Hit the road for the world's best drives

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:33 AM

Fill up the tank, crank up the stereo and fasten your seat belts for the greatest road trips on earth. Beep beep’m beep beep yeah!
Pack your sunnies, your tin of travel sweets and your Best Driving Album in the World... Ever! CD. We’re going on a road trip. Or, to be precise, three road trips that we think are the greatest on the planet. The wine and sunshine delight that is Highway One, up the coast of Californ-I-A; the ultimate lakes tour of northern Italy; and something closer to home: the clear and winding roads north from Glasgow towards Skye. What a change from the bumper-to-bumper gridlock of our Monday-to-Friday lives.

The Pacific Coast Highway

THIS IS California’s iconic road trip, linking the cheesy glamour of Los Angeles with the funky bohemia of San Francisco in the space of a leisurely week. Unravelling along the ocean in a series of West Coast clichés — surfers’ beaches and orange groves, wine country and giant redwoods — this is the highway that makes California Dreamin’ a reality.

Days one and two: LA is car city, and you can happily spend your first two days cruising the freeways and the boulevards. Pop down to Long Beach to visit the old Queen Mary, drop by Venice Beach for all that is weird, wacky and muscular, and cruise along Sunset Boulevard and Rodeo Drive with the top down.

Lunch, of course, should be taken in your car at the In-N-Out Burger, a retro drive-in diner in Westwood Village (922 Gayley Avenue). To rub shoulders with the rich and famous, stay at Shutters Hotel on the Beach (00 1 310-458 0030, www.shuttersonthebeach.com; doubles from £230). To merely look, try the Best Western Beverly Pavilion (273 1400, www.bestwestern.com; doubles from £90) in Beverly Hills.

Day three: fill the tank with cheap petrol, fire up your Beach Boys CD and head out on the highway, past the beach houses and the palm trees and the big Pacific surf. The long tentacles of LA soon fall astern, and the open road takes you to Santa Barbara in a couple of sunny hours.

Prosperous and sophisticated, Santa Barbara lies between a fabulous beach and the wonderful wine country that featured in the film Sideways. Spend the afternoon on a wine-tasting tour with Cloud Climbers Jeep Tours (00 1 805-965 6654, www.ccjeeps.com; from £56), which will take you over some dizzying mountain roads into wine country. For dinner, it’s Bouchon (730 1160, www.bouchonsantabarbara.com), which has a wonderful list of local wines. Not far from town is El Capitan Canyon (685 3887, www.elcapitancanyon.com), a retreat set in a wooded canyon near the sea, with cabins from £105.

Day four: cutting inland, you cross the Santa Ynez Mountains into big-sky, ranch-and-wine country. An hour later, you are in John Steinbeck’s California: vegetable and fruit country, where Mexican pickers in stetsons wait for payday. Another hour and you are back on the coast at Pismo, where surfers ride the big waves and Baywatch extras play volleyball on an endless beach.

A few miles north, at San Simeon, is one of the biggest attractions on the coast — Hearst Castle, the former home of William Randolph Hearst, immortalised by Orson Welles as Citizen Kane. Its scale, its shameless plundering of old European castles and its indiscriminate mix of styles make it a wonderful parody of American tastelessness. Tours start at £12; it is wise to book (at www.hearstcastle.com).

When you tire of all that materialism, you can chill out with the protected colonies of elephant seals on the secluded beaches at Piedras Blancas (924 1628, www.elephantseal.org). Another 15 miles brings you to the Ragged Point Inn (927 4502, www.raggedpointinn.net), which has great views of the ocean. Doubles start at £65; dinner from £15.

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:33 AM

Day five: you are now entering the most beautiful stretch of the coastal highway, Big Sur, 70 miles of spectacular coastline where condors circle precipitous headlands. From the viewpoints, you may spot blue and humpback whales in the summer, or grey whales during the winter. When the forests push down to the coast, it is time to get out of the car. The hiking trails in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park will lead you deep among the redwoods, where rivers pool in sunstruck swimming holes. Big Sur Lodge (00 1 800 424 4787, www.bigsurlodge.com) has cabins in the park from £57.

Day six: roof down — or, if you’re not that flash, windows open — for a leisurely cruise through the Monterey Peninsula, one of the most popular areas of this coast. Monterey stages its jazz festival (00 1 831-373 3366) in September; and it is home to one of the world’s great aquariums, the Monterey Bay Aquarium (648 4800, www.mbayaq.org).

