has anyone ever driven from geneva airport to val thorens. how was the journey in relation to time and difficulty? Am planning to drive myself this january and am in need of advice/reassurance!
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hi hope you are well?,although i have never driven to Val Thorens before i do drive frequently to Bourg-Saint-Maurice/Les Arcs which is a few miles further up the road (N90) from the Moutiers turn off to the Three Valleys.I usualy pick my hire car up from the french side of Geneva airport and from there i take the road down by the side of lake geneva(route de ferney,avenue de france) this takes you over the Pt du mont blanc bridge ,then follow the road (avenue pictet-de-rochemont ,roure de chene,further on then you turn right into the Avenue de Thonex at the bottom you turn left and this takes you onto the A411 motorway,you then take the A40 a few miles further down the road,after about 5 miles or so you will see signs for Annecy (A41) ,follow this road until you get to Annecy where you will see the signs Annecy Nord and Annecy Sud (these signs are white with black lettering) it is the Annecy Sud sign you want,Follow the sign and take the apprpriate Sortie(exit),as soon as you go over the motorway bridge you will come to a toll,after the toll start to follow the green signs marked Albertville,follow these signs through Annecy centre and you will eventually take the road down the side of the lake,(this road is the N508 and will take you the town of Ugine just before Albertville,at Ugine the road turns into the N212 but you just need to follow the signs to Albertville,once in Albertville you need to carry on the same road through half a dozen sets of traffic lights until you start to see signs for Moutiers (N90),you will come to a round about and the Moutiers turn is the fourth exit (i think but is sign posted any way),when you get into just before Moutiers you will start to see signs for the Three valleys,these again will be white signs with black lettering,in Moutiers follow the relevent signs and this will take you from the N90 onto D915,after a short while you will then need to take the D96 through Saint-Martin-de-belleville and then onto Val Thorens,the whole journey is around 160km and in good weather and traffic should take around 2-3/4hours apprimately.
The journey is quite straight forward to condense it a bit you just follow Geneva-Annecy-Albertville-Moutiers-Val Thorens, if you would like a map and directions printing off and sending to you,just send me a private message with your full postal address and i will put one in thepost for you.
hope this info has been of some use and wish you a pleasant trip
jonG
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Jon
As ever great information but I thought the problem people have, or maybe it was just dear hubbie, is in returning the car to Geneva without suddenly finding yourself on a Swiss motorway with the subsequent yearly charge. Perhaps, as you do it so often, you just know the way but if you could enlighten the rest of us that would be so helpful.
BTW when is your first trip this winter?
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hi Jbart,visited Bourg-Saint-Maurice a couple of weeks ago,but will be going back for four or five days on 22 nov to fix a dripping hot water pipe in my bathroom,but will probably have my first ski trip at the end of january and then another the first and second week of april.
With regards to getting back to geneva airport the only problem area is actually around 26 Km away at the last Peage%26#39; point ,the road near this peage has been under alteration for quite some time and is not very well sign posted,if you miss the way back onto the A41/A40 you are then forced to drive through on the old way back(E25 i think) to geneva which takes you through some small towns slightly cross country and finally ends up dumping you out on the A1 Swiss motorway (30 euro charge).If this does happen after you have paid the ransom carry on down the A1 following the signs for the airport,this road eventually runs adjacent to the airport,you then start to see signs in blue for Ferney,just after the road has gone under a huge arch (made up of the airport buildings and a hotel and cargo wharehouse i believe) you then see a slip road up to your left marked Ferney (sectuer france),this is only a single lane road and comes out at the little round-about just the other side of the A1 fly over,just follow the road signs in blue to geneva airport -france ,over the cross roads ,under the bridge,you then come to the border check between the french and swiss side,once you have taken this the entrance for the french side car hire parking is the fisrt left (not brilliantly signposted,but to do this you have to cross two lanes of traffic,the easiest option is to drive past the petrol stationon the right hand side (good place to fill the car back up again) and go all the way round the next round about then just turn right into the entrance that way.
