dkimball wrote:
Milano - any help would be appreciated. We're planning for next summer... not sure of the exact time, but we would need the alps to be snow-free... so sometime either late may, or later, in July... We can be flexible.
Sure I will see what I can find out. In my opinion late May early June would be an ideal time to go not to hot and not so much traffic I would not go in August central europe is on holiday then and it can be chaos
From what little i know i think that hiring a bigger ride is not so much a problem but taking it over boarders might be (not sure).If in fact this is the case then maybe my nieces would know friends ect who would be prepared to loan/rent that would leave just the insurance for you to sort out either from home or even maybe local.
I need to ask my brother in law what he knows there is soooo much red tape in Italy to deal with

but there also seems to be a way around it you just need to know the system
I have done the trip you want to do but only in a car all i can say is it was absolutely stunning !