A homemade map posted to Lemmy’s c/europe has sparked discussion. It color-codes 20 famous European road trips by whether a car towing a caravan can drive them: 10 are fully open, 7 have workarounds, and 3 — including the Stelvio Pass and the Amalfi Coast road — are completely off-limits. The thread expanded into talk of a warning sign on a Scottish mountain pass, real-world examples of crowd-control traffic restrictions spreading across Europe, and how the duty to let a line of cars pass differs between Germany and the UK.
I color-coded 20 famous European road trips by whether a car towing a caravan can make it through. 10 are fully passable, 7 have detours, and 3 are completely off-limits (the Stelvio Pass, the Amalfi Coast road, and the Hardknott/Wrynose loop in the Lake District). Found some surprising stuff while researching the rules, so sharing it here.
Scotland's North Coast 500 is on there because of a mountain pass called Bealach na Bà. There's a big sign warning large vehicles against it, but it's not technically banned or impossible, so people absolutely do take their caravans through anyway. You really shouldn't, but some people just do it.
13Anonymous2026-11-06 17:55
Right, that's why it's marked yellow on the map instead of red (the 'has a workaround' category). The sign on the Tornapress side says novice drivers, large vehicles, and caravans are advised against it past the first mile, and the official NC500 site tells anything bigger than a VW T5-sized camper to take the lower road via Shieldaig instead (same deal with the Drumbeg road on the B869). It's 'advised against,' not banned — and the low road has great views too, so it's not a big loss.
5Anonymous2026-11-06 16:50
Where did the pricing and the rest of this data come from? It kind of looks like an AI just scraped a few sites and summarized them — or did you actually check it all by hand?
6Anonymous2026-11-06 17:44
Is this a 'road trip for ants'? (Just joking. But to an American, most of these look like seriously short road trips. A few are so short I'm not even sure 'road trip' is the right word — some of these distances are basically just a commute.)
7Anonymous2026-11-06 17:20
> Amalfi Coast road (SS163): campers and caravans are banned from 6:30 to midnight, and motorcycles are exempt from the odd/even license plate restriction imposed on cars in summer. That's actually a pretty clever way to cut down on tourist congestion.
12Anonymous2026-11-06 17:39
Agreed, and this kind of restriction seems to be spreading. In the Picos de Europa, private vehicles are banned from the road up to Lake Covadonga for a set stretch (most of June through mid-October), and you have to switch to a shuttle bus. South Tyrol is also trialing access limits on the Passo Gardena, with full rollout possibly starting as early as summer 2027. Though the Amalfi rule is a bit odd — the plate restriction only runs 10:00 to 18:00, so early risers can still have the road to themselves.
11Anonymous2026-11-06 17:53
True. In Germany it's spelled out in StVO (road traffic regulations) section 5(6): if slowing down and letting a line of trailing cars pass is the only option, the slower driver has to slow down at a suitable spot and stop if necessary. In the UK it's in the Highway Code (Rule 169: 'do not hold up a long queue of traffic… pull in at a safe place and let them overtake'), but over there it's a guideline, not law. Thanks — I'll add the German rule to the caravan notes for the German Alpine Road.
15Anonymous2026-11-06 17:42
> If you're towing over a mountain pass, common courtesy says pull into the next passing place once a line of cars forms behind you.
In some places that's actually a legal requirement, not just courtesy.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
It’s worth noting that restrictions on vehicle traffic to manage tourist crowding are spreading across Europe. While the Amalfi Coast’s odd/even plate rule has been in place for a long time, Spain’s Picos de Europa and South Tyrol’s Passo Gardena are more recent efforts, some still at the stage of being considered for full rollout starting in 2027. It’s also easy to miss that the thread’s point about a ‘duty to let trailing traffic pass’ carries very different legal weight depending on the country. Germany’s road traffic regulations (StVO) are law with penalties attached, while the UK’s Highway Code Rule 169 is merely a recommendation with no legal force. Even when it looks like the same ‘courtesy,’ what happens if you ignore it is completely different from country to country.
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