Post trip reflections

To think that I managed to travel 3,318 miles in 16 days in 9 different countries (Monaco counts as a country damm and blast you!) seems like a huge expedition. I have to say that apart from few very long days (Ealing to Bourges, Cannes to Marina di Pietrasanta and Macerata to Innsbruck) I think I was quite sensible with the number of hours and miles I was prepared to do in one day whilst trying to strike a balance between getting the miles done and seeing interesting things without the need to rush. I think I was fairly succesful in doing this and I was 100% right in knocking an extra leg off in France and avoiding the Pyrenees and Perpignan.

I don't really have a favourite place. Everyday was different. In France, Les Gorges du Tarn and Mont St Victoire really stand out, as did the Prune Tagine in Avignon and Grasse is a pretty town. In Italy, both Lucca and Florence were incredible, the Ferrari museum at Maranello was very good, but spending time in the mountains with Ele, Gianluca and Mickey was the icing on the cake as far as Italy was concerned.

Innsbruck is a sturdy little place, and I think I might pop back there at some point. The Bavarian alps might well be stunning but they always seem to be shrouded in fog as thick as a simpleton from Yeovil. It was also great to see Jasmin in Switzerland again.

I think really the point that I'm trying to make is that it doesn't really matter where you go as long as you have some friends along the route. I saw some stunning things but I was lucky enough to have enough friends around who made the whole road trip just that little bit more special.

So thanks to......

Ele
Giovanni (for giving up his room and having to share with his older sister)
Gianluca (for his tourist guide skills in the Marche area)
Mickey (his lovely wife for her driving skills and for keeping Gianluca honest)
Ele's mum Tiziana (for producing 3 star michelin food without having to swear, apart from telling the chicken to "vaffanculo")
Ele's dad Giorgio (for his sense of humour and his fearless nature)
Claudio (for showing me a genre of Italian film I haven't seen before)
Claudia (the woman with the pretty nose and a battered Lancia)
Natalie (for bring a little corner of England to Italy)
Jasmin (for having food and beer with in Schaffhausen and for bringing glamour and sophistication to the whole trip)
Jasmin's mum (for buying me a beer)
Michaela (for having lunch with me in Karlsruhe)
Catherine (for having lunch with me in Avignon)
Izzi (for having lunch in Beauvais whilst sitting on the coldest stone wall ever)
Femke (for being perky and for giving me her bed)
Saskia (for keeping Femke in line)
Meneer Van Der Sprong (for making Femke happy and perky)
Magali (for coffee and homebaked lemon tart)
The old fella who cooked my Prune Tagine in Avignon
The boys at Speedy for fitting new tyres and shock absorbers to Bertha
The Via Michelin website for finding me great hotels in Innsbruck and Koblenz
The Accor website for finding me the cheap crappy ones in France.
Falken Beer
Hertog Jan beer
German Service Stations for selling hot bockwurst with tangy mustard and a fresh bread roll.

Thank you all so very much for making my trip such an eventful one.

At last and not least thanks goes old Bertha who did 3318 miles without really giving me a mechanical headache.

Day 16 - Utrecht to Ealing

Well. With huge sadness I left Femke and Saskia at 0430am on Sunday morning to drive to Oostende via Breda, Antwerpen and Gent. I have to say that this was the first time I've ever had a woman baking me bread rolls at 4am! Femke, you're a fine woman.

Then it was a slightly boring drive of just over 2 hours to the Trans Europa Ferry terminal in Oostende. After getting out of the car to check in I was confronted by some bloke in a beanie hat asking me to take him and his girlfriend across the channel in my car as they were on a trekking holiday and didn't realise that this Ferry company don't take foot passengers. I'm sure if they caught me later in the day I might've taken them but at that time in the morning it didn't seem like a very good idea. To be fair the guy seemed like a bit of a twat anyway.

Day 15 - Utrecht

Much of day 15 was spent sleeping. We got back at 6am from a haloween party at the local irish pub via a couple of dodgy late clsoing boozeries in utrecht. One was the smoke filled place called the Carafon which was full of smoke and full of arseholes including this french moroccan guy who really deserved a slap and he nearly got one each from our entourage. The party was great, full marks to everyone who dressed up. There were some quite puzzling sights. There was an irish guy dressed as freddy kruger with a cricket box to make him look more manly and another one as a confused, puzzled and shy lion. I had some make up done to make me look like a zombie from this big breasted dutch girl in a corset with rather whiffy arm pits. We left there at 4or 5am to go to the Carafon and then left there an hour later to go to another place called bollokje. At least thats how it sounds! Nice chilled out place though. I had a small kebab and a coke. But I could barely keep my eyes open, being up for 24 hours was taking its toll. We got back in at 6 or 7am and I managed to sleep until 3pm. Then saw about an hour and a half of daylight before nipping to Albert Heijn to buy dutch food to take home. In the evening we went to a nice restaurant oppposite the irish pub and dined on fish. Very nice too.