I had been itching to do a Road Trip through the South Coast of France and Italy since 1999 or so. Call it a 7 year itch if you must ;-)
So when I found myself in UK in 2005, I started scheming to make it happen. After much deliberations and planning, the trip finally materialised during the Easter of 2007. In addition to my wife and son, I also got hold of a mate from my days in REC, Calicut.
As you can imagine, a trip involving 4 people, 4 countries, 11 days and 3500 miles of motoring was quite eventful, especially since one of the trippers happened to be a 5 year old "fast car fanatic", the second a 30+ year old boy who was car crazy, the third a TSM (Thirty-Plus Single Mallu) who was on the phone with mysterious damsels half the time and the last a hapless wife/mother/friend caught in between all that madness.
In the interest of brevity am sticking to the trip highlights.
Trip Summary
Duration - 11 days from the 5th of April '07 to the 15th of April '07
Distance covered - 3350+ miles (~ 5375 km)
Road Trippers - Prithvi (my 5 year old son), Sahina (my wife), Sujith (mate from REC)
Trip Steed - '98 BMW E36 323i
Countries Covered - England, France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland
Coolest moments
1. Using a Porsche 911 Turbo and a Corvette V8 as pace cars and doing 135mph average on the stretch between Dijon & Reims in France, on the last day of the trip. At one point I glanced at the speedometer and got psyched seeing 145mph (~230+ kmph). Eased off and decided that I wouldn’t cross 140mph. After about 10 minutes, the 911 eased off and I overtook him by maintaining my speed (~135mph). While passing the 911, I stole a glance to see who was driving and whether it was a left or a right hand drive. The guy got cheesed off with my cheeky move and zoomed past me. The ease and oomph with which he overtook at 135mph was like how I would overtake at say 80mph!!! The statement he made was "Don’t try to teach your father how to play" - a literal translation of the Malayalam saying "Appane kali padippikkan nokkaruthe"!!!!
2. Over steering and having the rear end step out at a hair pin bend on some Swiss hill on the border between Switzerland and France. That was the first time I had any car over steer like that on tarmac!!! At the first hair pin, had the rear tires squealing and then biting back in. the second hair pin i went harder and the rear snapped. Felt fantastic to balance the throttle and steering to get the rear back in.....
Hairy moments
1. Nearing the end of the petrol tank on Easter Sunday (8 April) and finding all petrol bunks closed in the French country side. With less than 2 litres left in the tank, managed to locate a pump in Castellane using the GPS, only to find that they didn’t accept Euro currency and UK credit/ debit cards. Then got friendly with a French biker and filled up using his French credit card and paid him cash!!! ( Right: a Scooty doing wheelies at the deserted parking lot at the petrol pump) 2. Following a car into a restricted zone in St Tropez without knowing it was a restricted zone. Realized it was a restricted zone when the bollard came up and banged the car from below.
3. While driving through the twisty hilly one ways in Monaco we got hopelessly lost trying to find the casino in Monte Carlo. At one junction, in a desperate attempt to take a U turn and egged on by navigators, I started to take a left turn. A 5 series behind me started to blast his horn as if all hell had broken loose. That psyched me, but still continued with the left turn. Suddenly there was a scooter right in front and I almost banged into her. That’s when I realised that I was turning into a one way street and that the 5 series was trying to warn me. A few hours earlier I had read in the lonely bible that Monaco has the highest density of cops (uniformed and plain clothed) and that if one was ever in doubt about this fact, to try and jump a red signal. Needless to say, the "near one way violation" left me pretty shaken and not stirred!!!!
Impressed by
1. The AutoStrada joining Nice with Genoa - It is one loooong stretch of tunnels and bridges across mountains and valleys. The road goes through 1km tunnel and then a 1km bridge and then a 1km tunnel and then a bridge and so on and so on forever!!!! Absolutely fantastic! And in Italy, when the speed limit says 120 people treat that as miles per hour instead of kilometres per hour!!! (
2. The 11km tunnel through Mont Bianco - It is one STRAIGHT tunnel through the mountain on the border between Italy & France. Mont Bianco, I hear, is the tallest mountain in this part of the world.
3. The cities of Siena, Perugia and Nice
Siena - In the main city vehicles other than cop cars and taxis are not allowed. The philosophy is that it’s for the people to live, not for cars to pollute. To add to the whole experience, we met an Old Italian dude, who used to run an Italian restaurant in Chelsea. He gave us the history of Siena and walked us through the best route possible into the square. Historically Siena and Florence have been at loggerheads with each other, trying to be the centre of renaissance. Fantastic!!! BTW, Siena hosts a horse race called Palio. (Now you know from where Fiat gets its inspiration, for its cars in India)
Perugia - This is a bit of an odd ball town. There is a section of the town which is in the underground ruins of an old fort. Windowless yet swanky shops on either sides of a dark underground passage. Jazz is very big in this part of the world. I walked into a Jazz CD shop. It had this narrow door and steep dark steps leading down into an underground "nothing". I asked the storeowner where it led and he said it led to an ancient wine cellar which used to be a Tuscan temple before it became a wine cellar!!!
Old town in Nice - This felt a bit like the Jew town in Fort Cochin with spice vendors and fresh antique sellers!!! The promenade in Nice was like the Marine drive in Mumbai except there were topless sun bathers here. Me and prithvi spent time on the beach while Sahina & Wadax unsuccessfully tried to break into a Matisse museum ;-) The Socca we had from Socca Nisso was fantastic (and cheap).
4. Idyllic isle of "Isola Polvese" in Lago Trasimeno with no roads and its olive gardens
“Coolest” Activity Driving through the tunnel and the swimming pool complex on the Monaco Grand Prix circuit. When Kimi and Alonso raced through the circuit the next month we could claim that we had been there before them this year ;-) Incidentally the tunnel smelt like a fish market.
In a Nutshell The French Riviera was cool. We got to see where the rich go to hang out and let it all hang out. Yacht mooring charges at St Tropez harbour is apparently in the region of Euro 90,000 a week during peak season!!! The average yacht is double the size of a 3 bed house. You can see more Ferraris in front of the Monte Carlo Casino in half an hour than you would see in London in a month!!
And Italy… Italy has a raw charm. People are cool (and the men are good looking according to me wifey), food is fantastic and the landscapes are amazing. Driving in Italy can be "interesting". Lonely Bible suggests touring Italy on a bike and having seen the roads there, it is a FANTASTIC suggestion. The day (Friday the 13th of April) we drove from Tuscany to Cogne (in the alps) through Turin, the change in landscape was dramatic. From rolling hills, floral fields and olive gardens in Tuscany to the farmed planes around Turin to the snow covered Alps and pine trees in Cogne. Italy also has good beaches and dramatic cliff side drives along the coast, volcanoes, history, Mafia infested towns, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Alfa Romeos, Maseratis and Valentino Rossi!!!
Italy has it all. A bit like India, in a lot of respects.... :-)
Pictures from the trip Given the number of days on the road and the number of cameras involved, there are over a thousand pictures from the trip... Click here to see some of the better snaps from the trip
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