Tuesday 14th April 2026
Annecy, France to Turin, Italy
The rain had stopped when we woke up so I was able to take Meg for a run through the park next door to the parkup.
What a fabulous space. There is a beautiful garden with raised beds, lots of cherry blossom in bloom, a multitude of children’s play areas, lakes – ornamental and fishing, a large fountain and a huge skate park. It still isn’t finished and I’m not sure what else they will be adding. The lakes have sunbeds and benches aplenty, free to use.
The park was busy on this chilly spring morning so we could see it will be very popular in the warmer months.
Our journey today would take us through the Mont Blanc tunnel, a new one for us, chosen because our preferred route, over the hills of Mont Cenis was still closed for the winter. Apparently parts of the road are used for skiing! How inconvenient!
Anyway, we were packed and on the road in good time, expecting a 45min delay through the tunnel as advised by the motorway gantry signs.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. In the end the delay was about 1.5hrs. This is partly due to the volume of traffic wanting to use the tunnel and partly due to traffic management of the tunnel. You must leave 150m between vehicles with a max speed of 50-70kph. There are blue lights every so often along the lane to ensure you don’t get too close to the vehicle in front.
This is precautionary, lessons learned from the tunnel fire in the late 1990’s with the loss of 39 lives. It makes grim reading so we were more than happy to comply with the regulations.
The trip through the tunnel takes about 20mins all for the toll cost one way of €74.50
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The funniest thing was, leaving France in 6° chill and exiting into Italy at a balmy 17°! How lovely to see the sun and feel it’s warmth.
We stopped just outside the tunnel for a photo before driving down the mountain and on to Turin.
Our arrival time at the campsite was somewhat later than we had initially anticipated. Instead of walking into Turin, we showered and relaxed.
We’ll save the 1hr30min walk for tomorrow 
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