Summer Road Trip in Europe From Champagne to Sardinia!

Our little family had 18 days to get from Reims in the Champagne region of France, to Sardinia off the coast of Southern Italy and back again, in our car, loaded with snacks on the way down, and acquired treats on the way back. For example, Italian shoes that fit me really well, an array of tasty French wines, and some lovely French books and toys for little Klowski.

The rules of our road trip were:

1. No more than three hours driving in a day
2. No early mornings other than the ferry back from Sardinia
3. To see or do something in a new place each day during the road trip
4. To maintain a ban on videos in the car, so Klowski doesn't become a TV zombie
5. To stay in one place for 5 nights in Sardinia - a holiday from our holiday so to speak!

Our route South included the Swiss Alps, Italian and French rivieras, and Tuscany, with an overnight ferry to Sardinia from Livorno. Our return ferry to Toulon in France allowed us to take in Provence and the French Alps before heading back to Champagne and Northern France for our ferry back to England.

See below for the highlights of our epic journey, followed by some tips and useful info!

Road triiiip! 

Champagne vineyards at the Montagne Reims - tasting, walking and picnicking

Summer toboggan run in the Swiss Alps near Kandersteg - exhilarating! 

Rowing boat on Oeschinensee lake in Swiss Alps. A great cable car and walk to get to it also. Stunning views! 

Aquarium visit at the Musee Oceanographique in Monaco. Klowski was too tired to concentrate as she had missed a nap, but enjoyed running around exploring anyway. 

Five star cuisine at Chateau Eza in Eze Village, our absolute favourite. Rather than posh pomp, I like to think of this as food-art to spark all the senses! Klowski was such a good girl and enjoyed trying all the different tastes. The red mullet and saffron sauce were top notch - as was the yellow fin tartar amuse-bouche in the photo. 

Chateau Eza from the botanical cactus gardens at the top of Eze Village - sheer panoramic views down to the red rooftops of the village through the exotic plants, straight into the glittering blue sea. 

Porto venere on the Italian Riviera, near the Cinque Terre. Beautiful but heaving with people and cars in the heat. We nearly gave up trying to park and just left, but found a space at the last minute. 

Fivizzano in Tuscan mountains - so rural. We stayed in a farmhouse far away from anything, way up in the hills

Renaissance city Lucca in Tuscany - the main piazza 

Cycling tandem around Lucca

Sardinia! The sea is so clear and blue, and there is such a choice of coastline despite the high season 

Paddleboarding in Sardinia at Porto Pollo - I loved this so much I wish I'd tried it years ago (although I'm not sure it even existed) 

Catalonian Spanish town Alghero - Sardinian West Coast

Taking it in turns to splash about with Klowski at shallow, child-friendly Rena Bianca beach, Sardinia

Canoeing in the Gorges du Verdon in Provence

The Gorges seen from the road bridge

Back in Champagne - Troyes and its historic wooden timber buildings, with a spot of shopping! 

How we made things easy for ourselves:

We booked our hotels along the way, using internet sites like booking.com, using the wifi of the hotel the night before, and found them using sat nav. Although it was high season we didn't want to tie ourselves down by booking them all in advance. We did pre-book the 5 nights in Sardinia as it's expensive and competitive, and we didn't want to risk 5 nights in a crummy dump! Our hotel was a great choice and will be written about in my subsequent Sardinia blog post.

When little klowski went to bed about 9pm we used that time to research what we wanted to do the next day and to plan our next stop based on hotels, the weather etc.

We packed a big suitcase in the boot, and had one small bag each on top with our daily needs inside, so we could fill them up with whatever extras we needed from the big suitcase at each hotel. This stopped us having to rifle through one messy suitcase each time, or having to drag a big suitcase around.

We took a small 'busy pack' for klowski, with some inexpensive but fun little toys and games for her on the journey, which we changed and added to along the way to keep her interested. The only nuisance was the toddler tantrums when she threw crayons into the footwell, causing unidentified rattles, driving Richard mental.

We roughly calculated our route on Google in terms of time, and added a couple of hours for unscheduled stops and delays. I planned where to stop as we went along, with around three pre-decided places on a list to aim for on the way down, and one on the way back.