.

trail-hub.com has some really good riding tips.

@hot_fiat yes I’m being a little rose-tinted ref the Autobahn, but its better than doing the same miles in the UK. And you wont get to see a Maybach towing a 904 Carrera on the M20!

Speyer is a great shout too, fantastic place.

If heading to Füssen, then perhaps look at going via Balderschwang…. Lovely little valley. Very pretty.

Hmm Stuttgart you say….  I’ve not been but would imagine that the average STWer would find it their happy place

Startseite

Oh hell yes a Unimog museum….

Rivett has reminded me – great camping in Freiburg im Breisgau at Camping Hirzberg. I think the guy that runs it is into bikes. Come to think of it, it felt like everyone in Freiburg is into bikes….

Todtnau isn’t too far from there.  It’s a single chair lift hill with a couple of tracks, they’re pretty blown out but fun if you like em ruff.

One thing I wish had been pointed out to me with more notice was the low emissions zones in Europe. It’s worth getting the relevant stickers arranged well before you leave, or get organised so you know where to go to get them on arrival/if you need them for where you intend to travel. The French one can be posted to you, but ours never arrived. On the borders some stickers are valid in other countries, but only in certain places. Took me a while to get my head round it all and I wished I’d known about it sooner.

France

https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/

Germany

It’s for Berlin but does the whole country

https://www.berlin.de/labo/mobilitaet/kfz-zulassung/feinstaubplakette/shop.86595.en.php

both are under £5 and take about 5-7 working days to arrive

Do I need them if I’m not going into cities?
Plan would be to cycle into any bigger towns.

You need the German one everywhere in theory

The French one less so but if the air quality is bad they can apply limitations to vehicle movements at a Departement or Regional level

Must admit we didn’t have the German one for Freiburg this summer,,. Nothing in the post yet.

We did similar this year. Dover to Calais and then stopped off in Bastogne and Strasbourg for a couple of nights before ending up in Lofer (Austrian Alps) for 7 nights at Grubhof campsite.

Would definitely recommend Lofer. Nice traditional village with something going on every night. Free ski lift up the mountain. Free bus outside the campsite taking you to the centre of Salzburg in about an hour.

30 min from Zell am See & Leogang (easy to link up to Saalbach-Hinterglemm).

Went back up through Germany to Rudesheim (did want to stop in Zweisel or into Czech but ran out of time)

If you dip into Austria, you might need a vignette. Not sure if it’s like the Swiss, where it’s only required for motorways, but IIRC it cost around €10 for a 7 day pass. You could get that back by filling your tank in Luxembourg on the way there/back. Autobahn service stations will charge you €1 for the toilets

Do I need them if I’m not going into cities?

perhaps.  The umwelt zones seem to extend into the autobahn areas in places – around Stuttgart in the A8 in particular.  I think @alpin said on a previous thread that it isn’t actually enforceable on the autobahn.  It’s only €6 and it’s quite a nice thing to have. 

some other stopovers we’ve used:

<theme parks> Efteling in the Netherlands; Phantasialand in Germany (both Fly and Taron have to be ranked in the top 10 coasters in the world.  Sod gravity, linear motors absolutely rule).

<shopping> Metzingen outlet city. vaude shop worth it alone for €60 moabs; Roermond outlets. adidas outlet herzobase for 5:10 stuff (you have to rummage, it’s hidden).

<museums>Technisch Museum Speyer (already mentioned) and its twin 30k down the road in Sinsheim (concorde + tu144 together); Deutsche Bahn Musem Nuremberg; Marklin Museum Goppingen; Fossils in Holzmaden, simply the best and bigggest plesiosaurs I’ve ever seen. Blew my mind; MB and Unimog museums in Stuttgart / Gaggenau; Dinopark Denkendorf, wander through the forest and see full sized dino replicas, have a beer I the beer garden then go on the best / biggest swing. Want one for the garden

<beautiful places> the Eiffel, Black Forest (Neustadt is touristy), Triberg for the stupid clocks; Wildbad for nice Forest walks and riding. They have a huge lookout tower thing that you climb and view the forest canopy from.  Then slide down from the top; Kochel Am See. The spa on the lakeshore is glorious.

Germany is generally very safe. however. I wouldn’t stay close to railway stations, particularly with bikes on the back.

If you’re looking for a route back from Salzburg, I would probably also second heading towards Innsbruck – which is well worth a few days in itself. Nordkette has some downhill stuff and also some more gentle trails, although not sure if the manufactured stuff warrants a trip on it’s own. Fantastic city to visit with access to the funicular and cable cars thereafter from the city centre.  Vorarlberg all the way to Lichtenstein, Bodensee (Either Bregenz or German side), Freiberg and then home through Luxembourg.  There’s so much on that route but you could easily pick a few options.

If you are touring too – Have a look at the Bodensee (Constance) cycle route. You can touch all three countries (De/AU/CH) and do a complete loop of the lake if you so wish.

https://www.cycling-lake-constance.com/facts-lake-constance-cycle-path

Re: Vorarlberg

The Montafon valley is great for walking – lots of cable cars and decent walks to huts for lunch etc.

If you explore the Brandertal/valley up to Lunersee via public transport, you’ll be able to go to the Milka factory shop opposite the station in Bludenz

We stayed here over the summer: https://www.grubhof.com/en/

Good site – great facilities, easy spin into nearby town, and there is a free pass thing for access to local outdoor pool (amazing place) and bus into Salzburg.

I would say though that out of a month long tour, Austria was the only place we cut short. Notably more expensive, and found many of the people extremely abrupt / unwelcoming – I think this is just the Austrian way but its not what you want on holiday. Much preferred our stops in Slovenia and Germany.

You do need a vignette for the motorway but you can get it online.

Ghent’s nice. You need a permit to take a vehicle into the centre.

You could come back via somewhere in the Palatinate (Pfalz). Speyer is cute.

I did a ‘work’ thing that was basically about five days of hut-to-hut trekking on the Adlerweg finishing at the main refuge below the Grossglockner, which was really very lovely and quite chilled. There’s a bunch of information online, eg:

https://www.tyrol.com/things-to-do/sports/hiking/eagle-walk

Not lift accessed, but fantastic, non-technical, high-level mountain walking. I can probably dig out more details if you’re interested. We did a five-day chunk of it.

Also spent a few days above Maurach, not far from Innsbruck, walking and doing via ferratas from the lift-accessed Erfurt Hut. Again  very cool, range of via ferrata difficulties from very easy to quite exposed:

https://www.tyrol.com/things-to-do/sports/hiking/refuge-huts/a-erfurter-hut

I did both these for work, so not sure how they’d fit into a self-propelled trip, but both beautiful areas with lots of walking to go at. I didn’t find Austrian people particularly stand-offish tbh, though I guess they’re more reserved than, say Italians.

Mountain folk are quite gruff in general I think…. but not unfriendly. I like them – feels like a nice balance of German and Italian. Quite laid back compared to Germans!

Ghent’s nice. You need a permit to take a vehicle into the centre.

Yep, was there for work this year and we have the offer of a driveway to drop the van and cycle into town…

We do need to find some walks and rides which are suitable for someone with lungs that don’t work – so uplift walks, flatter (but can be reasonably long) rides and her ebike etc