A Spectacular Drive Through The Swiss Alps!
Exhilarating isn’t it? The majestic Swiss Alps waiting for you to drive on over!
Well, this is a photo I found online – because when my wife Alex and I had to drive from Guarene Italy to Beaune France, the Alps were indeed in our path – but we didn’t drive OVER these snow-capped mountains, we drove THROUGH them!
Yes, this is the Mont Blanc Tunnel, one of the tunnels that we discovered as we drove from Italy to France – some of the longest tunnels in the world!
As noted online:
“Cutting through the Alps to bridge France and Italy, the Mont Blanc tunnel is one of the most famous road tunnels in the world. At the time of its inauguration, in 1965, its impressive proportions made it the longest tunnel ever built.”
However, in March 1999, disaster struck as a large Truck caught fire halfway through the tunnel. Other cars in the tunnel became trapped and also caught fire – tragically, 39 people were killed.
In the aftermath, major changes were made to the tunnel to improve its safety. We discovered exactly what that meant the morning we hit the road…
The Tunnels We Encountered – And Didn’t!
This is the story of a fun – and very memorable – drive into the heart of the Italian Alps.
It was a beautiful clear day as we began our 4 hour drive from Guarene Italy to the Burgundy wine region…the mountains were crisp and the weather perfect…
Just outside the Italy city of Turin, we spotted this majesty castle / church gazing down on us…how they built that so high up is beyond me…
As we got closer to the mountains, we noticed a nice frosting of snow on the hills, but traffic for the first hour wasn’t bad….and the mountains loomed larger and larger the closer we got…
Well, that all changed as we rounded the corner approaching our first major tunnel…traffic slowed to a crawl, and we waited patiently as we all inched forward…
It took about a half hour to reach the toll booth to the tunnel…not sure which side to take, I went to the right, and finally we paid our toll and waited for the bar to rise and let us pass….and we waited…and we waited…and we waited…almost five minutes before we were let through…here’s some video:
This is just a quick look at what it was like to drive into this tunnel – we weren’t sure why they were only letting in a few cars at a time….there were also giant signs showing escape routes for people to climb stairs out of the tunnel in case of emergency…all added after that horrible tragedy…and it was noticeable how slowly cars drove and were spaced apart once we were well inside the tunnel…
It was a tense drive to be sure, immersed in this milky darkness for 20 solid minutes, and at the next tunnel we encountered the same delays – and inside the next tunnel there was a lot of constructionl, cutting off the right lane and leading to more long delays…
The Mont Blanc tunnel was over seven miles long – under the Alps…the next tunnel was so unnerving we didn’t shoot video – but it was supposed to lead to the last tunnel before we’d reach France….and when we finally got to the entrance there was a single person waiting there waving his arms and telling us THE TUNNEL WAS CLOSED!
Yes, we drove two hours to a CLOSED TUNNEL!
“It will be open tomorrow” he said politely, telling us we’d have to drive back an hour to Turin and take the Frejus tunnel instead!
This photo of a recent massive traffic jam here was caused by the same closing we encountered – with HOURS AND HOURS OF BACKUP – and there were no signs or warnings that our massive traffic jam led to a closed tunnel!
We gritted our teeth and drove an hour back the way we came to Turin, then found the alternate highway that took us to the second fasted tunnel to France!
We found out later that their efforts to make the tunnels safer has led to major retrofitting and construction delays inside the series of tunnels, creating massive traffic jams that continue today!
Ahhhh….
It was a wild adventure, but only delayed us 3 hours, and we made it to our hotel just in time for dinner…what made it OK was that we had just left this hotel:
And what a hotel it was! Our one night in Guarene Italy was magical – here’s a look:
We chose to chalk it up to another adventure – and we had such a great time the previous night in Guarene, our last night in Italy..this was after we spent an entire week in the “Under The Tuscan Sun” house…
Yes, they filmed that terrific movie here, and the iconic faucet front he film is inside the house as well!
Click here for a video tour!
