A road trip through France & Italy with your grandmother and her two friends may not sound the best way to spend your Easter long weekend but it was some damned good fun with a few mishaps and a lot of laughs thrown in. With only 4 days to get from Marseille to Milan Google maps informed us that we’d have only a few hours driving each day but I guess this didn’t take into account the default GPS setting for ‘avoid all toll roads no matter the cost’ and it wasn’t until 3pm on the first day out of Marseille that we realised our 2 hour drive to Monte Carlo had already taken 5 hours and we weren’t even close to half way yet. Quick correction to the GPS and we magically diverted back to the main highway and cut our remaining drive from 4 hours to down to one.
Back to Marseille – well this was our first French stop outside Paris and while there was less arrogance on display it was still definitely French; dirty, smelling of old urine and overpriced, but somehow still classy. A short afternoon stop for ice cream in Cannes and I’m not really sure what all the fuss is about but to be fair it’s the off-season and crappy beach weather. We arrive into Monte Carlo a few hours later than anticipated – see above – and immediately I’m impressed by the overdone fakeness of the place. It looks like Disney grew up and built a fantasy city on the side of a mountain complete with castle, casino and formula one racing track.
After dinner we make an appearance at the grand casino but feel a little under-dressed for the location and lacking the balls to put any money down on the tables, more from fear of looking like an amateur than the worry of losing the €10 in my pocket. Next morning it’s raining and I inadvertently drive a few laps of the street circuit looking for an exit that doesn’t lead me back to where we started and actually gets us out of this maze.
Crossing the border into Italy we pull into the first stop we find and Peter & I obligingly sample our first Italian espresso only to conclude it tastes much like the espresso from everywhere else on the planet and so we continue onto Genoa. A brief stop at the port wander through the town centre to pay homage to Christopher and we head up into the hills for the night. Heading further north into the lake district the following morning we pass through tunnel after tunnel dug right through the mountains around us, putting Clem7 to utter shame. Australia really has a lot to learn when it comes to building holes in the ground and really shouldn’t be so proud about a 4km road underneath a river – check out this one instead!
Anyhow we spend the afternoon strolling along Lake Como keeping our eyes peeled for sightings of George and contemplating where to eat. The mood turns a little cloudy and stale for some unknown reason on the walk back from dinner but a few rounds of Snip, Snap, Snort & Whistle has us all in hysterics pretty quickly. Last morning of the road trip and Peter tries a novel solution to repair the wheel cover I smashed into the side of the footpath on the first day back in Marseille (it was my first five minutes driving on the wrong side of the road in a busy city – I think I’m allowed to have a little accident once in a while..) by melting the plastic over the gas stove and remolding it back into shape. We drive back down out of the mountains into Milan and drop the car back with no mention made of the slightly misshapen wheel. Back to London!!
