Best way to get to alps?
ollychristian
Posts: 45
Was planning on driving camper to alps in summer with a friend. Estimated travel costs at about £600 including tolls.
Mate can't make it anymore so I'm looking at alternatives for getting there.
Planning to ate touring bike and camping kit
Easyjet flights with bike return work out at £160. My concern is packaging the bike up for the return journey, anybody know if there is anywhere to get cardboard boxes near geneva airport?
Or I was looking at train from st panc to geneva. Don't seem to be able to find any times for July yet. It says about baggage arriving within 24 hours of you? Does it go on a different train?
Any suggestions? My priority is bike safety and cost lees than £300 return
Cheers
Mate can't make it anymore so I'm looking at alternatives for getting there.
Planning to ate touring bike and camping kit
Easyjet flights with bike return work out at £160. My concern is packaging the bike up for the return journey, anybody know if there is anywhere to get cardboard boxes near geneva airport?
Or I was looking at train from st panc to geneva. Don't seem to be able to find any times for July yet. It says about baggage arriving within 24 hours of you? Does it go on a different train?
Any suggestions? My priority is bike safety and cost lees than £300 return
Cheers
0
Posts
http://goo.gl/maps/kkEVU
http://app.strava.com/athletes/30000
What will your camping costs be? Have you looked at taking roads off the motorway to get down to the Alps? Of course it will add some diesel costs but save you tolls. Across Belgium and down Switzerland is one option i know a couple of people have taken, but, really needs working out.
Easyjet does seem the best bet, how about using the storage in Geneva airport to keep a bike box in for the length of your stay? Or even call in at a bike shop on way back to airport and buy something from them and ask them for a box, could well work.
How about simply hiring a bike in the Alps? Its not that expensive from what i remember.
http://app.strava.com/athletes/30000
Toll Roads - 915km, 8h13
Non Toll - 928km, 12h47
Ive only ever driven the Toll Road way (and in a camper) and its a good 10hrs drive, with stops on top. Suppose you could take the non-toll road and do a over night stop over. Check out http://www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htmfor free places to kip!
Eurostar will carry undismantled bikes (for £30 each way). However they have introduced new restrictions on the sizes of bags you can take on the trains which mean that it could be much more difficult to take a bike in a bag. Officially you can now only take a folding Brompton-type bike on the train. However, you could still take them (ie bikes in bags) as registered baggage.
The Eurostar registered baggage services: Eurostar say they will put your bag on the next available train and guarantee that it will arrive within 24 hours - this costs £25. Given that their bike carriage services costs £30 and guarantees that your bike will travel on the same time this looks like the best option if you can find an onward train service with bike carriage facilities.
If you have to put your bike in a bag, I would have thought that if you drop off your bike-in-a-bag in plenty of time, there's a good chance it will arrive on the same train. (Unless of course it's a busy service with lots of bikers or cellists or whatever). But as its not guaranteed this is a bit of a gamble - especially if say you are travelling on a Saturday morning in July.
I think there is a similar service for French trains but I'm afraid I don't know the chapter-and-verse.
If you can be more flexible about where you go, there are DeutscheBahn (German Railways) sleeper services from Paris and Amsterdam to Munich which could be a better option for the Austrian or Italian Alps/Dolomites.
Or find someone else to join you in the campervan, or was it your mates?
got a train back from paris couple of years ago and just made a flimsy bag to fit de-wheeled bike in.
ill have a look at train costs again, but will probably go with the flights to geneva.
friend has a bike bag so will borrow that. going to email bike shops in geneva and ask if they will store it for...... 30chf sound reasonable?
otherwise might just go for the storage at the airport, complete rip off, but at least i will be able to relax on my trip.
cheers
Sadly, they've changed the rules
30 CHF / £20 is more than reasonable. Although don't jump in and offer money straight away. See if they offer to store it first. If you get there and buy something, they're more likely to offer it FOC. Give them a call, they'll probably speak some English. Just don't jump straight in with English. Open with something like "bonjour, je suis désolé, je ne parle pas français, parlez vous anglais s'il vous plaît?"*
*I live in the German part of Switzerland, so I have no idea if that is gramatically correct but it seems to do the trick when in French speaking parts
http://app.strava.com/athletes/30000