Speaking of movie locations, I shared our adventure last year in Sicily, when we stayed in the hotel used to film season two of “The White Lotus!
Click here to see inside the San Domenico Palace in Taormina!
Sicily is filled with amazing sights to tour, like the original locations used for “The Godfather!”
One of the locations was up a steep road, so we took a small motorized cart and what a ride!
Check it out:
There were so many other cool locations, including us sitting in the exact same spot as Al Pacino!
See our tour by clicking here:
Also, check out this shot we took from the greek theater – see what’s right behind Alex?
Yes, that’s Mt. Etna!
It’s the most active volcano in Europe!
As some of you may remember, Alex and I got to hike to the top!
Check out this clip:
If you want to see what it takes to climb an active volcano, just click on my story here for more!
While we were near the top of Sicily, we also walked along the shoreline, where we discovered a “part time” island!
You see, it’s an island when the tide is high, but not when it’s low!
Clcik here to find out more about the magical “Isola Bella!”
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Let me know if you’ve driving the tunnels under the Swiss Alps, and if you like this story, please share with friends on social media!
Categories: Uncategorized
johnrieber 
wonderful trip❤️
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What a nail biting adventure, John. It boggles my mind to think there are tunnels under the Alps.
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And they go on for miles and miles and miles…when they are open at least! Thanks for reading!
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Miles and miles and miles…wow!
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that’s a long stretch in a tunnel, but looks like a memorable drive, even with the closing you weren’t expecting
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It was Beth…a part of Europe we’d never driven before…thanks for the comment always great to hear from you!
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Wow! That’s some traffic jam. It’s pretty bad when the LA freeways seem like a picnic. Despite the inconvenience, you guys travel to some of the coolest places in the world.
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We have a limited window for vacations because of my wife’s TV show production, and she plans fun getaways for us…the drive was much longer than we’d normally do on a vacation but we wanted to see parts of Italy and France by road…just didn’t know that their tunnels are in massive disarray right now…the news coverage we found made our detour seem minor by comparison! Thanks for the comment always great to hear from you!
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Oh nooooooo! What a drive!
So which one do you say is the heavier traffic, the alps tunnel or 405 @ 7–8am/ 4-6pm?😜
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Hi John, that all sounds very irritating and inefficient. Not so bad if your on holiday but really grating if you’re working. I’ve learned that traveling in the UK takes 2 to 3 times longer than traveling in SA. Here you can go miles and miles without seeing another car sometimes.
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Robbie, the new reports the week after confirmed that there were massive traffic jams in these tunnels and no one was warned ahead of time! We were lucky that we could turn around and find a different route – imagine if you had to go that direction – the guy literally told us the tunnel was closed until the next day! Thanks for commenting, always great to hear from you!
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That would have been awful 🫣
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That’s the best way of dealing with all these travel clitches. xo
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Wow, what gorgeous country! But how strange there was no advance notice of the tunnel closure! Even without it, I’m not sure I’d have the courage to drive through so many long tunnels. Too scary for me!
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It is strange to be in a. tunnel for 15-20 minutes straight…and based on news coverage I found later, they’ve been closing them with no notice and causing massive traffic jams…very unorganized!
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What an amazing adventure, even with the closed tunnel forcing a change of route and a bit of a delay. Overall, with your positive attitude about it all, it seems like a fun experience to have — one I’d love to try out!
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We drove a lot this trip…wanted to explore a bit…perhaps a train would have been fun as well and more relaxing! Thanks for the comment!
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I think you did well to chalk that up to experience, John. Driving all that way to find the last tunnel closed would have made me crazy!
Best wishes, Pete.
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Pete, we were SO caught off guard we didn’t even have time to react! And Alex’s phone directions wouldn’t find us another way because it thought we were already on the fastest path…so an hour plus back to Turin before we cold get it to send the the “slow” way, which was only 45 minutes longer…made that glass of wine at dinner in Burgundy taste even better!
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How frustrating but all part of the adventure!
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We decided to laugh it off – helped by it only costing us 2-1/2 hours…like a flight delay! Thanks for commenting!
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