Driving to / from Corfu
Driving to Corfu
People often talk about driving to Corfu for their
holidays, so, as we have done this each year since 2009, I have added some
thoughts and advice here. These are very much personal thoughts /
experiences, based on our journey in the Spring (to Corfu) and late Autumn
(to UK) - many people have done this journey and some have quite "specific"
thoughts on routes, etc.
For most, the journey really starts in France - either
Calais (Eurotunnel / Ferry) or Dunkirk (Ferry). It is also possible to
get an overnight ferry down from the north of England to Zeebruge, although
this can be affected by bad weather in the North Sea (as can the Dover
ferries of course!) at the time of year when we travel. There are additional options if you travel from the
south west of England, but these are not covered here as we have not used
these services.
There are two primary routes thereafter that we use - France / Switzerland / Italy and
France / Belgium / Germany / Austria / Italy.
Although it is feasible to do most of the journey overland
(by travelling down through Slovenia, Croatia -- see below for more thoughts
on this), most people who drive
will take the ferry from one of the main northern Italian ports - Venice or
Ancona (Trieste was a third option that was briefly available around
2016/2017 but the operators now appear to have dropped that port). The
ferry companies have changed their routes several times recently so,
particularly outside of the July / August period, the ferries no longer stop
at Corfu and you therefore need to use Igoumenitsa on the Greek mainland
(which has plentiful connections to Corfu). Which Italian port you use
will often depend on how the sailing times "work" for you. We used
Venice for a number of years until we were held outside the Grand Canal for
eleven hours in November 2011 due to fog (two weeks later there was a thirty
six hour delay) - we now use Ancona which only adds around 170Km to our road
journey but does not suffer the same sort of delays, and the sailing time is
also quite a bit shorter (around 17 hours against 25 hours).
Since we last used the Venice route, the port has changed
such that the ferries no longer have to use the Grand Canal and now dock on
the mainland, which in theory makes the driving process easier as it will no
longer require a drive across the Causeway from the mainland in to Venice.
However, in our view the shorter journey time on the Igoumenitsa / Ancona
route still makes Ancona our favoured port. It is also possible to
drive down through Italy to pick up a ferry in Bari or Brindisi - these
ferry routes are much shorter (and cheaper), but many have reported that the
ferries are not particularly comfortable. You also have additional fuel,
toll and, possibly, hotel costs. A cost comparison exercise we carried
out in 2015 showed that there was nothing to be gained (financially
speaking) by driving that extra distance as, for us, it would have required
an extra nights hotel, food, etc.
When planning your journey, it is worth noting that the
ferry companies have a regular (weekly) "Maintenance" day when there is no
ferry, and also that the departure times are not the same every day.
There are two main ferry companies on the route - Minoan and Anek. Both have good
websites, with English as one of the language options, and with the ability
to make bookings on them - indeed, this is the only way we have made
bookings since we started making the journey. Both companies offer
"early booking" discounts as well as discounts for Over 60', booking return
journey's, use of certain
car recovery companies, etc.
The choice of route from the English Channel can also be
affected by your views on Tolls - there are none in Germany but France has
plenty while Austria and Switzerland have mandatory "Vignettes". As with all
these, and those in Italy, it is possible to avoid them by using alternative
roads (the likes of Google Maps and ViaMichelin have "avoid tolls" options
on their route planners), but we have found that with some planning
we can easily avoid some of the more expensive tolls but still leave us on
motorways (see below for costs). Another aspect of the planning can be how long you want to
spend on the journey. It is possible to do the drive from Calais in
around fourteen hours (with multiple drivers and minimal stops).
Another aspect of the planning / routing, is that a number of countries,
most notably France, now insist on purchase of a "clean air" sticker - in
several cases these must be purchased before your journey. Some of the
route planners (see below) indicate if a sticker is required.
It is also worth noting that several countries (including France and Germany)
ban most lorries on motorways on Sundays - this can make a major difference
to the driving experience, as, instead of "nose to tail" lorries on some
motorways during the week, you might only see a dozen lorries during a
Sunday drive. In Germany and northern Italy many of the motorways on
the routes we take are two lanes only, so, away from Sundays, you are constantly
having to "slot in" between lorries as the "boy racers" come racing up behind
you flashing their lights!.
