driving to austria - the sequel

hi all,
in follow up the first part of this thread... had already decided best route to reschenpass into north west italy was via folkestone, dunkerque, begium, luxembourg, stuttgart, kaiserslautern then into the Bregenz pass, arlberg tunnel to Landeck then south.

However, went to visit the father-in-law this weekend and he is a veteran, pan european cyclist who likes to plan journeys, in detail. Afterall he's done Istanbul to London and you don't want too many surprises along those sorts of trips. So we set him the task of planning our route earlier this week. No information from us, just to see what he came up with.

His detailed (and colour coded) A4 itinerary showed a very direct line from calais, st quentin, reims, st dizier, Nancy, up a climb (960m) to Colmar, cross into Germany at Freiburg, get him a photo at Titisee ( :lol:) then friedrichshafen, into the Bregenz pass again.

I wanted to post it on here in case anyone else has done and can make any comments - on paper looks very direct, so comparisons would be interesting. Most interesting of all is its quite a bit shorter. SO the question is,,,are french roads really that bad compared to the German ones?

I think we stated that the route through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany is toll free not necessarily the quickest but the cheapest, but please post the route I will be interested to
see if I can use the route in the future. 8)

I have driven UK to Austria dozens of times, using different routes, although the main route is the quickest. OTOH, I have driven diagonally south east across France, time no issue, and become involved in some interesting places, eateries, stayed in cheapy chataus, met some country people.

Also, a friend, who used to be the head instructor in Niederau made a UK holiday, staying with people who had been regular pupils in his classes, then cycled back to Niederau.

Just to say if anyone driving to Europe this weekend check and allow more time as both M2 and M20 are closed this morning, due to 7inches of snow localy last night, and more forecast today, and with -6 temp tonight it will be icy.Last night had thunder and lighting to :D.
Goff