[Idyllchat] Driving across borders

[CW Sprawls]

Lyn Slazyk wrote:

> */"Hughes, Aija" <AHughes at wsgr.com>/* wrote:
>
>     Hello, Fellow Travelers - my friend and I are starting to plan a
>     trip in early October 2008 to Paris for a few days and to northern
>     Italy where we would like to visit my son-in-law's mother who
>     lives in Meina near Lago Maggiore between Milan and the Swiss
>     border. Would love to have your input whether it's feasible to
>     rent a car in Paris and drive to Italy or should we fly/take a
>     train from Paris to Milan and rent a car in Italy? Also, we'd like
>     to drive across the Swiss border into Switzerland and would
>     appreciate any suggestions. Has anyone stayed near the Lago
>     Maggiore area, and if so, would love to have some input on places
>     to stay in that area.
>
>     Happy Traveling!
>
>     We considered a similar trip a few years ago and gave up after
>     running into lots of stumbling blocks. High fees for crossing
>     borders, car rental companies refusing to allow their cars to
>     cross said borders etc., etc. I'm certain it can be done and will
>     await the response of others to inform us both! In France a
>     gentleman from Wales who was living and working in France told me
>     you almost have to reside in one of the countries to make it
>     doable. I have no idea if that's true.
>     Lyn
>     Dallas
>
>
Aija and Lyn:  My husband and I have driven across borders in Europe 
many times through the years as he has worked in various countries from 
Holland to Italy.  Our last trip from Nice into Italy to the Cinque 
Terre area was about 5 years ago and certainly involved no problems.  
The drive around the Mediterranean coast of northwestern Italy and down 
through Genoa to Santa Margherita was beautiful.  We then drove back to 
France and turned in our car there.

Many years we have rented our car at the Munich airport and driven down 
through a corner of Austria and into Trieste, Italy, where he teaches 
every other year.  At times we have chosen to rent our car in Villach, 
Austria to drive down into Italy, simply because it is less expensive to 
rent a car in Germany or Austria than in Italy.  Italy requires that 
everyone accept the CDW insurance, which in essence doubles the daily 
price of the rental.  In all of these instances we have returned to 
Germany or Austria to return the car at the end of the month.  When you 
drop off a car in a different location or country you have to pay a 
hefty drop-off fee.  Most recently when we wanted to rent a car in 
southern Sweden in May and drive up to Gothenburg and cross by ferry to 
Denmark and turn in the car in Copenhagen, the drop-off was 
prohibitively high, so we decided to just ride the train in Sweden and 
rent the car after we got to Denmark.

There is a road-use tax to pay when you drive a car into Switzerland 
(and I believe Austria too) from another country, but that isn't 
prohibitively expensive, as I remember.  You just have to remember to 
stop at the border and pay it!  And most car-rental companies still seem 
to think that the former "Eastern European" countries are still 
dangerous and won't allow you to drive from, say, Italy, into Slovenia 
or Croatia.  However, last fall we did find that Europcar will now give 
you a special permit to take a car into "eastern countries."  We went to 
the trouble of getting that permit but were never even asked for it at 
the border!

With the advent of the European Union there are now no more border 
crossing checks in most of Western Europe.  You just sail right across 
the borders with no stopping at all.  In short, I would say do it.  And 
go to www.gemut.com and ask Bob Bestor to help you with the best car 
rental prices you can get!

Charlotte Sprawls
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.dca.net/pipermail/idyllchat/attachments/20070706/b0066b64/attachment.htm