Now for the other bit-if at the last Peage you have taken the correct road to join the A40 motorway ,just carry on driving down the A40 following the signs for geneva,after 20km or so you will notice a huge stone cliff face fising up next to the motorway on the otherside of the road(your left hand side) at the top of which is a cable car station,this can be een very clearly at the top,also the cables going directly over the road help aswell,when you start to see this you should start to look out for signs in blue which say A411,take the relevent exit and this road will take you over the A40 and onto the A411,this will then take you to the swiss/french border check just before geneva .once through the check carry on take the first right into the Avenue de Thonex,at the end turn left onto the ue de Geneve and carry on along this road,after a few hundred metres this then becomes the Route de Chene,after a while take the right hand fork along the Avenue Pic-Tet-De-Rochemont(although the flow of traffic will take you this way anyway) you will then come to the Pont du Mont Blanc Bridge which you go over and bare right on the otherside and drive along the Lake ,the airport is sign posted from here on in you just go over the cross roads and along the Avenue de France , Rute de Ferney,eventually you will come to the same little round about described earlier at the top of the slip road off the A1,just go over the round about down to the cross roads and under the bridge,on the otherside is the checkpoint and petrol station described earlier.
As most of my directional navigation is done by waypoints and visuals on buildings and landmarks etc rather than turn by turn directions on a map most of this i have written is from memory and a few notes i have scribbled down from my first forray from geneva some years ago (seem to drive just on autopilot now )that i have kept,when i go back next week i shall double check the onformation i have given here is ok and if i am out on anything or have missed anything of help out i will give the details out.
hope this is of some use .
many regards
jonG.
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hi Jbart,
from Annecy follow the A41 to geneva and then when you start to see signs for A40-Geneva,Annemasse follow those,after a while whilst on the A40 you will then see signs for the A411 follow those and this will take you into the right end of Geneva,once through the last toll you arrive on the Route Blanche road into geneva itself,just at the top of the hill(you know when you are nearly here as there are signs on the otherside of the road advertising Hublot watches) there is a turning to the right at a T junction,this is the Avenue du Thonex,follow this road and at the end turn right,this takes you down the Rue de geneve,just keep following this road,and then the Rue de Chene and then the Avenue Pictet-de-Rochemont and finally over the Pont du Mont Blanc bridge,on the otherside follow theroad round to the right up along the side of the lake,and follow the signs for the airport,and the Route de Ferney,after about a mile or so you come to a round about (white and red blocks)go straight over and down over the cross roads and under the bridge,on the otherside you will come tothe border check directly on the otherside about 30 metres on there is a gap in the middle of the road with an entrance opposite this is the road to the car parking on the french side of the airport(in heavy traffic it is sometimes easier to carry on to the round about a couple on hundred metres further up the road and go all the way round and back on yourself so you do not have to run the gauntlet of crossing two lanes of busy traffic.
Although i have done this route a few times when you get near geneva you still need to have your wits about you as i sometimes still make mistakes myself.
But thankfully in a few weeks time Easyjet will start thier skiing flights to Grenoble which will make things more straightforward.
many regards
jonG.
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hi a small correction to my last post once you have turned into the Avenue du Thonex in geneva at the other end you need to turn left ,not right sorry.
many regards
jonG.
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What date are you travelling as myself and a friend are doing the same journey on the 12th Jan 2008.
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I am going to Val Thorens the last week of January. I am flying into Grenoble airport and in relation to your transport needs. I have got a transfer from Grenoble airport to Val Thorens for 60 Euros’ with Topflight.ie I don%26#39;t know if they do transfers from Geneva but it%26#39;s worth checking out if you didn%26#39;t want to drive it.
I don%26#39;t know if this is any help to you or not.
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We did the journey from Geneva airport to Val Thoens and it was no problem. Went on the route past the lake at Anncey and all that ...... great views and a relatively easy route if you take your time!
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Does anybody have an information with regard to transport from Geneva airport to Val Thorens. Taxi, Bus or Train. Will be travelling at the end of March
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If you want to go by train you%26#39;ll probably hagve to go from
Geneva airport (that%26#39;s easy, the train station is located within the airport and all the trains stop at Cornavin station, Geneve central train station)
From Cornavin, you%26#39;ll have to change at Chambery Challes les eaux for a train going to Moutiers Salins Brides les Bains.
Check here:
tripadvisor.com/PostReply-g196716-i4174-k155…
From Motuiers, there must be buis shuttles, you should check the resort website.
Hope it helps!
Yannick
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