The ViaMichelin route planner includes details of individual Toll costs
on the routes. The toll booths normally accept credit / debit cards
(but rarely pre-paid cards). It has been noticeable in the last few years
that the number of booths that accept cash has increased - in most
instances these are "manned" booths rather than slot machines.
The AA and RAC websites (and a few others) have details of
mandatory requirements for driving through the various countries (e.g.
Winter Tyres, Warning Triangle, etc) - it is important to ensure you meet
these requirements as fines can be large for certain offences (e.g. Dash
Cams are banned in a number of countries - there is a five figure fine for using
one in
Austria where their ownership is actually banned!), while others can be somewhat unexpected (e.g. it is a criminal
offence to run out of fuel on German motorways). The websites are also
starting to show details of the motorway "emergency vehicle" rules - a
number of countries have introduced a requirement that if you come to a halt on a motorway you have
to move to the left or to the right to allow emergency vehicles through.
Whether you move to the left or to the right varies depending on what lane,
and what country, you are in though!
For overnight accommodation we pick places easily reached
from the motorway - it can be dark around 16:30 when we travel and we think
it is worth having places that are easy to find. We also prefer to use
hotels with restaurants attached - after a day in the car we certainly do
not want to drive out to a restaurant in the evening.
You should be prepared when using the Switzerland route that you will
normally have to show your passports at both the France / Switzerland and
the Switzerland / Italy borders - there can be quite a queue for this,
particularly on Monday mornings. As these are borders where you leave
/ enter the EU, it is also possible that your car may be "pulled over" and a
series of questions asked - your car can also be searched at these
crossings. I "lost" nearly an hour going in to Italy in both 2016 and 2017
for a questions / car search session. As a result, we are tending to
use the Germany route more frequently.
The impact of the UK leaving the
European Union when travelling in
to France from the UK has yet to be confirmed but once in France there
should be no changes to current regulations, although the entry in to /
departure from Switzerland (if using that route) has not, as far as we are
aware, been documented yet.
When boarding the ferry in Ancona, security checks at
the port have increased
substantially over the last few years - cars can be directed to the "security" area when
entering the dockyard (after check-in) and you are asked to take luggage from
the car in to a
building for security screening. We pack most things in a number of clear
plastic boxes and to date (2020) we have only had to remove suitcases / wheelies
from the car for security checks. It is perhaps advisable though to ensure
that as much as possible is packed in to boxes / cases to make the transfer to
the security building as straightforward as possible.
A SatNav, whilst useful, is not essential (we didn't use one for the
first few years). The roads mostly have European Road
numbers (E....) which cross national borders and thus make navigation
relatively simple - most printed road maps and route finders include these.
We have also found that the road signs on motorways will frequently mention
cities (and countries) several hundred kilometres away so, even driving
"solo", you only need to know three or four cities on your route to navigate
quite easily. Even when using a SatNav though, we still have a road map
in the car "just in case"!.
Our "Swiss" route to Corfu is normally:
-
Day 1 - Manchester to Eurotunnel, and then an overnight stay near Calais
/ Dunkirk.
We prefer to get over the channel on day one as you "loose" an hour
because of the time difference and we find it better to start driving in
France on day two around 07:00 rather than nearer 09:00 which can be the
case if you cross the channel on the morning of day two!
-
Day 2 - Calais / Dunkirk to the France / Switzerland border
(Colmar or Mulhouse), following a route through France, Belgium,
Luxemburg (cheap petrol!), France and then into Switzerland. This
is not the most direct route but avoids the majority of French Tolls
while adding under 130Km to the route, and gives the opportunity to fill
up with cheap petrol - around EUR 0.40 per litre difference. We
normally undertake this part of the drive on a Sunday
-
Day 3 - Mulhouse / Colmar to around / just south of the
Imola area in Italy, which leaves around 2 hours drive on Day 4
-
Day 4 - Imola to Ancona for a 14:00 sailing to Igoumenitsa - check-in is supposed to be completed by 12:00.
In the event of a scheduled later sailing time, we spend the night of
Day 3 further north in Italy to leave around a four hour drive on Day 4
-
Day 5 - Arrive Igoumenitsa around 08:00 and then get the
local ferry to Corfu
In terms of mileage, Day 1 is around 500Km while days 2 and
3 are around 750Km and 600Km respectively, and day 4 around 250Km. In
March 2017 (the last time we used this route) the tolls were EUR13.40 (in France) and EUR34.60
(Italy) with EUR37 for the Swiss Vignette (which is valid for the whole
calendar year).