As famous for electing Clint Eastwood mayor as for its boutiques, art galleries and twee teashops, Carmel has one of the great Spanish missions. If you missed the one in Santa Barbara, check out the Carmel Mission (624 3600, www.carmelmission.org), which has an 18th-century baroque church, three museums and gorgeous gardens. Santa Cruz, a wonderful Californian mix of surfers, skaters, yuppies, new-age freaks and ageing hippies, is a good place to spend the night. The Babbling Brook Inn (00 1 800 866 1131, www.babblingbrookinn.com) has doubles from £80.

Day seven: the final day takes you up the San Francisco peninsula through rolling hills and small country towns, past orchards and windswept beaches. At Half Moon Bay, you can swap the car for a horse for a couple of hours. Sea Horse Ranch and Friendly Acres Horses and Rentals (00 1 650 726 9903, www.horserentals.com) both offer gallops along the beach.

A number of roads cross the Santa Cruz Mountains to interstate 280, which will whisk you into central San Francisco without trailing through suburbs. The best is probably Highway 84, which climbs up through the redwoods in a series of sweeping curves. It is a great end to a great drive. At the top of the pass, you will find Alice’s Restaurant, a classic diner. A couple of hours later, you are in town, and it is time to ditch the car. San Francisco is a liberal, eco-conscious sort of place. You wouldn’t want to be caught dead here in a gas-guzzling convertible.

If you could hire any car... in America, you are what you drive. There is a bewildering array of motoring identities — low-riding Latinos, pumped-up pick-ups, SUV urban chariots.

On the Pacific Coast Highway, however, setting of fashion shoots and film noir twists, it’s got to be a convertible. It’s a wind-in-your-hair, sun-on-your-face, lover-in-your-lap kind of drive. For men in the throes of a midlife crisis, there is another option — a Harley-Davidson. The PCH is made for oceanfront Easy Riders.

Get my motor running: British Airways Holidays (0870 243 3407, www.ba.com/holidays) offers flights from Heathrow to LA and back from San Francisco from £369. It has a week’s fully inclusive car hire, picking up in LA and dropping off in San Francisco, from £164.

The dream car comes in a little dearer: a sleek, sexy Chevrolet Camaro convertible costs £247 for the week. For that Harley, try www.eaglerider.com; from £430 per week, plus taxes and one-way charges.

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:34 AM

Lake Garda and the Dolomites

FROM LAKE GARDA’S Olive Riviera to the dazzling pinnacles of the Dolomites, this three-day loop from Verona is so gut-wrenchingly beautiful that driving is torture — be prepared to take turns behind the wheel, or go nuts.

Day one: from Verona airport, take the A22 north to the Lago di Garda Sud exit, then follow signs to Lazise. During the Renaissance, Venice was lord of Lake Garda and, like many shore towns, Lazise has a colourful Venetian core. Lake Garda has its head in the Alps, but turn north on the SS249 and you’re in the Mediterranean: olives, oleanders, cypresses and vineyards producing soft red Bardolino coif the shores.

Garda town, further north, has a clutch of Renaissance palazzos, but the best one is just up the road, on Punta di San Virgilio: the 16th-century Villa Guarienti, a cousin to the Doge’s Palace in Venice.

The emerald ridge looming ahead is Monte Baldo, nicknamed “Italy’s Botanical Garden” for its rare flora. Castles with swallow-tailed battlements defend beautiful Torri del Benaco and even more beautiful Malcesine, where the air is scented with lemon blossom.

As you carry on north, cliffs plunge into the lake, tunnels plunge into the cliffs and rainbow sails flit over the waters. At Torbole, turn right for Nago and Arco (SS240d), with a neck-cricking glance up to the Castello di Arco on its crag. Then follow the SS45bis north, passing between baby lakes. One of these is idyllic Lago di Toblino, its waters embracing an uncommonly picturesque 12th-century castle, with the Dolomites for a backdrop.

Europe’s most drop-dead gorgeous mountains, the Dolomites are a crystallised coral garden thrust up from a primordial sea, in vast clusters of sheer walls, spires, domes and mesas. Famously pale, the mountains change hue with every shift of light, from white, yellow and grey to orange or pink. And in the last rays of the sun, their red glow can take your breath away.

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:34 AM

To see the fabled twilight at its best, speed along the A22 in Trento to Italy’s bilingual Alto Adige/Sud Tyrol region, owned by Austria until the first world war. Exit at Bolzano Nord, follow signs towards Bolzano, keeping an eye peeled on the left for the SS24, then slip into the dramatic narrow ravine of the Val d’Ega, the start of the Great Dolomites Drive. Aim for Nova Levante, then carry on four miles to the bowl-shaped Lago di Carezza — how romantic.

