Drive Basel, CH -> Nice, FR Experience?
 

Anyone have any experience with driving from Basel, Switz. to Nice, France. Mapquest says it's 6 hours, but that based on an average speed of 100kph, which seems slow. Route seems to be through Switz. and Italy (by Milan).

Is this a complex drive? Is it really 6 hours? I do have European driving experience.

I recently drove from Basel through Alsace and Germany. In Switzerland and France it is difficult to exceed the speeding limit. Note that easy jet has direct service from GVA to NCE, if convenience is more of an issue.

You can probably go faster than that in France, but bear in mind that they sometimes use your toll tickets to calculate your average speed. Speeding in Switzerland is definitely not a good plan. Bear in mind that if you are in a foreign-registered vehicle in Switzerland, you will need to buy a windscreen sticker to use the autoroute system. I think it was around GBP35 or so, last time I drove there about 4 years ago.

I would say it is more than six hours, but an easy drive. I previously lived in the south of CH, near Locarno and when heading to Nice we preferred to go west of Lago Maggiore to avoid the traffic on the Milano Tangenziale (ring road). Head south past Alessandria and connect with the "Autostrada dei Fiori" just west of Genoa. Spectacular views of the coast, olive groves, flowers, etc...
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13F

Forget the 6 hours. You can do it only if you are two drivers and when you stop just for a coffee...
7 to 8 hours will be more like it. There are a lot of road repair going on in Switzerland that has to be finished before the winter, so the average speed is going to be appr. 70 to 80 kmh. That means three hours to the Italian border.
the average speed in Italy will be close to 120, but beware the incredible amount of tunnels of which many have no lights and sometimes very sharp curves that you would not expect on the motorway... especially if you take the highway going through Genova, but avoid it.
The drive is beautiful. Lots of radars on the Swiss side, mobile police cars on the Italian side, so keep to the limits.
You say you are driving from Basel. I suppose you will have a Swiss rental car. In this case, don't worry, you will not have to buy a vignette (CHF 40.-) $ 27.- as all rental cars with Swiss plates have them. If the car is foreign, request from the renter that he provides you a car with the Swiss vignette.
Have a good trip.