Our "Germany" route to Corfu is:
-
Day 1 - Manchester to Eurotunnel, and then an overnight stay near
Mons
-
Day 2 - Mons to just north of the Germany / Austria border (Kempten
area), via Luxemburg.
This again avoids the majority of French Tolls, and gives the
opportunity to fill up with cheap petrol - around EUR 0.40 per litre
difference (in March 2019, Motorway Service Station petrol was EUR 1.16
per litre). We normally try to undertake this part of the drive on a
Sunday
-
Day 3 - Kempten, Germany to Italy (Bologna area)
-
Day 4 - Bologna to Ancona for a 14:00 sailing to
Igoumenitsa - check-in is supposed to be completed by 12:00. In the
event of a scheduled later sailing time, we spend the night of Day 3
further north in Italy to leave around a four hour drive on Day4
-
Day 5 - Arrive Igoumenitsa around 08:00 (on the 14:00 departure) and then get the
local ferry to Corfu
In July 2020 (we were delayed because of Covid restrictions), tolls were EUR14.60 (Austria) and EUR40.50
(Italy) with EUR9.40 for the Austrian vignette (valid for ten days).
Both Vignettes can be bought at most service stations before the
borders, or, for the Swiss Vignette, actually at the border (although there
can be a queue for this). We normally buy ours in advance from a German website
as this allows us to get them stuck on to the car windscreen before we
depart.
Driving to the UK
For this, we follow a similar route to the journey down and
again ensure that our Sunday drive is through France or Germany - this
requires a Thursday evening departure from Corfu. Depending on which
ferry company we use, the ferry normally docks in Ancona at around 14:00 (Minoan) or
17:00 (Anek) so we spend our first night near Imola (14:00 arrival) or
Senigalia (17:00 arrival), our second just north of the Swiss / French
border and the third in northern France or Belgium.
For the German route, we
again spend the first night in Imola or Senigalia, the second on the Austrian /
Germany border and then the third in Belgium / northern France. In both
instances, this leaves us with a 150-200Km drive to Eurotunnel, where we
normally get the train around 10:30 (and avoid most of the M25 rush hour
traffic!).
After our drive to the UK in November 2018, we both agreed that time spent
in the car was becoming uncomfortable (probably down to our age!!), and that
we should consider taking an extra day for the journey. We took this
approach for the first time on our journey in November 2019. Thus, we
spent the first night near Forli / Imola, the second on the Austrian /
Germany border, the third in Luxemburg and the fourth near Ashford in Kent.
In terms of mileage, this equated to 180Km on Day 1, 620Km on Day 2, 560Km
on Day 3, 440Km on Day 4 and 450Km on Day 5.
Other Routes
The main routes we use have been indicated above, but there are others!.
Prior to country borders being closed as part of the CoronaVirus pandemic
during 2020,
we did look at a number of other options.
The first of these was one that quite a few people have talked about but not
too many have used - this involves driving all the way to Greece rather than
using a ferry from Italy. After travelling through Germany and
Austria, there are several possible routes from Austria down to mainland
Greece, and the choice largely depends on your thoughts in respect of
leaving the EU for part of the drive. If you prefer to stay within the
EU and thus (in normal circumstances) avoid stops/ searches / passport
display at borders, then it is necessary to leave Austria near Vienna / Wien
and travel through Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in to mainland Greece near
Thesaloniki.
Shorter routes which take you out of the EU include those that take you down
through Serbia, Kosova and Northern Macedonia or through even more countries
and down through Albania. The route from Thesaloniki to Igoumenitsa is
along a motorway with a couple of tolls. Whichever route you take, it is worth
checking on vignette requirements as for some countries they must be
purchased in advance (viz. they cannot be bought at the border) - unlike
Austria and Switzerland, several countries only have e-vignettes.
Another option that involves only two countries, is to travel down through
France to the west of Switzerland and in to Italy via the Mont Blanc or the
Frejus tunnel.
Whilst, mileage-wise, this is not much different than other routes above, it
is more expensive in terms of Tolls / Tunnels (appx EUR210) - the tunnels
themselves cost in the region
of EUR50 each way.