Back in Nova Levante, wake to birdsong at the cosy Hotel Rosengarten (00 39-0471 613262, www.hotelrosengarten.it), which offers excellent Tyrolean cuisine; doubles cost £55, half-board.

Day two: take a look at the blue-green mirror of Lago di Carezza in the morning, then continue up the SS24 to the Passo di Costalunga before descending in steep twists to Vigo di Fassa. Although the Austrians built the Great Dolomites Drive for their military between 1895 and 1909, it incidentally opened up some of the most isolated spots in Europe, including the lovely Fassa Valley, whose inhabitants speak Ladin, a language descended from the Latin of the Roman conquerors.

At Vigo, continue on the SS48 along the Fassa Valley to Canazei, then drive up, up, up to the Pordoi Pass (7,345ft), a gruelling ascent frequently chosen for cycling’s Giro d’Italia. At the pass are a car park, a cable car and utterly staggering views over the Sellagroup, the otherworldly Sasso Lungo and glacier-wreathed Marmolada, the highest Dolomite of all.

The high drama continues north on the SS242 to the equally ravishing Sella Pass. Keep on the SS242 through the Val Gardena, monumentally framed by Sella, Sasso Lungo and, to the north, the sawtoothed Odle massif. At elegant Ortisei, turn left for Castelrotto and Siusi, on the edge of a high Alpine meadow, the Alpe di Siusi. At Fie allo Sciliar, the art-filled Romantik Hotel Turm (00 39 0471 725 014, www.hotelturm.it) has hay baths, massages and a lovely restaurant; doubles from £94.

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:34 AM

Day three: make the short drive to Bolzano and its archeology museum to visit Otzi, the 5,000-year-old Neolithic — and reputedly cursed — mummy found in a glacier in 1991. Then take the SS42 towards Appiano, an aristocratic town of 40 castles, and follow the beautiful Strada del Vino through two wine centres: Caldaro, with its pretty lake, and Termeno, where you can buy a bottle of gewürztraminer aromatico, renowned as an aphrodisiac. Then rejoin the A22 for Verona airport, 90 minutes south.

If you could hire any car... go for a convertible, perfect for high-altitude rubbernecking — ideally a 1974 Duetto Spider Veloce, combining sexy Pininfarina design and the muscle to climb the big ascents.

Get my motor running: British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) flies from Gatwick to Verona Villafranca. With Ciao Cars (00 39-348 294 4818, www.ciaocars.com), three days’ car hire starts at £55. Sprintage Classic Cars (0461 861541, www.sprintage.it) offers that dream red Duetto for three days at a special price of £435 for readers of The Sunday Times — a 15% discount.

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:35 AM

Western Highlands

GLASGOW TO the Isle of Skye is a journey across glen and ben — past Loch Lomond, Glencoe and Ben Nevis — ending with a ferry hop so scenic that you’ll want to hop back on and see it all again.

Day one: it’s only 20 minutes up the A82 from Glasgow airport to Loch Lomond, where the views east to the Trossachs and west to the Arrochar Alps will have you whistling “Ye’ll take the high road.”

After a fabulously twisting stretch along the loch’s northwest shores, the road starts its slow, exhilarating ascent towards the Highlands. First, there’s the colossal Ben Dorain, towering over a vast glacial valley; then a switchback after the Bridge of Orchy takes you up onto the desolate grandeur of Rannoch Moor, guarded at its northern edge by Buachaille Etive Mor.

The Buachaille marks the start of Glencoe, and if you’re going to stretch the legs anywhere today, it has to be here, with Aonach Eagach — the finest ridge walk in Britain — on hand for the hard core, and an excellent path up Allt Coire Gabhail (The Hidden Valley); park at OS Landranger 41, grid reference 171 568).

Now at the coast, keep an eye out for seals and otters along Loch Eil towards Fort William, where the seven-mile drive up Glen Nevis has Highland cattle, stunning mountain views and the Ben Nevis Inn (01397 701227, www.ben-nevis-inn.co.uk), worth the diversion for the Mallaig mussels and local venison sausages.

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:35 AM

After Fort William, head out on the A830 — 35 miles of motoring magic known as the Road to the Isles — to the Mallaig-Armadale ferry (cars £18, passengers £3.30; visit www.calmac.co.uk for timetables).

