Northern Italy - summer hols & climbs
durhamwasp
Posts: 1,234
Anybody been cycling in Northern Italy? im looking for a couple of le Grand Bornand style places where the kids could swim in a pool, nice scenery and some mountains to be climbed.
2 places i have looked at are Oulx (close to Torino and the Col de Sestriere) and Breuil-Cervina (climb that will be used in this years Giro)
Anybody been or have any tips for other places meeting the requirements?
Cheers
2 places i have looked at are Oulx (close to Torino and the Col de Sestriere) and Breuil-Cervina (climb that will be used in this years Giro)
Anybody been or have any tips for other places meeting the requirements?
Cheers
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If say you fly with Ryanair you could fly to Milan for the eastern lakes, or Verona for the western lakes and Dolomites, or Treviso (Ryanair's Venice) for the eastern Dolomites.
If you are planning to camp then there are lots of campsites around the lakes and in the Alto Adige/Sud Tirol. Swimming pools are pretty much standard in Italian campsites.
You might find the book Mountain High worth a look.
I really want to get my soon-to-be 2yr old daughter up the Ventoux, so we will be heading to Bedoin for 4 nights i think, and then into Italy. That only really gives us the Turin area and up to the Swiss border i would say. Col du Grand Saint Bernard is another one i have now thought of.
So yep, we will be camping, so will be looking for a couple of sites for 3 or 4 nights each, preferbly with pool.
(Last year we did Dijon-le Grand Bornand-Reims with a similar theme of cycling and kids!)
Coming down through France and then back through Switzerland (or the other way round) might be an option that's worth considering. I've no idea about the ins and outs of whose motorways are cheaper. My impression is that the lake district has a greater choice of campsites (partly because of the lakes themselves partly because of the Dutch/German market).
If you're a 'camperisto' then you probably already know about ACSI and the eurocampings.eu website. It's probably the best website for researching campsites (although alanrogers.com is not far behind).
It's also worth knowing that Italy has lots of 'area sosta camper' - places where campervans can stop for the night. Many have electricity and water and maybe even a toilet. There are lists around and there's even an iPhone app.
I love it there, you can probably tell
BTW you're 2 yr old daughter is doing Ventoux, is that without stabilisers? Chapeau, indeed.
I'm not sure which sites you've been looking at. IME the better Italian sites are among the best you'll find anywhere. And the large majority have pools.
You can find some that aren't so good - these are generally the ones with lots of permanent caravans - but if you look at the eurocampings.eu site or alanrogers.com they tell you how any places are available for tourers, so you can avoid the ones that have too high a proportion of permanent pitches.
Briancon looks fantastic, loads of climbs to do and a campsite with loads of kids activities and a big pool.
@thecrofter! No, she's still go stabilisers, if she can do it in under 3hrs i'll be happy!.... haha no! She'll be on the back of my bike again. I got her up the Col de la Colombiere, Col des Aravis and Col de la Croix Fry last summer
I suspect that the reason why you can't find a campsite you like is because of where you're looking - Sestrière and Sauze d'Oulx are mass-market winter sports destinations (and I suspect places people don't go for summer holidays).
You need to be more flexible: if you want to limit yourself to Piedmont then look towards the Lago Maggiore. there's a reason why so many of the posters to this thread have been recommending the lakes.
Here for example is the results of the search for 'piedmont' on alanrogers.com. Plenty of choice.
Thanks for your help though, those sites have been useful and if during another holiday we head to Italy we can certainly use that. But, for this time it looks like France is going to be a better bet all round for us.
On your doorstep you've got the Passo Dello Stelvio, the Umbrail, Gavia, Mortirolo, Bormio 2000, Passo Foscagno and Passo d'Eira, along with a load of lesser known climbs.
Beyond the Passo D'Eira, you can drop down to Livigno, with it's duty free shopping (missus will like that !!).
Plenty of nice lakes for walking around (eg Lago di Cancano).
And off over the Umbrail into Switzerland is very very nice (typical of Switzerland).
"A bad day on the bike is always better than a good day in the office !"
thanks
Our hols was mostly in Grand Bornand, loads for kids to do, and even more cycling to be done.