From Pontarlier to Venice… (stopping by Como)

Follow us for the first part of our trip from Pontarlier to Venice, stopping by Como, Italy 🙂

From Pontarlier to Como …

Like any good trip, nothing goes as planned, we left two hours after our schedule, the car is full and it is cold and gray outside …

And I’m not showing you the backseats… 😀

We left at noon in direction of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, no control at the border and almost no traffic at this time on a Wednesday.

If you need a car sticker for the swiss highway, you can find it in the gas stations along the road.

Marina drove most of the time until the famous Gotthard tunnel, I then took over and Tara only slept an hour or so.
Note that this tunnel generates big traffic jams during extended weekends or holidays, you can follow the traffic situation here.

As soon as the good weather comes back the Swiss take advantage of it to redo the roads and the maximum speed is reduced over many kilometers …

The weather not being there and having lost time with road works, as well as traffic jams at the Italian border we did not make stop-visit and went directly to Como

We arrived in Como around 7pm, barely time to unload the car and head to the city center to enjoy the last rays of sunshine on the lake.

Lucky for us, our accommodation was at a 5 minutes walk from the old town which allowed us to leave the car and avoid searching for a new parking spot.

The old town being partially a pedestrian zone, you can visit it without planning anything, just wander around the town and discover beautiful spots and restaurants.
Many places with their cafes allow tourists and locals to enjoy a drink or antipasti in a typical Italian way.

Here are some pictures of our too short visit of Como.

Tara couldn’t wait to see the lake !

For this step, staying only one night we chose to book this studio more suitable for couples but that allowed us to be near the city center for 75 € (including 25 € of cleaning and 10 € for AirBnb fees).

The apartment was well decorated, remodeled and soundproof, so very nice, we were able to install the baby bed for Tara in a corner without problem.
The only downside, no parking and at the second floor without a lift, after a day of driving this is not ideal when unloading the car but it keeps you fit! And the same thing the next morning…

Travel time : 5h30
Distance traveled: 385km
Cost : Price of the Swiss car sticker of 40CHF
Information :

• A lot of road works and reduced speed limit on the end of the road
• Traffic jams at the italian border
• Crossing of the Gotthard tunnel (17km)
• For more information on the country, you can check out our article about it.

From Como to Venice …

After a good night’s sleep, we took the road at 10:45am, we wanted to keep the most of the time we had to visit Venice, we had not planned a stop (although we would have loved to stop in Verona!)

We only used the highway on our way to Venice and we’ve seen that the turn signals were kind of an option on Italian cars … so be careful when the others cars change their trajectory because it does not seem to bother them to cut the road to other cars arriving faster.

We only stopped on a gas station to eat (in the middle of the truck parking lot) what we had prepared in the morning, a pasta-salad. (we are in Italy anyway!)Not the most beautiful scenery but from what we have seen, the Italian rest areas are not recent and do not have a relaxation area as we can find in France unfortunately. The condition of the road is not so good either …

After a 3 hours road, we finally arrived at our accommodation outside Venice.
Our hosts Valentina and Carlo are very welcoming, and in addition speak French and Serbian which made it easy for us to ask for information about the city.
The apartment was a bit old and has remained in its own style, like a family holiday home but we were at ten minutes by bus from Venice for a price of 50 € / night.
And this time a room and on the ground floor with a private parking lot, we were able to unload the car slowly without tiring us.

Well not that slowly as we wanted to spend the end of the day in Venice !Finally there !

We stayed two nights in this apartment and therefore a late afternoon and a full day in Venice.

We will detail our visit to Venice in a dedicated article because we have so much to say and show that a few lines would not be enough 🙂

Travel time : 3h
Distance traveled : 305 Kilometers
Cost : 23€ of highway toll
Informations :

• Be careful of italians who do not use their turn signals
• Road work and trafic jams around Milano
• Gas stations and rest areas are aging, you should get out of the highway to take a break if you have the time
• For more information about the country check out our article.

For this part of the trip we used Airbnb to book our accommodations. If you want to benefit of a 25 € discount on your first trip, it’s here.