Now on Skye, you’re in Clan Donald country, reason enough — even without the log-fire lounges, fabulous food and staggering mountain views — to stay at Kinloch Lodge, a 17th-century Macdonald shooting lodge on the shores of Loch na Dal, owned, run and lived in by the spectacularly charming family of Lord Macdonald, 34th chief of Clan Donald. More house party than country-house hotel, the lodge offers sumptuous doubles from £95pp, half-board (01471 833333, www.kinloch-lodge.co.uk). Stay three nights before April 30 and the third night is free.

Day two: you can drive round Skye in a day, but with all the galleries, castles, beaches and peaks, you’ll want to take longer. The good news is that the three really unmissable parts of the island can just about be squeezed into your weekend stay.

The first is the Quiraing, a forest of mystical pinnacles on the Trotternish peninsula, reached after a drive up the east coast that takes in the staggering mountain backdrop at Sligachan, the Old Man of Storr and the Kilt Rock waterfall, plummeting 300ft into the Atlantic. A spectacular but easy footpath from a car park two miles out of Brogaig on the road to Idrigill (OS Landranger 23, grid reference 439 678) takes you right into the Quiraing’s gnarly heart.

After a Skye scallop lunch on Loch Bay, at the 18th-century Stein Inn (01470 592362, www.steininn.co.uk; mains £6.55-£12), your second must-see stop is back down the west coast to the centre of the Cuillin Hills, parking up at the foot of an amphitheatre of peaks at Glenbrittle (OS Landranger 32, grid reference 409 207). From here, an easy path takes you right into the Coire Lagan amphitheatre itself, surrounded by 3,000ft peaks, with immense views over Soay and Rum. Back at Kinloch Lodge, your fireside malt will never taste this good again.

Day three: there’s just time before leaving Skye for the third unmissable section of the island, out along the Strathaird peninsula to Elgol. The views from the village over to the Cuillins are worth the drive alone, topped only if you walk the three miles to the beach at Camus Fhionnairigh. It’s 45 minutes from Elgol back to the Skye Bridge, then another 10 to Eilean Donan (01599 555202, www.eileandonancastle.com; open daily, admission £4.95), where drivers of a romantic disposition should take care not to spin off the road, such is the beauty of this castaway castle.

Ally · 06-08-2006, 08:35 AM

From here, the A87 climbs through a procession of awesome, rugged Kintail valleys, joining the A82 at Invergarry. Follow this past Fort William to Ballachulish, branch off onto the A828 towards Oban, then follow the A85 along Loch Etive to Taynuilt, where the B845 takes you to Ardanaiseig House (01866 833333, www.ardanaiseig.com; doubles from £100, B&B), a beautiful lodge on the shores of Loch Awe.

Tomorrow, it’s back to Glasgow. If you make time for nothing else, make a stop at Loch Fyne Oysters (01499 600264, www.lochfyne.com), eight miles past Inveraray — the world’s best oysters, straight from loch to table, for 50p a hit.

If you could hire any car... go for the Aston Martin Volante. It’s not the V12 engine. It’s not the 450 brake horsepower. It’s not that it does 0-60mph in 4.7 seconds, or that its roof lowers at the push of a button. What makes the Aston Martin Volante the car for this drive is that it’s £119,000 worth of motoring nirvana.

Get my motor running: Aston Hire (0845 838 2007, www.aston-hire.com) is the only Aston Martin rental specialist in the UK, with DB7 Volantes delivered to Glasgow airport: for a Friday-Monday rental, the price is £2,104. Or pick up a convertible Porsche from Guy Salmon (0870 600 7006, www.guysalmon.com). Failing that, Thrifty (0141 8485002, www.thrifty.co.uk) has Friday-Monday car hire from £50. EasyJet (www.easyjet.co.uk) flies to Glasgow from Stansted, Luton, Belfast and Bristol; from £35.98.

(From the Times)

jstducky · 06-08-2006, 10:57 AM

The driver up the California Coast on PCH is amazing! (Unless of course you get car sick like me and are the passenger in the car!). PCH follows the Pacific Ocean all the way up the coast with amazing coastal views and tons of curvy switchbacks.

Carmel and Monterey are 2 of the most gorgeous and quaint cities in California!

FlRic · 06-08-2006, 06:38 PM

I am a little surprised that you didn't make this 4 drives and include the Amalfi Coast Highway, originally built by the Romans. On the other hand, you just reminded me that every thing I love is in the mountains and they are a no-no for me anymore.