TheBear:
So I finally convinced SWMBO to take a Thelma and Louise roadtrip on. My maternal grandfather came from Palermo so it is a place I have always wanted to visit. Bloody quacks have banned me from flying so there was only one way to get there.Thus the Beast was serviced, new tyres all round and thoroughly prepared. Now we are both retired so there were no time restraints on us. We left 1st Sept and I was hoping to be away about 5-6 weeks. I had hotels booked the first three nights, after that, zilch!! I used booking.com all the way after that and it worked a treat. We would pull over about 4 in the afternoon, she’d show me on the map where we were and we’d pick a point within 30 miles. We found some great places to stay like this. I told her we were only using the National roads where possible.
So we left on the Saturday morning and ran down to Portsmouth where we went out for dinner with old friends. Stayed in the Travelodge outside the port and next morning caught the Mont St. Michel to Ouistreham. OMG, what a shock it was upon leaving the boat!! What has happened to this lovely little town? Even my missus was upset at the state of the place. There were ‘immigrants’ everywhere and there was a jam into the port. Police were escorting trucks along the road that leads to the last set of lights as the ‘immigrants’ were all stood along there just itching for the chance. I topped the fuel up and using the nationals, we ran down to Versailles where we stayed for two nights. On the Monday night, we went into Paris for dinner. Next day, we left and used the A6 down to Auxerre, then picked up the N6 and stayed the night at a small town called Cluny, just above Macon. Next night was just below Grenoble at a town called Echirolles as I wanted to cross the Alps in full daylight. The next morning, it was bloody raining!! It stopped eventually but ruined the spectacle of crossing the Alps. Low cloud all day. I took the ‘old road’ and followed the valley road eventually rising up and up lol and we crossed at the old crossing of Montgenevre. How the hell did they bring trucks across that route in the old days?? Not for me, thank you. We stopped the night in Pinerolo, just west of Turin. And here, I made the only major navigational error of the whole trip. I forgot completely about the Genoa bridge! We came along from Savona and you get diverted back up towards Alessandria and then back down the other side of Genoa. But we had a laugh and spent the night at La Spezia. Next morning it was off down the coast road, calling into Pisa and then to Anzio. I was disappointed in this town!! In my eyes, it was an awful place. I didn’t even bother visiting the CWG cemetery here. Next morning, a Sunday, and we made an emotional visit. We called at Monte Cassino where my father in law had been during '43. Nearly 5000 headstones and in the very first row were stones bearing his regiments badge. My other half was quite emotional. A beautiful cemetery, immaculately kept and oh so quiet. Thankfully, the old chap survived MC and made it home. We carried on and spent the night at Scalea. Monday morning we made an early start and followed the N18 all the way down to Villa San Giovanni where for the price of €38, we caught the Woolwich ferry across to Messina and my homeland.
I could prattle on forever about the 5 nights we spent on Sicily, which was at least a week shorter than intended. It was a blast! I’ve never seen driving like it in all my years!! Red lights?? Don’t take any notice if nothing coming the other way. Give way signs? Nope, don’t apply to me. Parking?? Where they like which included triple parking. Absolutely hilarious. First night my other half nearly had a nervous breakdown when we went out lolol. I didn’t help matters by roaring with laughter at the antics. The best of which was a young ■■■■■■■ a scooter with her handbag between her legs and a tiny dogs head peeking out the top. She was also on the phone!! All this whilst weaving between the traffic. [zb] class lolol
We had two nights at Messina then three nights further down the coast at a place called Giardini Naxor. Here we were sat eating breakfast on a terrace looking up at Mount Etna. We absolutely loved Sicily but here is where it all went wrong. We both caught really heavy colds, despite the tempature being in the high 20s every day. I think it was the aircon in our room that gave us them. Anyway, we both felt bloody awful so decided to head back. In hindsight, I’ve said to her since, we should have stayed in the sun and seen it out as it ruined the rest of the trip in some ways. We had planned to stop at Bergamo and visit her sister but her BIL had just had a major lung surgery so that had to be cancelled due to our colds. We left Sicily and made our way back up the east coast stopping at Altamura and Civitanova Marche. Then we popped into San Marino on the way to our overnight stop at Correggio, just north of Modena. We used the auotstradas a lot more on the way home and always found them clear so made good progress. We headed north when we left and here I made another mistake, in hindsight. We went up and at Chiasso paid 40 Swiss Francs, or £33, for the ‘pleasure’ of driving through Switzerland. We used the Gotthard Tunnel and my other half said we can take this road as a shortcut. It’s much shorter, she said … we were heading for Hasliberg, near Lungern. It eill save us going all the way round on the motorway, she said. I kept quiet as she was the navigator. Never argue with the navigator especially if it’s your missus. We got to Wassen and turned left onto the Sustenpass. She assumed a pass road would go between the mountains. When I pointed out we were going over the peaks in front of us, she thought I was joking. Half an hour later, she knew I wasn’t LOLOL. It rose to 2,600 metres. And of course, what goes up has to come down!! Great fun. We had stunning views from our bedroom window that night and I have the ‘privilege’ once again of helping the Swiss economy by paying nearly £90 for a two course dinner with a small beer and a G&T. The country is a rip off!! One nights stay cost me just over £204. More than it cost for three nights at Giardini Naxor. We left the next morning and running up through Basle, Mulhouse, Nancy, Metz, into Luxembourg where we filled up at the lovely price of €1.14 a litre, did some shopping and stayed the night before running up to Rotterdam the next day and catching the night boat to Hull and home by 930 Friday morning.
We did 4,192 miles on our travels. I am chuffed to have done it. My missus said she was dreading it (she agreed only to humour me) but loved every minute. Would I do it again?? Absolutely not. I did this trip in a modern Range Rover Sport V8. Would I do this route in a motorhome? No. The mountain roads between Italy and France/Swiss are very steep and loads and loads of hairpins. I wish I had used the Brenner Pass coming home and avoided Switzerland completely. Fuel costs for the whole trip came to just over £1000. I averaged just over 30 mpg, I should imagine it would be a lot less in a motorhome.
If I was going to Lake Garda and short on time, I would use the Brenner both ways or go down through the Blanc and back through Brenner. I would avoid the ‘old roads’.
We saw some stunning scenery, ate some fantastic food in Italy and generally had a ball but luckily, we both know how to laugh and enjoy ourselves. Our record was three minutes … the time between starting the day and being in fits of laughter at something.
Nice post Mr bear.
Made me smile anyway.
You are obviously an old hand in Italy, I have a friend who,along with others is in Italy this week on motorbikes.
I can’t remember which, but the pass they had intended to cross was closed by snow already.
Looking forward to the adventure in July 2019.
Hopefully the snow will have cleared.
Maybe,we will go through the mont blanc tunnel one way, as I always wanted to.
But the rates never looked that good,so it never happened.
I haven’t had a proper look at the route yet.